Hot on the heels of the hopeful rumor that recent Oscar-winner Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) might play The Joker in The Suicide Squad, Warner Bros. upcoming supervillain team-up movie, comes the news that Margot Robbie has indeed been cast as well, as The Joker’s paramour, Harley Quinn.
Introduced in “Batman: The Animated Series,” the character – formerly The Joker’s psychologist, now his doting sidekick – became a pop culture sensation due to her iconic design, lovably disturbed personality and undying affection for the world’s least lovable bad guy. Harley Quinn has starred in her own comics, appeared in popular video games, and also had a brief cameo in Season 2 of the hit TV series “Arrow,” voiced by Tara Strong (“My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”), who had voiced the character multiple times before.
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Suicide Squad would be the first live-action appearance of Harley Quinn (her “Arrow” cameo was just a voice and a silhouette), and it would stand to reason that Margot Robbie’s sultry and scene-stealing performance in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street probably played a part in earning her the role. She’s been on Hollywood’s radar ever since, also scoring the leading role of Jane Porter in the upcoming 2016 release, Tarzan.
Collider broke the news of Margot Robbie’s casting after she had already been rumored to be in the running for a previously undisclosed role. However, this weekend’s rumor that Warner Bros. was considering including The Joker in the Suicide Squad cast only fanned the already popular speculation that of all the female DC supervillains, Robbie was probably up of the part of Harley Quinn.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
