Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) star Mary Elizabeth Winstead says that the movie is "genuinely funny and weird," and that it feels like a throwback to the '90s. Winstead plays Helena Bartinelli a.k.a. Huntress, a lethal assassin who makes up one third of the vigilante team Birds of Prey - along with Jurnee Smollett-Bell's Black Canary and Rosie Perez's Renee Montoya. Margot Robbie, who is reprising her role as Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad, has said that she isn't actually a member of the team. Knowing Harley, she's more likely to be a wild card.
Winstead first shot to fame playing Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and more recently starred in the critically-acclaimed thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane. She has an upcoming role in the sci-fi movie Gemini Man, in which Will Smith plays a hitman who is being hunted by a younger clone of himself, but next year she'll make her DC debut in Birds of Prey.
Speaking to The New York Times (via Cinema Blend), Winstead described Gemini Man and Birds of Prey as "wall-to-wall, back-to-back action movies," but said that she has a lot more to do in Birds of Prey than she does in Gemini Man:
"Birds of Prey was the next level up. In Gemini Man I’m a D.I.A. [Defense Intelligence Agency] agent who’s been hired to keep an eye on Will Smith, but in Birds of Prey I play this assassin who’s been trained since childhood. It’s all women and genuinely funny and weird. It feels from the ’90s, in the best way."
Birds of Prey is the second DC Extended Universe to have a female director, with Dead Pigs filmmaker Cathy Yan taking the helm as her first big-budget feature film. The movie was written by Christina Hodson, who also wrote the screenplay for the critically-acclaimed Transformers spinoff Bumblebee. So far the only thing we've seen from the movie is a brief teaser that showed the main cast of characters in costume - including Ella Jay Basco as young Cassandra Cain, and villains Black Mask (Ewan McGregor) and Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina).
With a little-known filmmaker behind the camera, we really don't know what to expect from Birds of Prey, but Winstead said in the interview that she had a lot of fun making it. The reference to the '90s suggests that it might have an old school girl power vibe reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the Spice Girls - which could actually make for an awesome addition to DC movie canon if done right.
Source: The New York Times (via Cinema Blend)
