Out Of The Cage

From the ashes of Suicide Squad has risen something fresh, bold and exciting: birds of prey. Inside the first-ever female-ensemble superhero film

- Eve Barlow

Margot Robbie sits bouncing on the tip of a very large, very long tongue, laughing hysterically. It’s protruding from a statue of a woman’s head on a Burbank sound stage, which today has been decked out to represent a frightening abandoned funhouse. Sitting on another tongue opposite Robbie, also bouncing, are director Cathy Yan and screenwriter Christina Hodson, trying (not entirely successfully) to have a serious meeting in between takes. This trio have formed a gang over the past four years, spearheading the movie Robbie has dreamed about since first playing the scene-stealing Harley Quinn — psychiatrist-turned crazed criminal — in 2016’s DC comic-book adaptation Suicide Squad. Robbie, Yan, and Hodson are having so much fun, you forget that the action scene they’re attempting to figure out (it involves a fight that takes place inside an enormous slide) is one of the most complex in Birds Of Prey.

Wearing her producer hat, Robbie starts running through the choreography for the fight. It’s immediately clear that she runs this show. She’s a popular boss. On Fridays, she chooses a different fancy dress theme. Today is ‘Hawaii’, hence a crew dressed in Hawaiian shirts and leis. Last week was St Patrick’s themed. Her cast and crew cannot stop effusing about her work ethic and intellect. Producer Bryan Unkeless even insists she’s the most impressive person he’s ever met. “I feel most fortunate about meeting Margot Robbie more than most any other person in my life,” he says. “Every day we’re worried about a hundred things, but we’re never worried about Margot.”