The Suicide Squad star Margot Robbie has responded to Lady Gaga taking over the role of Harley Quinn in the upcoming Joker 2. And she could not be more excited about it. In a conversation with MTV News, Robbie declared that she is “so happy” to see someone else take on the character of Harley, with the actress revealing that she has always hoped that the role would become like “Macbeth or Batman.”
Margot Robbie has now played Harley Quinn several times across multiple projects. Beginning with Suicide Squad in 2016, Robbie’s iteration of the character was one of the few things carried over for the 2021 reboot/sequel (requel?) The Suicide Squad. Robbie has even led her own outing with 2020’s Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), making the Academy Award-nominated actress the most synonymous with the character of Harley Quinn on the big screen.
“It makes me so happy, because I said from the very beginning that all I want is for Harley Quinn to be one of those characters, the way Macbeth or Batman, always gets passed from great actor to great actor. It’s kind of like someone gets to do their Batman, or someone gets to do their Macbeth. I feel like, in not so many cases, are they female characters — Queen Elizabeth I, but beyond that, which I got to have a crack out as well, which I was honored to do. I was like, ‘Wow! Cate Blanchett did Queen Elizabeth I. Now I get to.’ It’s such an honor to have built a foundation strong enough that Harley can now be one of those characters that other actors get to have a go at playing. And I think she’ll do something incredible with it.”
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Joker 2 Finds Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn Opposite Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker
Warner Bros. Pictures
A sequel to Joker, the 2019 movie following an alternate version of The Clown Prince of Crime separate from Robbie’s Harley Quinn, will introduce Lady Gaga as an alternate Harley alongside Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker. Of course, with these variants, multiverses, and unconnected franchises, this does not mean that Margot Robbie’s time as Harley Quinn is necessarily over. While there is currently no word whether she will return to the world of DC, she sounds more than happy enough just to have made Harley Quinn a sought-after role. Much like The Dark Knight and Joker before her.
Joker 2, titled Joker: Folie À Deux (roughly translated means a “delusion or mental illness shared by two people in close association”), will tell the tale of the relationship between Joker and Harley Quinn. Most intriguingly, it has been revealed that the movie will be a musical, with further rumors claiming that Joker: Folie À Deux will tell the story entirely from Harley Quinn’s perspective, with the musical sequences portraying how she views her romance with the Joker.
Directed by Joker filmmaker Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, and Jacob Lofland, Joker: Folie à Deux, and is scheduled to be released on October 4, 2024.
