A recently released Birds of Prey (And The Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) behind-the-scenes footage includes a interrogation scene between Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Ewan Mcgregor’s Black Mask and Chris Messina’s Victor Zsasz. The upcoming film in Warner Bros, DCEU takes Harley out of the Suicide Squad and away from Joker and teams her up with the girl gang of Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) and Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco).
Thanks to the films crazy trailers and colorful marketing, we have an idea what the tone of the film will be but we still aren’t clear on the plot. What we do know is crime boss Roman Sionis (aka Black Mask) places a hit on a young thief (Cain) after she stills a diamond from him. This leads Harley, Canary, Huntress and Montoya (who all have their own bones to pick with Black Mask) to come together and take him down to protect Cassandra. The trailers have featured a scene where Harley lists the reasons Black Mask is gunning for each of the birds. She explains the history between them and the villain but not exactly why he’s after Harley.
This recently released behind the scenes footage includes some extended looks at Harley and the Birds beating up Black Mask’s goons and also features a new scene where Harley is interrogated by Black Mask while Victor Zsasz threatens her with a knife. The scene doesn’t reveal much about what’s going on between Harley and Black Mask other than the stolen diamond, but it does confirm Harley will be in his clutches at some point during the film. Check out the behind-the-scenes footage below (Harley gets interrogated by Black Mask around the 2:00 mark).
The interrogation scene also offers up a look at the working relationship between Black Mask and Zsasz. Black Mask isn’t one to get his hands dirty. You can even see he’s even wearing gloves in the scene. While it’s Zsasz who gets up close and personal with Harley. Having two villains team up isn’t typical of their roles in the comics, but having Black Mask as the brains behind the operation while Victor Zsasz does the dirty work is on point. Trailers have shown that Roman does don the black mask in the film, but we still don’t know if Zasz will be covered in scars like he was in the comics or if they’ll still represent his victims.
While being the first live action appearance for most DC characters in the film, excluding Harley Quinn, Birds of Prey is also Warner Bros. first R-rated DC superhero film. The R-rating not only fits with the clearly more adult nature of Birds of Prey (Harley is seen inhaling a big cloud of cocaine, after all) but it also positions Harley herself as something of an answer to Marvel’s Deadpool films. In her more recent comic appearances, Harley has been shown to break the fourth wall and speak directly to her audience in a manner like Deadpool, and the voiceover from Harley heard in Birds of Prey trailers implies the movie does something similar. Audiences only have a few more weeks to wait before they find out for themselves. ‘Birds of Prey (And the Fabulous Emacipation of One Harley Quinn)’ hits theaters February 7, 2020!
