In Birds of Prey, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn kicks, stabs, and glitter bazooka guns her way through many sticky situations. In a world where CGI turned Beyoncé into a lion, it’s easy to think that Harley Quinn’s stunts were the work of the post-production team — or, at the very least, all done by a very experienced stunt performer. That’s not the case, apparently: Robbie did many of her own stunts for Birds of Prey, and there’s video evidence to prove it.
Harley Quinn is a former gymnast who eventually traded in her leotard for a psychologist's lab coat — and then traded that in for the colorful wardrobe of a comic book antiheroine. It was important that Robbie was able to embody the spritely fighting style of the Olympic-level athlete, even if she had to hand off certain stunts to the professionals — in this case, the team at 87 Eleven.
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"I'm a little less formidable than Harley Quinn, I'm sure," Robbie told Entertainment Tonight. "I love stunt work, so I really, really love it. It's just cool to work with an amazing stunt team like 87 Eleven. They're truly amazing, like, backflips, that's Renae Moneymaker. She's an incredible stunt performer. But yeah, they got me doing everything else really, other than critical acrobats, so it was fun!"
Celebrities saying they “mostly” do all their own stunts may be a classic Hollywood joke, but Robbie has the video that proves she’s telling the truth.
During a scene in a storage room, Quinn is held back by one attacker, kicks off another, flips over on the ground, and eventually overpowers them both with a baseball bat. It’s Robbie who performs this stunt, and it’s pretty wild to watch — so much so that the video has 359,000 likes and counting on Twitter.
WAIT????? MARGOT DID THIS STUNT HERSELF?????? pic.twitter.com/uwm2wn0y9E
— tris (@filmcupid) March 25, 2020
Robbie’s passion for stunt work was partially inspired by her brother Lachlan, Robbie told the outlet Joe. Lachlan was a stunt performer on Birds of Prey.
“To finally work alongside you was one of my high points. Being able to share the experience of your creation and be apart of it. Thank you,” Lachlan wrote in the caption of an Instagram photo featuring him and Robbie in her Harley Quinn costume. “Ps I’m sure you enjoyed the ability to spend 6 months beating me up guilt free.”
Fans certainly enjoyed watching her do it.