It’s a good time to be a DC Comic book fan.
After the overall blah-ness that was Batman v Superman, the franchise is bouncing back thanks to a certain group of super-villains scheduled to save the world (and make Warner Brothers a heck of a lot of money) when they crash into theaters next month.
The hype for David Ayers’ Suicide Squad movie couldn’t be more real. The film has an A-list cast, genuinely interesting anti-hero type characters and, America’s newest obsession, Margot Robbie. Sure the actress has had to deal with some skeevy press — that Vanity Fair profile still makes us cringe — but she’s also been getting plenty of love from fans worried the film just wouldn’t be able to do justice to one of the most iconic comic book villains of all time.
From the few trailers and photos we’ve seen, the Harley Quinn of Suicide Squad looks bada**. She’s tough, just a bit crazy and sporting that familiar red and blue color pattern, but the ripped up t-shirt and baseball bat wasn’t the original go-to look for the character, at least according to the film’s costume designer, Kate Hawley.
In Entertainment Weekly’s latest Comic-Con issue, Hawley shared with the magazine just how many looks Robbie tried before they finally decided on the outfit seen in the film’s trailer, including a certain jester suit comic book fans may be familiar with:
The jester suit has an amazing, powerful quality to it. We built that. We actually put it on Margot, and she looked amazing. There’s a moment where there’s homage to that very garment. What happens, though, and the way David works … the weight of things change. There’s beats that you think you can establish an arc within and then it changes again.
There were already rumors — some started by Robbie herself — that the recognizable outfit would come into play at some point in the film. Hawley’s comments certainly seem to suggest that. She also revealed there’s a scene in the upcoming film dedicated to the newly assembled squad fitting back into their “murder suits” which may be when we get a montage of Quinn’s outfit changes.
Some concept art, also found in the pages of the latest EW issue, shows the many iterations the character went through before settling on the film’s current version.
Hawley said she drew inspiration from past comic book looks and people like Courtney Love and Debbie Harry for Quinn’s final outfit.
Honestly, as long as she’s wielding a bat, some bizarre tattoos and beating up bad guys while acting all kinds of crazy, we’d be fine with whatever costume Harley Quinn wanted to wear.
(Via Comic Book Resources)
