Suicide Squad is getting savaged by critics and comic-book fans alike, with some DC apologists going so far as to why-so-seriously demand that Rotten Tomatoes be scrubbed from the internet. On the bright side, at least Margot Robbie is really good as Harley Quinn? She has the support of the character’s creator, Paul Dini (he commented, “Every clip that I’ve seen of Margot as Harley, she seems to have nailed it perfectly”), and DC, who are reportedly giving the Cupid of Crime her own movie. Expect the Slipknot spinoff around the same time the band Slipknot wins Album of the Year at the Grammys.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Dini, as well as co-creator Bruce Timm and voice actress Arleen Sorkin, about Harley’s history. She debuted in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series as the Joker’s sidekick, a throwback reference to Adam West’s Batman, according to Dini. “They had the Riddler, Joker, Penguin with their own henchgirls,” he said. “I was friends with Sorkin, and I thought about a character kind of like her persona at the time, which was the snappy, wisecracking blonde. I was home sick and had the TV on, and there she was on Days of Our Lives playing a jester in a fantasy sequence.”
Sorkin (who’s married to Modern Family co-creator Christopher Lloyd) added, “Those were my top shelf, cute days, where I had everything like a cartoon character. I was young and full of life. The funny thing was, on Days of our Lives it was completely out of character for us to recreate a fairy tale character, but I said something to the showrunner and she made it happen.” And that how’s a soap opera star playing a character named Calliope Jones inspired everyone’s favorite “vexing” psychiatrist-turned-psychotic inmate.
Here’s the Days of Our Lives fantasy sequence.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
