Harley Quinn, she of the bisexual-colored pigtails and zany antics, may be going on a brief hiatus. Or at least she likely won’t be played by Margot Robbie in the live-action DC films following this summer’s release of The Suicide Squad.
The Bombshell actress recently told Entertainment Weekly that she’s taking a breather from playing the Joker’s sometime paramour and rival but left the door open as to the character’s future.
“It was kind of back-to-back filming Birds... and filming [The Suicide Squad], so I was kind of like, oof, I need a break from Harley because she's exhausting,’” Robbie told the magazine last month. “I don't know when we're next going to see her. I'm just as intrigued as everyone else is.”
Fans will have at least one more chance to see Robbie as Harley very soon: The Suicide Squad, director James Gunn’s entry in the franchise re-do, is due in theaters and on HBO Max August 6. “For me, Harley Quinn belongs on the wall next to Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Spider-Man, Hulk,” Gunn told the New York Times in an interview this week.
The Harley of the DC Extended Universe — the term for the interconnected series of live-action films that began with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel reboot in 2013 — was briefly confirmed to be bisexual in the 2020 film Birds of Prey, which follows the villainess through the aftermath of her breakup with the Joker.
In an animated sequence near the start of the movie, Harley runs through a list of her exes as images of two men and one woman briefly flash across the screen, confirming that she’s had relationships with people of more than one gender. (Of course, the hair and her whole vibe was a dead giveaway all along.)
The DC comics have a longer history of portraying Harley Quinn as bisexual or sexually fluid, including on-again, off-again dalliances with fellow supervillain Poison Ivy since the friends-to-lovers first kissed in 2015.
Robbie herself has expressed support for a Harley Quinn same-sex romance in the live-action films. “I’m very keen to see a Harley-Poison Ivy relationship on screen,” she told Den of Geek in May of her efforts to bring the much-shipped union to the big screen. “It’d be so fun. So I’ll keep pestering them. Don’t worry.”
Of course, live-action adaptations aren’t the only place fans can turn to see Harley getting hers. In the just-wrapped second season of the animated series Harley Quinn, the trickster kisses Poison Ivy and the two sleep together, despite Ivy being engaged to Kite Man. (I won’t spoil how the season ends! Go watch it yourself to see how the rest of the drama unfolds.) But since falling in love with your best friend is canonically queer now (according to, um, science), Harley and her green-thumbed lady love are to be stanned at all costs, animated or otherwise.
Although Robbie’s future with Harley may be uncertain, Kaley Cuoco will continue to voice the beloved character in Harley Quinn the series, which has been renewed for a third season on HBO Max.
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