OUT OF THE CAGE
MARGOT ROBBIE SITS bouncing on the tip of a very large, very long tongue, laughing hysterically. It’s protruding from a statue of a woman’s head on a Burbank sound stage, which today has been decked out to represent a frightening abandoned funhouse. Sitting on another tongue opposite Robbie, also bouncing, are director Cathy Yan and screenwriter Christina Hodson, trying (not entirely successfully) to have a serious meeting in-between takes. This trio have formed a gang over the past four years, spearheading the movie Robbie has dreamed about since first playing the scene-stealing Harley Quinn — psychiatrist-turned-crazed criminal — in 2016’s DC comic-book adaptation Suicide Squad . Robbie, Yan and Hodson are having so much fun, you forget that the action scene they’re attempting to figure out (it involves a fight that takes place inside an enormous slide) is one of the most complex in Birds Of Prey .
Wearing her producer hat, Robbie starts running through the choreography for the fight. It’s immediately clear that she runs this show. She’s a popular boss. On Fridays, she chooses a different fancy dress theme. Today is ‘Hawaii’, hence a crew dressed in Hawaiian shirts and leis. Last week was St Patrick’s themed. Her cast and crew cannot stop
