Margot Robbie Says Penguin Was the Original Birds of Prey Villain

August 22, 2025

In a new conversation, Margot Robbie told Colin Farrell that the Penguin was the original villain for Birds of Prey.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly in support of their new film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Robbie and Farrell realized during their time on set, they never discussed their tenures as Gotham City villains.

Robbie took the opportunity to surprise Farrell, however, saying, "The first draft that Christina [Hodson] wrote of Birds of Prey, the villain was the Penguin." According to the article, Farrell was visibly shocked by this information. Robbie then went on to add, "And then Matt Reeves said, 'Don't use the Penguin. I'm going to use him in [The Batman]. And so we swapped it to Black Mask."

Farrell asked Robbie if she still had a copy of the original script, and when she said she believed she did, Farrell asked for a copy to be sent over. "Oh, good, I'd love to [read it]. That'd be so fascinating."

As things stand right now, there is no news on when or if Robbie will again play Harley Quinn. Farrell is confirmed to appear in The Batman: Part II which is set to hit theaters on Oct. 1, 2027.

Birds of Prey

Colin Farrell, Margot Robbie

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ItzSilentStorm
August 22, 2025
Someone ask her why they did what they did to Cassandra Cain
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1. jrvc
  August 22, 2025
  for real, worst character interpretation in any cbm ever
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  1. ItzSilentStorm
    August 23, 2025
    The only evidence I have been able to find about what happened here is that it "might" have been some kind of studio meddling. One of the more realistic theories I saw is that it was supposed to be an original character but they were forced to change her name to something from the comics for marketing purposes.
    But the weirdest one I read was that some reason they might have thought the mute assassin thing was an asian stereotype of some sort, and so they changed the character to subvert that expectation or something...
    I think Margot is great, but when it came to this movie. sometimes I think she was maybe given a little bit too much power when she just wasn't quite ready for it. I know people here feel differently, but I don't think BoP is a bad movie really, just a bad adaptation. It feels like it lacked a strong vision for what it was actually trying to be and who it was really for. Like they weren't totally sure what to actually do with Harley, and just kind of hodgepodged something together
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    1. jrvc
      August 24, 2025
      I don't think we'll ever know for sure what the heck they thought about that character, but it is one of the biggest sins in cbm history for me. And the second reason you tell me about... I bet that could be the real one after seen how WB handles those things.
      And I kinda agree with you about BoP. I don't hate the movie, it is entertaining and the humor it's not over-the-top and the action scenes where actually good, especially the ones involving Harley (and you can notice Stahelki's hand there).
      But as you say, most characters were horribly adapted, all of them had at least one issue even if they had good characteristics. For example, Huntress was a tad psycho, whereas Zasz wasn't enough; Black Mask was not bad, but he behaved sometimes like Willie Scott in Temple of Doom, and so on so on.
      All in all, I think Ayer's planned Gotham City Sirens would've been a better vehicle for Margot's Harley, who I also think is great as the character and was the best of BoP
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2. devilman013
  August 22, 2025
  Because she didn’t want to be outshined by a much better character?
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da da da
August 22, 2025
Hope there's some REAL (The) Batman (Part II) news on the way.
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1. ItzSilentStorm
  August 22, 2025
  Probably around October or so when we will finally start hearing about casting.
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jrvc
August 22, 2025
that would've made more sense than going with Black Mask
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AnonymousHero
August 23, 2025
Totally makes sense because of the theme and I hated what they did with Black Mask. I like the character in comics and they botched it for me.
It would've been cool to see her Harley and Farrell's Penguin come together because of how good they both are. But now, there's no chance of Margot's Harley going to the Reeves' films or if Margot's Harley enters the DCU that Farrell's Penguin comes over. So it's nice that Colin can hopefully just read the old script and hopefully enjoy it for what it is.
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