Margot Robbie on Harley Quinn's fate in Zack Snyder's Justice League epilogue: 'It's kind of like the comics'

After her solo outing in Birds of Prey, Margot Robbie's big screen version of Harley Quinn will once again find herself part of an ensemble crew in next month's The Suicide Squad. While writer-director James Gunn does have some early ideas for a sequel, Robbie isn't quite sure when we'll see her character again.

"It was kind of back-to-back filming Birds... and filming this, so I was kind of like, 'Oof, I need a break from Harley because she's exhausting,'" she told Entertainment Weekly. "I don't know when we're next going to see her. I'm just as intrigued as everyone else is."

DC burnout aside, there's also the fact that Harley apparently dies following the events of Zack Snyder's Justice League — something Robbie was unaware of until EW brought it to her attention. Zack Snyder has said that his four-hour cut is more of an Elseworlds story than hard DCEU canon and Robbie agrees, comparing Harley's offscreen fate to how comic books often play fast and loose with continuity (Warner Bros. plans to launch a multiverse, so there's no reason two opposing truths can't exist at once). 

"The film version of the DC universe, I actually think they're a lot like the comics," she said. "You pick up one comic and something's happening and then you pick up the next comic and maybe that character's not alive, maybe that character's not with that person, maybe that character looks completely different. Each movie is its own sort of thing, and I think that works in the comic book world, and I think that works in the DC film world as well. It's not like Marvel where everything is more obviously linked in a more linear way. It feels like there's so many adjacent stories, worlds, and films happening at the same time, just like there are in the comics."

The actress went on to discuss how Gunn put his own spin on Task Force X after taking over the franchise reins from director David Ayer. "What one director decides I don't think dictates what another director might be able to pick up and do with the world and the characters, which is fun," Robbie continued. "I think that's an appealing aspect for directors in the DC world, they can make it their own, the way James did. He didn't have to be beholden to the version that David Ayer set up. He could pick it up and make it his own, which I'm sure was more appealing for him."

Gunn himself has gone on record, stating that his interpretation of the titular team may contradict the 2016 movie in certain ways.

"It does not contradict the first movie. I don't think. It might in some small ways...I dont know," he admitted last fall. "Listen, David Ayer's gotten trouble for the movie. I know it didn't come out how David wanted it to come out. But he did one really, really great thing, and that is he picked fantastic actors to work with, and he dealt with these actors in building their characters in a really deep and fearless way. It's something David definitely deserves to be lauded for, and it definitely added to this movie."

"I thought the first 40 minutes of the [2016] film was f***ing great, and then there were conflicting visions and it just didn’t end up being what we all hoped it was," Joel Kinnaman, who plays Rick Flagg, said last month. "It didn’t feel like the movie that we hoped we were going to make, and this is something very different... It’s just a different universe. It’s a James Gunn universe. It’s a very hilarious and depraved place."

The Suicide Squad will open a Pandora's Box full of DC-inspired chaos when the film arrives in theaters and on HBO Max Friday, Aug. 6.