Landing a role in a superhero movie comes with more than just a nice paycheck and a
steady work opportunity.
Actors are now expected to get in superhuman shape for action roles, and Margot Robbie
as Harley Quinn is no exception.
Here's how she got into havoc-wreaking shape.
Of course Margot Robbie is fully dedicated to playing Harley Quinn now, but she originally
got the role without even having to convince anyone she wanted it.
The actress told MTV News that the team behind Suicide Squad approached her with the role,
offering her the part without even having to audition.
"I actually got offered this one, I didn't audition, which is a real step up as an actor
when you can get offered things."
As it turns out, the producers were captivated by Robbie's performance alongside Will Smith
in the 2015 movie Focus.
Smith was already locked in to play Deadshot, and Suicide Squad wanted to recreate that
connection when they cast their Harley Quinn.
"I guess they knew that Will and I worked well together, so that was a given.
We didn't have to do chemistry reads or anything like that."
The studio's gamble paid off, and while the overall reviews for Suicide Squad were less
than enthusiastic, the dynamic between Smith and Robbie was a consistent high point of
the film.
"You're my friend too."
"Stay evil, dollface."
Margot Robbie is already in pretty great shape, thanks to working out four or five times a
week for an hour each session, according to Hollywood personal trainer Andie Hecker.
To get in fighting shape for her comic book movie, however, she ramped that up to three
hours per day.
As part of a ballet-based fitness program that Hecker operates, Robbie worked out in
three-hour blocks nearly every day for three weeks while filming Suicide Squad.
Hecker told People magazine that the focus on Harley's body and her skimpy costume pushed
Robbie to work out that much harder.
According to Hecker,
"There's a scene in Suicide Squad where she changes clothes in front of a bunch of dudes,
so her abs needed to be impeccable.
And in those tiny shorts Harley wears, her butt was constantly on display."
The parts of Robbie's body that were onscreen for most of Suicide Squad became the focus
of her tailored workouts.
Hecker came up with an exercise routine that would transform Robbie from a glamorous starlet
into the tough and acrobatic Harley Quinn.
According to Hecker,
"[Margot] wanted to lean out and tone up.
She’s already slender, but we wanted to make her a little stronger.”
To achieve these goals, most of Robbie's workout regimen consisted of non-bulking cardio exercises
like ballet jumps.
As a former dancer who runs a ballet training program, Hecker told People that the jumps
ballet dancers perform are, quote, "surprisingly the most challenging form of cardio I have
ever come across."
But despite the relative difficulty of the exercises, Hecker said that Robbie rarely
ever faltered in her commitment to the routine.
Hecker compared Robbie to a machine when she spoke to the Los Angeles Times.
The actress' workouts apparently resembled dance marathons, where other clients of Hecker's
would steadily throw in the towel while Robbie kept at it, relentlessly.
Hecker shared that,
"Other people would try [the workout] along with us.
But she kept going when other people were dropping off.
It's so challenging to keep up that level of intensity, but she powered through it."
Hecker also ran the actress through a weightlifting regimen intended to tone her butt, thighs
and legs.
She spoke of Robbie's workout on a granular level in the lead-up to Suicide Squad's release,
telling publications the exact types of exercises Robbie went through while trying to embody
Harley Quinn.
She said that they went for a lower number of reps with more weight, a focus on form,
and engaging the correct muscle groups.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hecker explained,
"She had to look sexy and strong.
We'd do lower reps, so 20 leg lifts with that ankle weight on and then take a break to move
on to the other leg to do another 20, making sure her glutes were doing it and not her
hamstrings."
If that robotic intensity is making you feel like you'll never be able to attain a form
like Margot Robbie's, don't worry.
While Hecker painted a picture of the actress as an ultra-dedicated workhorse in the gym,
Robbie herself revealed that she is far from disciplined when it comes to her diet.
In an interview with Emirates Woman, Robbie admitted that she can't handle calorie-cutting
diets, and that cutting delicious and fatty foods from her life makes her "miserable."
"I'm not good at doing moderation.
I can't just have a salad every day and a half a glass of wine every second day.
I can't do it."
Robbie told the publication that her diet largely consisted of beer, fries and burgers,
which she burned off in the gym.
She added that she has a rather unhealthy way of cutting weight quickly, if a role calls
for it, saying,
"If I have to get in a bikini then I'll eat carrot sticks for three days.
I'm one extreme or the other."
Successfully pushing to get a standalone Harley Quinn movie made meant that Robbie had to
get back into Suicide Squad shape, in which she was able to perform most of her own stunts.
According to Suicide Squad co-producer Andy Horwitz,
"Margot does 97% of her own stunts in this movie.
She embraced everything we threw at her, she makes it her own and does it better than we
could've ever assumed it was going to be."
However, when it came to revisiting Harley for Birds of Prey, Robbie said many of the
stunts in the new film were actually too dangerous to take on.
"There's a lot of really cool stunts in the Birds Of Prey movie.
Quite a few of them, I couldn't do, because they were just too risky."
That's not to say that Robbie slacked off in comparison to her work for Suicide Squad,
though.
In addition to regular workouts, Robbie trained to roller skate ahead of Birds of Prey, after
already learning to ice skate for her role in I, Tonya.
Photos of Robbie training and shooting in roller skates circulated on comic book blogs
ahead of the movie's release, revealing that Prey will be based on a later version of Harley
Quinn modeled after roller derby players.
The roller-skating Harley Quinn comes from the New 52 reboot in the DC Universe, which
remodeled many characters with a hard refresh of 52 titles.
Even a newish character like Quinn was not immune from the mandate.
The most recent version of Quinn has been completely removed from the Joker, as she
finally split with the Clown Prince of Crime for good.
With her newfound independence, Quinn's motivations have also shifted.
Where before most of her actions could be explained as working for "Mr. J," the newly
single Quinn is considerably less villainous.
She's become a sort-of antiheroic vigilante, toeing the line between criminal and superhero
while attempting to hold her home of Coney Island together.
The new Quinn is in the mold of wisecracking weirdos with murky morals like Deadpool, and
screenwriter Christina Hodson even cited the "Merc with a Mouth" when she talked about
her early talks with Margot Robbie around the film.
Robbie's dedication to the character is bound to translate to the big screen once again,
as it did in Suicide Squad.
And considering that Birds of Prey's reviews are a big improvement over the reaction to
Suicide Squad, it's likely that we will be seeing Robbie as a ripped Harley Quinn for
years to come.
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