James Gunn says Margot Robbie was like ‘a human Swiss army knife’ in impressive Suicide Squad stunt

Robbie performed a difficult stunt for Harley Quinn role in film

James Gunn has opened up about a stunt that Margot Robbie performed on the set of The Suicide Squad.

The next part of this article contains spoilers for The Suicide Squad

Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live , Gunn revealed that in one scene where Robbie’s character Harley Quinn is captured, the actor single-handedly performed a difficult escape stunt.

In the scene, Quinn, who is handcuffed to a ceiling, strangles her captor with her legs. Next, when the captor drops to the ground, Quinn uses her toes to get the key out of his pockets. She then uses her core to swing up to the chains that are holding her aloft, before twisting the key into the padlock with her toes.

“[Margot] is like a human Swiss Army knife,” Gunn said. “Watching this scene with her flipping backwards was just beyond incredible. I was so happy that it worked and I was mesmerised by it.”

Gunn said the dress Robbie had on for the scene ended up covering her face, “so it looks like it’s a stunt person”, adding that this wasn’t intentional.

He continued: “It’s my biggest regret in the whole movie… not going in with the scissors,” the director said of the dress sleeves that obscure Robbie’s face.

Robbie added: “I’m ambidextrous with my toes. I could braid someone’s hair with my toes, I reckon. I reckon I could play the piano or whatever.

“James was like ‘Don’t worry we’ll cut into this, don’t worry about it, And I was like, ‘No, I reckon I got it actually.’”

Gunn joked that Twitter users started to demand to see Robbie’s toes to make sure it was really her that carried out the stunt. He continued: “And I’m like that’s what you’re thinking about? We’ve got huge bombs, we’ve got buildings falling over, we’ve got Idris Elba, John Cena, Margot Robbie, all these great people… but those are the stars.”

Margot Robbie in The Suicide Squad (YouTube)

Reviewing the film, The Independent wrote: “When the words ‘directed by James Gunn’ first pop up on screen in The Suicide Squad, they’re accompanied by a rather curious visual: a tiny, daffodil-coloured bird pecking delicately at a human brain stem. Think of it as a statement of the artist’s intent.

“Gunn’s film is as sugary sweet as it is bloody, like an ice cream sundae drizzled with organs. It’s a far cry from – and an unbelievably vast improvement on – 2016’s Suicide Squad. Besides lacking the presence of a single human emotion, the previous outing possessed all the edge of one of those bile-green shots of Sourz Apple.”

The Suicide Squad is in cinemas now