Margot Robbie on why Joker scenes were cut from Suicide Squad

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

It’s no secret that a healthy amount of footage featuring Jared Leto‘s Joker was cut from SUICIDE SQUAD for . . . reasons. Ultimately those reasons belong to Warner Bros. and director David Ayer, but Harley Quinn herself, Margot Robbie, offered up her own opinion on why those scenes were cut. In speaking with Entertainment Weekly, she basically cuts to the heart of it and makes a good point on why they were taken out.

Margot Robbie on the cut Joker scenes:

They probably realized that the emotional through-line of the story had to be the mission that we were on, and explaining the Enchantress’ position and all that kind of stuff. And the [Harley and Joker] backstory stuff, though it’s magic and some of the stuff we shot was insane, they are flashbacks…so there’s a lot, but it just didn’t make sense to confuse the present story line to incorporate all that.

And there ya have it! As salty as people have been that this footage was not in the final cut of the movie, it also wasn’t pertinent to the story at hand. More interesting? Probably, but the finished film is kind of a mess, editorially speaking, so I’m not sure injecting MORE flashbacks would really help it out. Then again, I also wasn’t a huge fan of Jared Leto‘s Joker. I’d argue that decreasing his presence in the film might have helped, if only to give him a proper intro in another film. Just my two cents!