Birds of Prey Star Mary Elizabeth Winstead Explains Humorous Take on Huntress

Birds of Prey made its premiere last weekend and it definitely delivered a unique and fantabulous story of its own. While Harley Quinn and the rest of the gang were loved by the fans, a lot of people certainly liked Mary Elizabeth Winstead's portrayal of the Huntress. The character has had a very dark past and is basically a killing machine, but compared to the comics, the movie has quite a bit of a humorous take on the antiheroine.

In a recent interview with Collider, Winstead detailed her part and how her version came into fruition. "The screenwriter and [direcotor] Cathy [Yan] kinda narrowed down the backstory because there's a bunch of different iterations of Huntress and Helena," she said. They went with Helena Bertinelli's version which is the daughter of a mafia boss who witnessed her family get murdered. "So that's like an incredible backstory to come with from the beginning," Winstead added. "That's some intense childhood trauma that you never get over and it really just becomes her entire identity," and she carried out this "revenge plot" against those who have killed her loved ones.

"She meets all these women and kinda getting to look at the comics and see how her personality manifests in the banter there," she said when asked why there was a little humor to her character. "And also, you know… her anger, how that bubbles over."

"What we played within the movie was how that could be kinda funny and kinda odd," she continued, considering that Huntress wasn't socialized because she was raised to be an assassin away from everybody. "She wasn't raised to be somebody's friend. She doesn't really know what that is," she added. Winstead thought that it was fun to play the part, revealing that they did "a lot of improvs" to bring out her character's "endearing quirks underneath all that rage and pain."

What are your thoughts on Winstead's performance in Birds of Prey? Tell us in the comments below!

Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is now showing.

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