While David Ayer may have been fairly liberal in making changes to Harley Quinn's physical look in Suicide Squad, there's no denying that her personality, and more importantly, her voice, seem like they've come right off the page. In an interview with USA Today, actress Margot Robbie described how she perfected Harley's iconic voice.
Harley Quinn made her debut in 1992's Batman: The Animated Series, voiced by Arleen Sorkin, establishing the character's high-pitched, Brooklyn style accent. Robbie admitted to using Sorkin's performance as her starting point, but stopped short of keeping it in every scene. "She’s got a very high-pitched voice, which for the lighthearted stuff, the crazy stuff, works really well [in Suicide Squad], " she said. "But when it’s a pretty raw emotional scene, you lose the gravity when you’re speaking in such a high voice."
For the more grounded, dramatic scenes, Robbie looked to Lorraine Bracco, who played mob wife Karen Hill in Goodfellas. Robbie admitted to listening to Bracco's scenes from the film before heading onset. "[Bracco is] nuts in some scenes, completely crazy, but it’s never a high-pitched crazy doll voice," Robbie says. "It comes from a very real deep primal place. My spectrum goes from Lorraine Bracco to animated Harley, and it’s just a roller coaster between those two throughout the film."
Suicide Squad releases August 5, 2016.