When James Gunn's The Suicide Squad hit theaters and HBO Max, audiences found themselves face to face with surprise after surprise in the form of unexpected heart from a movie that featured a talking shark man. But it appears that viewers weren't the only ones caught off-guard, and King Shark wasn't the only breakout character. Sure, he was arguably the cutest, but that's neither here nor there.
Gunn created the new HBO Max series Peacemaker essentially as a creative outlet to pass the time during the still-ongoing pandemic, and he only pitched it after The Suicide Squad was almost finished. So the return of John Cena's peace-loving vigilante was a surprise even to the star himself. But while Cena's unhinged wannabe hero turned out to be an unexpected protagonist, at least one other character got a similarly impressive upgrade between the inception of The Suicide Squad and the premiere of Peacemaker. That character is none other than Jennifer Holland's no-nonsense heavy hitter, Emilia Harcourt.
In a recent interview as part of Collider's "Ladies Night" series, Holland spoke about her experience playing the character through a movie and a series. This extended to how Harcourt evolved throughout the production of The Suicide Squad to the endearingly violent individual audiences have grown to love in Peacemaker. "She was just a comms hub tech who became sort of a more important character as [James Gunn] was writing The Suicide Squad," Holland said, "and at some point he was like, 'I'm gonna give her a name from the comics so that when the fans watch the credits they go, oh my gosh, that was Emilia Harcourt! And they have something to be excited about, and it's a little bit of an Easter egg.'"
It should come as little surprise that Harcourt is actually a character from DC Comics, even if most viewers aren't exactly familiar with her. Peacemaker is, after all, focused entirely on a vigilante most people don't really know about, just like most of the leads and side roles in The Suicide Squad. So it wouldn't be all that surprising to see other obscure deep cuts from DC lore step up into more prominent spots. (Everyone's still waiting on Condiment King to experience his much-awaited glow-up).
Holland's comments also explain why the Harcourt of the movie is a bit different from the version who shows up in Peacemaker. During the scripting process for The Suicide Squad, Holland's character wasn't meant to be the stone-cold punch machine she ended up being in the series. But even though Gunn changed her name, her characterization remained largely the same.
So that's the story of how Emilia Harcourt went from glorified background character to everybody's favorite bar brawl ender (and starter). Hopefully she happens to show up in other DC projects in the future, because a character like that deserves more. Maybe she could have a cameo in Black Adam. Come on, she could totally take The Rock.
Peacemaker airs new episodes Thursdays on HBO Max.
Source: Collider