WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Peacemaker Season 1, Episode 8, "It's Cow or Never," now streaming on HBO Max.
Following the success of James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, the writer/director created HBO Max's first DC Extended Universe streaming series, Peacemaker. In the John Cena-starring series, Gunn brought back several characters from The Suicide Squad. One of the biggest returning players -- and the eventual leader of the ARGUS team -- is Jennifer Holland's character, Emilia Harcourt. She and Steve Agee's John Economos stood up against Amanda Waller, and their punishment was working with Peacemaker to stop the Butterflies.
Harcourt is a complicated character -- to say the least. In Peacemaker Season 1, she starts off the season as a practical, deadly, and independent handler. However, as Peacemaker continues, ARGUS and the audiences realize there's so much more to Harcourt. In Peacemaker's Season 1 finale, and after she takes out countless aliens, ARGUS saves her life from the Butterflies. Following the explosive finale, CBR spoke with Holland about her badass portrayal of Harcourt in Peacemaker and where she hopes to take her character in Season 2.
CBR: What was it like to learn that your character, Harcourt, was not only coming back after The Suicide Squad, but was also going to play such a huge role in Peacemaker?
Jennifer Holland: It was a delight. I had no expectations whatsoever when we shot The Suicide Squad. I didn't think you'd ever see my character again. It was kind of a fun surprise for fans that James even gave my character a name in The Suicide Squad. Originally, the character in the script was called something like Comms Tech 2. I think that was her name, so he decided to give her a name. I think it was just because he thought it would be fun for fans to go, "Oh, hey, that's Emilia Harcourt." She's one of the characters from the comics. I had no expectations of it going any further after the movie.
I was just really excited to be a part of it. I got to work with Viola Davis, who's just a legend. She's incredible, and I got to work with my friend Steve Agee, and I got to work with just the most incredible crew. James puts together such incredible teams of people who work on these films, so it was amazing, so just to get to do that was a treasure for me, and then finding out that out of James's COVID anxiety came this incredible opportunity for my character to go on and just be a dream for me.
That's amazing, and I would like to talk about Steve a bit. You and Steve work side-by-side on The Suicide Squad, so what was it like to spend more time together on Peacemaker, and what was your favorite part about exploring these characters' dynamic together?
Steve Agee and I have been friends for a while because he's very good friends with James, and they've had a close friendship for, I don't even know how many years -- maybe 15 years or something like that. I've known Steve Agee as long as I've known James. I met him very early on in my relationship with James, about seven years ago or so, and he's just a great friend. He's really a down to Earth, wonderful person, so getting to work with him was really exciting. I was excited to work with him on The Suicide Squad. He's so much fun to work with.
He's also a great photographer. He's always got a camera in his hands, and he's always taking behind-the-scenes shots on sets, and he's goofing around a lot. If he's not on camera, you can almost guarantee that he's either filming you while you're messing up your lines or he's doing something to try to break you and make you laugh. He's a joy. He's just a joy to be around, so getting to work with him more on the show was like getting to hang out with a great friend. It was awesome. I love Agee.
As you mentioned, you've worked with Gunn before, especially on The Suicide Squad, so what about his style of directing and writing made you most excited to further explore your character and the world of Peacemaker in this TV series?
I think James writes incredible dialogue. His dialogue is really fun to perform, and his characters are often, especially the females, I find, pretty quick-witted. I was really blown away by the depth of the character that he wrote for me -- all of the nuances he created over the course of the series for Emilia Harcourt. It's just a dream. As an actor, you kind of just go along, hoping someday you'll get an opportunity like this. I am so grateful for it. James, his style of directing, is one where he's always incredibly prepared when he gets to set. He knows exactly what he wants. He knows exactly how he's going to shoot everything. He's just trying to fit the end result into what he created in his brain. At the end of that, he'll get exactly what he wanted, and then it allows him to play around because he's gotten exactly what he wanted, and then he can just try some new things.
I saw him direct other actors before I worked with him. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I hope it works out someday that we can work together because he's just so much fun." He tries a million different things. He throws things at you to try new things and gets the opportunity to have a director who's that involved and hands-on and really actively trying to make sure he gets the best story in the best performance on the day, I think it's awesome.
Going back to what you're talking about the depth we see with Emilia, she goes through such a huge amount of character growth this season. What were you most excited to explore when it came to Harcourt's journey from being a little bit closed off to where we see here at the end of Season 1?
I was really excited to explore everything. Getting to do all of the physicality that the role required was one of the things that I've been hoping my entire career that I would get to do because I'm very active. I'm very athletic. I grew up in competitive gymnastics, so I've always wanted to be able to meld that part of myself with my acting career, and getting to play the type of strong female character that does all of those physical things -- the fighting and everything -- was an absolute dream for me. Sarah Connor is probably one of my biggest inspirations as like a strong, badass female character. Whenever someone compliments my arms in the opening credits dance sequence, even though you can't see my arms through most of the series because I'm wearing a puffy jacket the entire series, I'm always like, "Yes! Thank goodness! Someone noticed!"
I was really excited to get to do all of the physicality that the role required, and I had a great time. It was incredibly physically demanding. You really get an idea of what these stunt actors put themselves through because they do so much more than what I had to do, and what I had to do was pretty grueling. It gives you even a different depth of appreciation for what all the stunt actors do and put their bodies through.
Beyond that, I was a little afraid when I was approaching the character. I was afraid that people wouldn't understand Harcourt. I was afraid they'd think she was just a bitch because I think I didn't give enough credit to society and how far we've come in being able to watch strong female characters on screen and being okay with it. I was a little afraid that people wouldn't understand the nuance of the character and would just think that she was really a cold-hearted bitch -- and that's not the way people see her. I'm so grateful for that because I didn't want to pull back. I wanted to make sure that she started as closed off and I wanted to make sure she had that full arc throughout the series.
I would love to touch on one of the biggest dynamics of the show, which is between Emilia and Peacemaker. What was it like exploring this complex relationship with Cena, especially as we see it develop throughout the entire season?
John is one of the greatest guys in the business. He gave 100 percent of himself to this show and to the role and was totally committed -- always incredibly prepared. He never complained about anything. If ever I could learn something from any person in this business, it's just how incredibly gracious and prepared and just the lack of of ego that John had while he was doing this show. He was such a great leader of the cast and set such a great tone. Getting to explore the character dynamics between our characters was so much fun. He's totally committed to who this guy is. It makes it 100 percent easier to do my job because he's totally prepared and totally committed to the character.
Wrapping this up, we talked about the physicality of your character. I would love to know what was your favorite action/fight scene that you got to do, and why, because there are so many badass moments with Harcourt.
It's such a hard thing to answer because I just love them all so much. I guess I'll say the Judomaster fight was probably my favorite because that sequence allowed my character to go through a pretty complex, emotional journey throughout that 62nd or 92nd fight sequence that we had. I don't know how long it was, but just the idea that she was taking out all of this emotion she had from having lost Murn and the feeling of everything closing in on them. In the possibility of them not being able to complete this mission, I think everything was coming down on her in that moment. She was feeling intense emotion about Murn, and then she's also the type of person who doesn't really allow that type of emotion. Dealing with it with this sort of intense rage that she was able to use during the fight that she had with Judomaster, I think it was just a different type of fight sequence that married this emotional journey along with it.
It was just incredibly well choreographed. That fight sequence was choreographed and directed by Wayne Dalglish, who was our stunt coordinator. He did an incredible job directing that sequence, and he really encouraged me to not hold back, and always helped me to get the aggression out. I had a COVID mask on my face for most of the time that we would rehearse all of these sequences, so once I took the mask off, I realized that sometimes I was even smiling, like I wasn't connected. I was just having a good time doing this stuff, and I wasn't connected as much to the emotional journey as I needed to be. I was having a little bit too much fun, so, I loved that fight sequence.
I just thought it was really great, and Nhut [Le], who is the actor who plays Judomaster, who was my scene partner, he's so lovely. He is the most wonderful human. He also makes, not that this has anything to do with the fight sequence, but he makes the most incredible pottery. He sent us a bunch of coffee mugs and bowls and little, mini bowls, and I have a bowl fetish, so I love little, mini bowls. He's just so lovely and wonderful, so I just had a great time with that sequence.
Watch Harcourt kick butt throughout Peacemaker Season 1, streaming now on HBO Max.