Jennifer Holland’s had an exciting and mighty unique journey in the DC realm thus far. Initially, she was going to play “Comms Tech 2” in The Suicide Squad. That role remained a supporting character but eventually was given a name linking her to the comics, Emilia Harcourt. Now? Harcourt is a main character in James Gunn’s Peacemaker series on HBO Max. Talk about an ideal evolution for a franchise character!
After contributing to the takeover during Project Starfish in The Suicide Squad, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) opted to punish Harcourt for double-crossing her by assigning Harcourt to a mission that requires her to work with John Cena’s Peacemaker. Now, not only must Harcourt complete yet another challenging mission, Project Butterfly, but she’s got to do so with someone she finds insufferable.
With Peacemaker in the midst of its eight-episode run on HBO Max, Holland joined us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night to discuss the series, and also to explain how her journey in the industry led her to it. Holland began by revealing what first sparked her interest in performing:
“I don’t even really know what it was that drew me to being an actor. I think that it probably happened over the course of a lot of things in my life. I think, number one, I couldn’t wait to get out of the life that I was in and I think it was the furthest thing from anything that anyone in my life did or my family did or anything like that. So I think I was drawn to something that would take me away to some degree. And in addition to that, I was a gymnast. I grew up being a competitive gymnast and I think there’s something about that that made me love performance. And I got a lot of the sort of artistic creativity, the feeling of instant gratification from performing, so I think probably gymnastics kind of lit the fire for me to want to be a performer to some degree.”
Holland’s worked on a number of projects over the years, a personal favorite being the unforgettable American Horror Story: Asylum episode “Unholy Night,” but there’s no denying that something extra special happens when you pair an actor oozing with talent with a writing/directing force as striking and one-of-a-kind as James Gunn. Before getting the chance to collaborate on The Suicide Squad, Holland had the opportunity to watch Gunn work on other sets during which she pinpointed a number of exciting qualities in Gunn’s approach to his work as an actor’s director.
“I think I found his appeal as a director when I would get to watch him work. Before I ever worked with him, I would sit on set of Guardians 2 or what have you, and just getting to watch the way he works, the way he tries different things, or he’ll get someone to do something over and over and over again because he’s really looking for something specific, or because he’s wanting to strip you down to a point where you’re just raw, and you’re just more real, and all of the things I think he does for people. And he has such a very specific idea of what he wants so it’s really easy to put yourself in his hands, so to speak, and trust him. And he’s just fun! He’s a fun guy to work with. He gets testy and he’s very, very particular about the things that he likes, but at his core, he’s just having a good time on set. And so he creates a really great atmosphere that feels like a safe place to try new things.”
As for Harcourt specifically, Holland found herself in a bit of a challenging position moving into Peacemaker. Not only was she going from supporting character to star, but Harcourt’s also a very different person working on Project Butterfly than she was in her Project Starfish days. Holland explained:
“I had a bit of a challenge trying to meld who Harcourt was in The Suicide Squad into who she was in the series because she’s a very different person than she was in Suicide Squad, I think because James wrote the character as Comms Tech 2, or something like that. She was just a comms hub tech who became sort of a more important character as he was writing The Suicide Squad, 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 was basically why he gave me the name Emilia Harcourt. So my character, when he was writing me in the movie, didn’t really have that much to do with Emilia Harcourt from the comics or anything that was going to be who she is in the series, so she’s a bit different in the film in that she is not as strong of a person as she is in the series.”
Eager to hear more from Holland on how she jump-started her career, what she took from experiences like working on American Horror Story, her initial reaction to that A+ Peacemaker opening credits scene, and more? Check out her episode of Collider Ladies Night at the top of this article or listen to the full 40-minute conversation uncut in podcast form below: