Birds Of Prey: 5 Characters With The Most (& 5 With The Least) Screentime

Birds of Prey was the second live-action film appearance of Harley Quinn after 2016’s Suicide Squad, and it also featured the live-action film debut of popular DC characters Black Canary, Huntress, Renee Montoya, Cassandra Cain, and Black Mask.

The Birds of Prey also had a one-season television show in 2002, as well as episodes of Justice League Unlimited and Arrow. This article will look at the screentime of the characters in the film. As it happens, there are exactly ten featured speaking roles in the film, all of which are represented here. This doesn’t count the Joker’s two brief faceless cameos and characters with just a couple of lines. Also, Harley’s narration doesn’t count as being on-screen. However, a character doesn’t have to be on-screen for the screentime to count, as long as they are intercut in the scene.

10 Doc – 2:17

Dana Lee plays Doc, the owner of a Taiwanese restaurant. Doc rents out the apartment above the restaurant to Harley Quinn and is a friend to her. Other than a brief appearance in a wide-shot at the beginning of the film, Doc doesn’t appear until the 58-minute mark.

Doc is in a handful of scenes, interacting with Harley, Cassandra, and Huntress. He’s also the only character that Huntress successfully gives her name to on-screen, with everyone else cutting her off or calling her “The Crossbow Killer.”

9 Ellen Yee – 3:29

Ali Wong plays Ellen Yee, a Gotham Assistant District Attorney and former-girlfriend of Renee Montoya. Yee appears in three scenes and is mostly seen siding with the police captain against Montoya. The trio disagrees on how to handle Black Mask, and the tension between Yee and Montoya is heavier because of their past together.

Yee refers to Montoya’s drinking as a problem. This may reflect the comics where Montoya’s girlfriend, Daria, leaves her because of her alcoholism. There is also a character named Ellen Yindel in The Dark Knight Returns, who is anti-vigilante and becomes Commissioner after Jim Gordon. Yee also seems to be anti-vigilante in the film.

8 Patrick Erickson – 3:38

Patrick Erickson is played by Steven Williams. Erickson is a captain at the GCPD, and he often disapproves of Montoya. Erickson mostly appears in scenes with Montoya and Yee, though he does briefly appear at the end after taking credit for capturing Black Mask’s gang.

Erickson is also Montoya’s former partner, and the tension between them seems to stem from Montoya being a better detective than him. While not seen on screen, he presumably reports to Commissioner Gordon, who is seen running the GCPD in Justice League.

7 Helena Bertinelli/Huntress – 21:01

Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Helena Bertinelli, who goes by the name of Huntress as a vigilante. She appears the least of the Birds of Prey, at just over 21 minutes. The character is portrayed more mysteriously at first, appearing for a total of four and half minutes in the first hour and 18 minutes of the film. Conversely, she appears in 16 and a half minutes of the last 22 minutes of the film.

The character first debuted in the comics with her own miniseries in 1989. She has appeared in the shows Justice League Unlimited, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Arrow. A version named Helena Wayne (daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle) was one of the main characters in the 2002 Birds of Prey show.

6 Roman Sionis/Black Mask – 28:01

Black Mask made his live-action film debut in Birds of Prey, played by Ewan McGregor. As with the comics, Roman Sionis is a crime lord who enjoys torturing victims. Black Mask is the main villain of the film, appearing in almost half an hour of the story.

While the comics usually portray the character with his trademark “black mask” on at all times, some iterations actually having it burned onto his face, this version of the character only dons his mask for the third act. Oddly enough, Black Mask doesn’t have the most screen time for a villain in the movie.

5 Victor Zsasz – 28:16

Just barely edging out the screentime of Black Mask, Victor Zsasz is actually on-screen more than the main villain of the film, even if it’s by a small margin. This can be chalked up to how Zsasz is almost always by Black Mask’s side and is sent on many important missions by him.

Chris Messina plays the serial killer in the film. The character notably appeared in Batman Begins, played by Tim Booth, and was a recurring character played by Anthony Carrigan in Gotham. The film included Zsasz’s trademark of putting a cut somewhere on his body for every person he kills.

4 Renee Montoya – 28:30

Harley Quinn isn’t the only character in this film who was originally created for Batman: The Animated Series, as Renee Montoya was also an original character of the show. Unlike Harley, however, Montoya debuted in the comics before her first episode in the show could air.

Rosie Perez portrays the character in Montoya’s live-action film debut. While she is a member of the Birds of Prey, she begins the film as a detective tracking down another member, Huntress. An impressive single-take shot shows Montoya investigating the murders committed by Huntress, showing the flashbacks to when Huntress was there in the same shot, using sudden lighting changes throughout.

3 Dinah Lance/Black Canary – 38:19

It wouldn’t be Birds of Prey without Black Canary, a character who first appeared in DC Comics in 1947. When the team first debuted in the comics in 1996, it was a team-up of Black Canary and Oracle, with characters like Catwoman and Huntress joining in a short time later. Jurnee Smollett-Bell plays Dinah Lance in the film.

While the character doesn’t appear in the film until the 21-minute mark, she appears in a large amount of the story afterwards. In an epic moment in the third act, she uses her legendary Canary Cry, helping to clear the field of enemies and give Harley a path to chase Black Mask down.

2 Cassandra Cain – 43:07

Cassandra Cain premiered in the comics in 1999. For many years, the character wore the mantle of Batgirl, and she’s known as Orphan in the current comics. In the film, Ella Jay Basco portrays the character, who is very central to the story. After taking a diamond from Victor Zsasz, Black Mask sends every mercenary in Gotham after her. Harley is trying to track her down as well.

Being by Harley’s side throughout the film, Cassandra gets a lot of screentime, the second-most in the film. Harley considers Cassandra her protege by the end of the film. Whether this is a setup for her to be a vigilante in the future remains to be seen.

1 Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn – 1:08:17

No surprise here that Harley Quinn has the most screen time in Birds of Prey. After all, she is in the subtitle, The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. Harley is certainly the main character of the film, with a Gotham City Sirens movie being in the works before it became Birds of Prey. She also features in about two-thirds of the movie.

Margot Robbie reprised her role as Harley after Suicide Squad, and she’s set to be seen next in James Gunn’s sequel, The Suicide Squad. Robbie was also one of the main producers of the film and was integral in the film being a team movie with a female director.

About The Author