Jamie Chung discusses playing Asian Harley Quinn on ‘Batman: Caped Crusader’

Jamie Chung switched it up for her entry into the DC Universe as the first Asian American Harley Quinn.

The star dropped by Entertainment Weekly‘s 2024 Comic-Con studio alongside Batman: Caped Crusader costars Hamish Linklater (Batman) and Minnie Driver (in an undisclosed role) on Saturday, where she chatted about the changes in the new iteration premiering Aug. 1 on Prime Video.

Per Chung, her Harley Quinn “doesn’t have an association” or an identity with the Joker. “She is her own person,” she said. “Twisted, twisted sick person.”

“What I loved about this character was we flipped this around,” Chung said of her Asian Harley Quinn (a.k.a. Dr. Harleen Quinzel). “She’s very welcoming, she’s very bubbly as a psychiatrist.”

It was “really fun to play with the range,” she continued. “I tried something different.”

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“We actually had to rerecord much of Harley Quinn’s parts because they saw something and found something and wanted to go more in that direction,” she added.

The project brought back fond memories from her youth. “Even watching the intro for the show it brought back so many memories from my childhood,” Chung said, adding that she loves how the creators “reimagined these characters” and “flipped the switch a little bit.”

She also revealed that she did “this terrible version” of original Harley voice actress Arleen Sorkin before she was told not to do that and to “try something else.”

Bruce Timm, who co-created the character and developed the story for television, previously told EW he “thought there might be something interesting about bringing her on the show . . . not as Joker’s girlfriend,” Timm said. “A big part was just doing a basic flip. The original Dr. Quinzel was a little bit more serious, and then when she became Harley, she got really goofy and weird. So we thought, what if we reverse that? When she’s Dr. Quinzel, she’s a little bit more whimsical and fun, and then when she’s Harley Quinn, she’s scary.”

The upcoming animated series about Bruce Wayne’s transformation into Batman also features voice contributions from Christina Ricci and Haley Joel Osment, among others.

Lady Gaga is also set to take on the role of Harley in Todd Phillips‘ upcoming Joker sequel Joker: Folie à Deux.

Watch more from the cast of Batman: Caped Crusader above.