The year 2020 looks to be putting Nuyorican actress Rosie Perez center stage. Two years ago, it was announced Perez would star opposite Anne Hathaway and Ben Affleck in The Last Thing He Wanted for Netflix. And she’ll play queer Gotham City detective Renee Montoya, one of the “most prominent” LGBTQ characters written for the DC Universe in Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).
A rollicking trailer for the movie popped up in 2019, but Perez barely registered in that one and the newest trailer drop only gives us a bit more. The colorful world of leading lady Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) comes to life as she lays out how, after the Joker and her “broke up,” she discovered that numerous Gotham City villains wanted her dead. One of the main ones being the psychopathic Black Mask (Ewan McGregor). Renee Montoya is said to be building a case against Black Mask which, as appears to be the case in the trailer, has gotten her booted from the force. But not before she gets a chance to make a grand exit. Montoya, Quinn and a group of other women running from Black Mask are left to work together to survive.
Because her name is in the title it’s not surprising Robbie’s Quinn has all the lines in the trailer. Perez doesn’t utter one line of dialogue in the two-minute trailer and is generally just seen reacting, outside of the above-mentioned moment where she’s introduced. It draws commonalities to other trailers, like Terminator: Dark Fate, where, in spite of presumably focusing on Latino characters, they were not advertised in the marketing materials. We hope Montoya will have a prominent role in the finished product, but it’s not being advertised that way which is a shame.
Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) hits theaters on February 7, 2020.