Who Is "Harley Quinn" Villain Victor Zsasz and Why Is His Hair Like That?

The teaser for Harley Quinn’s spin-off has arrived and oh God what did they do to Chris Messina?

Next year, comic fans will see their wildest dreams come true: a Harley Quinn movie starring Margot Robbie and not starring Jared Leto. (Joaquin Phoenix will instead play the Joker in his own unrelated flick.)

Have a taste:

Cathy Yan’s Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is the movie’s name, and starring all your favourite people is its game. Alongside Robbie’s wild Harleen Quinzel will be Ewan McGregor as the villainous Black Mask, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary, Ella Jay Basco as Cassandra Cain and Rosie Perez as Detective Renee Montoya.

However, in the film’s just released 20-second teaser trailer, there’s one face that stands out in particular.

And here it is…

Buh? Is that really Chris Messina, AKA Danny Castellano from The Mindy Project?

Sure, Messina’s a talented character actor who has appeared in films and shows as diverse as Devil, Ruby Sparks and Sharp Objects. However, the famously dark-haired actor has never quite looked like this before.

We shouldn’t be so alarmed to see a platinum blonde Messina. In fact, he’s been turning up on red carpets with the jarring new hair colour for some time.

We need to talk about Chris Messina (‘s hair). pic.twitter.com/bAlKU5ChSX

— Lauren (@lfakier) January 7, 2019

Still, we were unprepared.

In the film, he’ll be playing Victor Zsasz, a supervillain from Batman lore who has been depicted in the TV show Gotham by Anthony Carrigan, a hairless actor with alopecia areata. Messina, by comparison, is very specifically not hairless.

Anyway, as far as Batman villains go, Zsasz is one of the most depraved, which is saying something. Driven mad by nihilism, he "liberates" people from their empty lives by murdering them, adding a tally mark to his body for each victim.

…. this is what they’re making our precious Danny Castellano do? Why not just have him dance all film long?

Weirdly, Zsasz usually has extremely cropped hair or is entirely bald, so expect to eventually see Messina shaved down in Birds of Prey. Something to look forward to!

Birds of Prey hits cinemas February 2020.

Header Image: Twitter (margotrobbie) & Warner Bros.