Jared Leto is no stranger to method acting. The acting technique, which relies on an actor’s ability to draw a deep emotional connection with the character they’re portraying to bring lifelike realism to roles, has been seen in Leto’s roles in Chapter 27 (in which he gained 60 pounds for the part) and his Oscar Award-winning portrayal of an AIDS-infected transwoman in Dallas Buyer’s Club. So it should come to no surpise that for the forthcoming Suicide Squad film, in which he will play DC Comics supervillain, The Joker, that he will “go method” for the role.
Fellow Suicide Squad cast member Jai Courtney, who will play “Captain Boomerang” in the film, gave us a slither of insight about what we can expect from Leto’s performance as The Joker. “I don’t think any of us are naïve to the pressure he’s under,” Courtney said in an interview with MTV. The late Heath Leger, who notably portrayed The Joker in Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight (2008) film also notably took the method acting approach to the character, which many have speculated may have indirectly contributed to his death. When asked by interviewer Josh Horowitz if Leto has “gone method”, Courtney explained, “I don’t know how you measure that these days. I haven’t seen him, since we started working, out-of-character, let’s put it that way.”
In additon, on-set footage has surfaced of Leto driving a suped up, purple Infiniti G35, with Ben Affleck‘s Batman has surfaced, ending speculation as to whether the caped crusader would play a role in the forthcoming film, which you can see below.
Suicide Squad its theaters August 2016.
