Jared Leto’s Strange Joker World

Acting is a strange profession, calling for performers to do strange things at times. Some actors will go to great lengths to ensure their art is up to snuff. Some will go so far as to inhabit their characters off-camera as well as on, undertaking massive personal life changes just to convince audiences.

The idea of morphing professional and personal experience and emotion  — method acting — dates back to Constantin Stanislavski, a 20th century Russian actor and theater director. A part of the Stanislavski System of method acting was later popularized and tweaked by famous acting teacher Lee Strasberg, who taught it from the 1920s until his death in 1982.

While Stanislavski based his system more on imagination and psychology, it was Strasberg who encouraged generations of actors to use personal experience to inform a role. The system is often considered mentally dangerous, since actors will go the extra mile to create external circumstances that will help them create a personal well of emotion and experience to draw from when performing.

While the system of method acting doesn’t seem to be as popular as it once was, there are still performers pushing their personal boundaries in the name of art. Jared Leto stars as famed Batman villain The Joker in “Suicide Squad.” The movie isn’t out until August, but he’s already making headlines for his method acting. 

Leto reportedly stayed in character as the psychotic killer clown at all times during filming and went so far as to send special “gifts” to his co-workers that he thought The Joker might appreciate. These included a live rat and love letter written in character to Margot Robbie (who plays Joker paramour Harley Quinn), as well as a box of bullets to Will Smith. 

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Smith said in a Beats 1 radio interview, “I’ve never actually met Jared Leto. We worked together for six months and we’ve never exchanged a word outside of ‘action’ and ‘cut.’ We’ve never said ‘hello.’ We’ve never said ‘good day.’ I’ve only ever spoken to him as Deadshot and him as The Joker. I literally have not met him yet … He was all in on The Joker!”

“Suicide Squad” director David Ayer told USA Today that “people kept their distance” from Leto when he was in 24/7 Joker mode. “I love helping actors find what methodology works best for them. It’s like tailoring a suit — it’s not one size fits all. But it really made an event when he would show up on set. There was almost a pageantry to him, which did translate into the power on screen he has.”

Other actors have gone even further to capture a character and push the limits of their art form. For his role as a religious member of a military platoon in the WWII drama “Fury,” Shia Labeouf told Dazed magazine, “I joined the U.S. National Guard. I was baptized — accepted Christ in my heart — tattooed my surrender and became a chaplain’s assistant to Captain Yates for the 41st infantry. I spent a month living on a forward operating base. Then I linked up with my cast and went to Fort Irwin. I pulled my tooth out, knifed my face up, and spent days watching horses die. I didn’t bathe for four months.”

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While the behavior seems borderline crazy, actors are merely drawing from a long line of famous iconic figures that specifically drew from Strasberg’s original teachings. For his role in “Taxi Driver,” Robert De Niro actually got his cab driver’s license and would sometimes work twelve-hour shifts, choosing to take fares when there were breaks in shooting.

Daniel Day-Lewis has a long history with the approach. He chose to live on set while shooting “The Crucible,” avoiding electricity and running water. He wouldn’t wear a modern winter coat while filming “Gangs of New York,” which led to him catching pneumonia. That’s not even mentioning the fact that the man refused to break character while shooting “Lincoln.” Some reports even suggest that an actor was recast in “There Will Be Blood” because Lewis’s on- and off-camera intensity was too much for him.

Not every actor is a fan of staying in character or pushing yourself to inhabit a darker mindset. Sir Anthony Hopkins, most famous for playing Hannibal Lecter, told The Huffington Post about method acting: “I think that’s a lot of crap. I just don’t understand that. If actors want to do that, fine. If they want to be miserable, that’s up to them. I’m not interested. It’s a job. I do the job. I’m certainly not going to make my life miserable just to be a character.”