When Suicide Squad was first announced, there were a lot of questions people had regarding the movie. How would a big name like Will Smith work as Deadshot? Will they do the first live-action interpretation of Harley Quinn justice? And how does it fit into the scope of the DC Extended Universe? But the biggest question of all was how will Jared Leto be as the Joker?
Before Leto, the last Joker we saw on film was only 8 years ago, with the Oscar-winning performance of Heath Ledger. Those were some mighty big shoes to fill, and fans were skeptical that Leto was up to the task.
For those who followed production on The Dark Knight, or have read about it since, fans know that Ledger took his role as the Joker incredibly seriously. He took his method acting to the extreme, going as far as locking himself in a hotel room in England for a month and keeping a “Joker diary” of things he thought the Joker would find funny, such as cancer, for example.
Well, it seems like Leto took a page from Ledger’s book (or diary in this case), and took it to the next level to bring his Joker to life. He too chose method acting to get into the mind of DC’s greatest villain, going as far as sending his co-stars dead animals and used condoms as “gifts.”
With Suicide Squad set to be released this Tuesday, November 15th, and on Blu-ray next month, a new behind-the-scenes clip has been released that dives deeper into Leto’s method of playing the Joker. In the clip, Leto had this to say:
“This role has always been interpreted so beautifully, but then there’s the other side: What else can you uncover? What other parts of this story or this life, what can you do that hasn’t been done? That side of me that likes exploration, that likes adventure, that likes to push the envelope, that was set on fire immediately. I knew that I was going to have to dive really deep and go to a place that I’ve never gone before.”
Director Dave Ayer also had this to say in regards to Leto:
“So during the process of figuring out the Joker and helping Jared create that character, I kinda had to say goodbye to Jared. There was a point when he went away and was replaced slowly and surely by the Joker. It was a fascinating process to watch. There was this really nice guy, a good guy with a lot of depth to him, he’s a very thoughtful person…the Joker is not someone you’d say is a really good guy.”
Leto’s Joker was certainly a different take than we saw with Ledger, and I for one am excited to see him go toe to toe with Affleck’s Batman in a future film. What did you think of Leto’s performance? Let us know! Suicide Squad is available in Digital HD on November 15th and Blu-ray on December 13th.
