Film + TV

Jared Leto says his Joker portrayal was inspired by David Bowie

by Jeremy Mersereau

The Suicide Squad reviews are in, and they’re about as pretty as Killer Croc: Jared Leto’s performance as the Joker is “irritating and fundamentally ridiculous,” basically just a “glorified cameo,” and, my personal fave, “fucking insufferable”. Really, this guy, insufferable?

Still, at least he got the chance to show off his beloved green jacket. Note to all poker sharks: play Jared Leto.

During the decades-long marketing run-up to this masterpiece (naturally, laser-targeted at Hot Topic customers), stories abounded about Leto going full method, and getting into character sending his cast members ‘disturbing’ gifts and generally acting like an enormous cretin at every opportunity. Though the bulk of those were likely marketing exaggerations, mailing live rats to Margot Robbie sounds exactly like the kind of surface-level, perfunctory Method-ing you’d expect from the 30 Seconds to Mars dude.

Now, in a new interview with NME, Leto opens up about who and what inspired his bold, irritating interpretation of the Joker – and, in what I’m pretty sure qualifies as an act of blasphemy, if out outright slander, David Bowie’s name came up.

“We discussed [Bowie] a bit — not necessarily the music of David, but his class, his elegance, his timelessness,” said Leto. Yeah, “class”, “elegance”, and “timelessness” are definitely the three top Family Feud-style answers that come to mind when I think of Leto playing an evil clown in a huge critical flop.

Audiences that felt short-changed by the lack of Leto in Suicide Squad – and I’m sure there must be a few out there – might be glad to learn a ton of Joker scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, so the DVD extras for this classic ought to be off the chain.

“There were so many scenes that got cut from the movie, I couldn’t even start,” Leto told IGN. “There was so much that we shot that’s not in the film”. Apparently still not done Method-ing all over the place, Leto added that “if I die any time soon, it’s pretty likely that it’ll surface somewhere. That’s the good news about the death of an actor”. Oh yeah, this guy must get invites to dinner parties all over town.