Jared Leto at the the 2017 LACMA Art + Film Gala.

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Jared Leto’s Method Acting in ‘Suicide Squad’ Worried David Ayer: ‘Where Is He?’

Jared Leto would concern David Ayer whenever he went on long walks off the ‘Suicide Squad’ set still in his character’s headspace.

by Antonio Stallings

Published on September 15, 2023

3 min read

Actor Jared Leto had a brief run as the Joker in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. But Ayer wondered if Leto perhaps went too far into his character’s psyche.

Jared Leto shot way more footage for Joker in ‘Suicide Squad’

Leto is known to take a deep dive into his film roles. So with the Joker, the actor went to some frightening places both for him and the director. So much so that Ayer would actually refer to Leto by his character name on set.

“I’d call him Mr. J. and I’d be very respectful. You have to create a safe-space for actors. I mean, they kind of have the hardest job on the set,” Ayer once told Rolling Stone.

Similarly to his character, Leto even had his own real-life henchman on set played by Jim Parrack.

“And to sort of cement that relationship, I told Jim, ‘Look, you’re gonna go work for Mr. J now. And he’s gonna ask you to do all sorts of things. So poor Jim was running around Toronto almost on a scavenger hunt, would also go for these long walks and really sort of live it away from set, away from the studio,” he said.

Ayer admitted that sometimes Leto’s method acting would worry him when he did this.

“But I know he’d be walking around at night and I was kind of like, worried: ‘Where is he?’ He’s literally walking the Earth, you know, and kind of meditating on this character,” he said.

Jared Leto shot way more footage for Joker in ‘Suicide Squad’

David Ayer’s Suicide Squad introduced audiences to Leto’s take on the Gotham super villain. The film’s director, David Ayer, hoped to offer a unique interpretation of the Joker that audiences hadn’t seen before. It was also believed by many that perhaps Joker was going to have more screen time in Suicide Squad than he ended up having. Ayer and Leto have been very open about how the Joker scenes in the film were cut due to studio interference.

“This was reshot because the tone was ‘too dark,’” Ayer once wrote on Twitter (via Games Radar). “My first act was a normally constructed film. I took my inspiration from [Christopher] Nolan. There were real scenes with incredible acting between Jared and [Harley Quinn actor] Margot [Robbie]. Joker was terrifying. Harley was complex.”

Leto also shared disappointment with the Joker scenes that were cut out of the film. He felt there was enough material for his character left on the cutting room floor for a full length Joker feature.

“I think that I brought so much to the table in every scene that it was probably more about filtering all of the insanity, because I wanted to give a lot of options, and I think there’s probably enough footage in this film for a Joker movie,” Leto once told Edith Bowman. “If I were to die tomorrow maybe the studio would roll something out.”

Jared Leto reportedly tried to stop Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker from happening

Leto allegedly wasn’t too keen on another version of the Joker appearing in cinemas alongside his version. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Leto was so upset with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker that he tried shutting down the feature.

The studio didn’t budge, however, which resulted in Phoenix’s Joker grossing a billion dollars at the box office.

Ayer’s Suicide Squad wouldn’t be the last audience would see of his Joker. Leto would later reprise the role in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The Oscar-winner shared it was a character he was thrilled to revisit.

“It was great. Working with Zack is a beautiful thing. I adore him,” Leto told GameRant. “I really loved the opportunity. It was really special, and I enjoyed it a lot. It’s a unique thing to have been part of DC and to now have been part of Marvel. It’s pretty amazing.”