Jared Leto Spent Time With Real Psychopaths to Prepare to Play The Joker in SUICIDE SQUAD
For a lot of people, the initial sting of finding out that Jared Leto was going to be playing The Joker in the DCU was swift and painful. I know, I felt it too. Then the Suicide Squad trailer hit and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. The one thing that I forgot was that Leto takes his job as an actor very seriously and no doubt he put as much time and effort into his role as the Joker as he would any other role.
To prove that point, Leto told EW the lengths that he went to preparing for this iconic role.
"There are a lot of things. It’s probably better to not get into it but to the Joker, violence is a symphony. This is someone who gets an extreme reward from the act of violence and manipulation. Those are the songs he sings and he is very in tune with what makes people tick. I did meet with people that were experts, doctors, psychiatrists that dealt with psychopaths and people who had committed horrendous crimes, and then I spent some time with those people themselves, people who have been institutionalized for great periods of time. I guess when you take on a role, any role, you become part detective, part writer, and for me that’s my favorite time of the entire process, the discovering, the uncovering, and the building of a character. Yeah, it’s really fun.
"It was challenging but it was also fun. He has a great sense of humor, depending on who you ask. [Laughs]"
Talk about going above and beyond to get ready for a film. Fortunately for us, I think this might have given him the perspective needed to play, in my opinion, the most evil, sinister, and sadistic bad guy in literary history.
I am thoroughly ecstatic for Suicide Squad to come out on August 5th. I know I shouldn’t overhype the movie in my mind, but it is too late to turn back now. I have a feeling it will be one of the best superhero movies of the year.