David Ayer Talks About Jared Leto's Joker Performance and Regrets The Face Tattoos
Jared Leto’s version of Joker in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad was not received well by a lot of fans. There were a lot of complaints about his look and there were complaints about Leto’s performance. In regards to the performance, a fan recently shared how Leto’s Joker was the biggest let down since Crystal Pepsi, to which Ayer responded:
“That’s what happens when you hack a performance and character arc to pieces. I’m sorry that’s all you were allowed to see. Now your mind is closed to the truth.”
Ayer has previously talked about his original cut of the film and how it’s so much better than the version that the studio butchered and released in theaters. One thing he said in the past was that the original version of the film was "ripped to pieces," and some of Jared Leto’s "terrifying" scenes as Joker were cut from the film.
When previously talking about the film, Ayer said: “My cut would be easy to complete. It would be incredibly cathartic for me. It’s exhausting getting your ass kicked for a film that got the Edward Scissorhands treatment. The film I made has never been seen.”
The original cut of the film included “a lot more Joker including a big fight with him in the subway.” It was also explained that the beginning of the film “wasn’t edited like a music video, as all of the flashbacks happened in chronological order.” One of the most important aspects of his original cut was that there was “a very different and clear tone to the Joker and Harley’s relationship, which actually fits better with the opening of Birds of Prey.”
Another fan then reached out and asked about Joker’s face tattoos, and it’s here that Ayer admits that he regrets that decision. He said: “It was Joker trolling Batman after getting his teeth punched in by him. It’s the one aesthetic choice I wish I hadn’t made. Caught a lot of smoke for it obviously.”
I would really love to see what Ayer’s original Suicide Squad movie would have been like, but that will unfortunately never happen.