jared leto

Warner Bros. and DC are making a lot of choices lately, and one of those choices is having multiple movies featuring the Joker, but not all featuring the actor who first played the character canonically in their universe. Jared Leto is not being courted for the Martin Scorsese-produced Joker origin movie, a move that makes sense considering they’re probably going for someone younger (but which does not make sense considering… who in the world was asking for a Joker origin movie??). Leto is, understandably, “a little confused” about the whole thing, but he also gets it. Kinda.

During the MTV Video Music Awards, Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto took the stage to pay tribute to Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell.

Look, all things being equal, I really didn’t mind Jared Leto’s take on the Joker in Suicide Squad. Yes, the constant news items about what latest “crazy” thing he did to get in character were pretty annoying, and yes, the number of people who seem to think that Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship is something to emulate is downright disturbing, but Leto seemed like a perfect fit for the gloomy and angst-ridden universe that Warner Bros. has created for its DC Comics characters. At another studio, he’d be woefully out of place. In this one? He’s fine.

Jared Leto is the second name on the poster for Suicide Squad. The only actor to get billed above him is Will Smith. Leto is listed ahead of actors like Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, and Viola Davis, who, unlike the Joker, are all actual members of the Suicide Squad. Despite Leto’s billing, though, and despite the large amount of publicity surrounding his unusual version of the character (not to mention his unusual preparations to play the role, which included sending disgusting “gifts” to his colleagues), Leto has very little screentime in the final film. He’s featured mostly in flashbacks about Robbie’s Harley Quinn and her time before she was captured by Batman. When he finally appears in the contemporary story, he shows up to “rescue” Harley, fails, and crashes in a helicopter. Then he doesn’t show up again until the very last scenes of the movie, when he tries to break her out of prison.

Odds are you’ve probably rolled your eyes more than a few times after hearing Jared Leto’s approach to playing the Joker in the upcoming Suicide Squad. We’ve talked here before about the actor’s refusal to break character and his uncomfortable gifts to his costars; what we should also remember is that Leto’s Joker seems to be the perfect version of that character for Zack Snyder and David Ayer's vision of the DC universe. If Leto’s take on the Joker proves the quiet optimists like me right, DC Films would do well to give audiences a chance to see Ben Affleck’s Batman and Jared Leto’s Joker in action.

"I did a lot of things to create a dynamic, to create an element of surprise, of spontaneity and to really break down any kind of walls that may be there."

If you didn't tune into DC's big Dawn of the Justice League special tonight on The CW, then you missed the official debut of the new trailer for Suicide Squad. Lucky for you, the trailer has arrived online and the Worst Heroes Ever have assembled, joining forces to take down a threat much worse than all their villainous powers combined.

Jared Leto took to Twitter to reassure his 2.14 million fans that he had the situation well in hand. He did so by posting the following image:

Jared Leto dove deep into playing The Joker in 'Suicide Squad,' revealing it was such a painful experience that he equates to "giving birth out of my pr-ck hole."

Actors Jared Leto and Mark Ruffalo were able to go unnoticed at New York's Comic Con, walking the floor and mingling while disguised.

This past weekend at Comic-Con, fans attending the Batman vs. Superman panel were treated to an additional surprise: the entire cast of Suicide Squad appeared on stage (minus Jared Leto) and introduced our first ever look at footage from the upcoming supervillain film. Despite their pleas to not record any of the footage, someone of course did, and it leaked online shortly thereafter in a really crappy quality. Well, director David Ayer and Warner Bros. feel your pain and have decided to do the right thing and just release the whole trailer online.

Well that didn’t take long. Following David Ayer’s recent teaser image of the character and Jared Leto’s own candid Snapchat pic, the director has officially revealed the first legitimate photo of Leto in character as the Joker in Suicide Squad. He’s very pale, very tattooed and totally insane. And he’s nothing like any Joker you’ve ever seen before.