Jared Leto Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

You know, there are two movies now

I have the answers and nobody else does.

Denis told me on Blade Runner,

because I look inside of Harrison Ford's mind,

I'm the only person that knows if he's the replicant or not,

so he said that I can decide.

So I have that secret now, and now with this movie,

I have the secret to Carrie as well.

[up-tempo drum beat]

The Thin Red Line.

Wow, it brings back memories just hearing that name.

I think about Terrence Malick, who is a genius

and he's a guy who made two movies

and disappeared for 20 years, which you just gotta respect.

You gotta respect anybody that's just like,

Eh, I'm gonna go off and pursue some other interests

and kind of just live life.

I mean, I took about six years off,

but I think 20 is, that's real.

I can't say I took six years off.

I was doing other things, I was on tour mostly.

But Terrence Malick is, he's made two of my favorite films,

well many more than two,

but two of the seminal films that he made,

one is called Badlands,

the other one's called Taste of Heaven,

both must-watch films for cinephiles and actors.

And actually I remember the audition for that

and it was maybe the worst audition I ever had.

They, I walked in the casting office

and they had a desk turned on its side

and we were supposed to kind of shoot imaginary bullets

at each other and pretend to be in a war,

which I guess makes sense if you're auditioning

for a war movie, but I just couldn't do it.

I don't know, I just couldn't get with the program,

and I stood up in the middle of the audition

and got sprayed by a thousand imaginary bullets

and I just stopped, and I said, I just can't.

I don't know, I just felt too embarrassed.

I was probably just too naive as an actor

to pull that off in that room.

Maybe I just wasn't good enough or something,

but I stopped in the middle of the audition,

which is unheard of, and I actually just, I tapped out.

I said, I can't do this, I'm not your guy.

And for some reason or another,

Terrence Malick called me up, and I think we had met

actually before that, just kind of on a general meeting,

and he wanted me to play this part in the movie.

We're all gonna tackle the platoon and reserve.

We gotta cross those three folds of ground, you see?

Once we get beyond there, we gotta take that hill.

And the part that he wanted me to play

was to be the first person to die,

and he said, Well if I cast you

and you die really early on,

then everyone watching the movie is gonna know

that no one's safe.

So that, I don't know if he was just kind of being nice

but that was, the role was important for him.

[grass rustling]

[guns shooting]

When I was on set, there were these little leaves

that if you touch them, these plants, they would close up

and I, and I can't remember if it was me

or another character, but I was right there,

we were right near the camera,

and as, I can't remember if it was my character

or someone else, was dying,

I just remember he saw one of those leaves near the frame

and he was like, Just reach out now and touch the leave.

And it closed as the character was dying.

And then he went and shot extreme macro closeups

of the plant or something.

I don't know if it's in the final film

but I just remember how aware he was

of his surroundings, of nature.

Fight Club.

I remember when there was this rumor going around

that they were making this really controversial book

into a movie and David Fincher was directing,

and there was a time there, I didn't realize

it was just a year after Thin Red Line,

but there was a time there

where there were these really special films,

kind of really edgy films that were challenging.

These auteur type directors

that were just doing some incredible work,

so it was one that I really wanted to be a part of

and I lobbied to be a part of,

and I remember bleaching my hair and my eyebrows white.

We did one pass and I think it was Brad Pitt was like,

said something about Billy Idol.

He was like, Blonder, so we went even whiter with it.

I really enjoyed being on that set

because I got to watch Brad, who's incredibly loose

and naturalistic, always does something a little different

take to take and that was interesting to see.

And everybody on it just kind of felt like we were

kind of getting into trouble and doing something

that was potentially special, but on the darker side

of the universe.

Yeah, working with Fincher was just a dream.

[Interviewer] Did you train a lot in fighting

and prepare your body for that role?

Or did you kind of go in and just learn those moves?

No, I don't think we rehearsed very much at all,

from my memory, and it was supposed to be

you're fighting like you would fight.

Not like a professional fighter, I should say,

like the character would fight.

[punches landing]

[crowd shouting]

[punches landing]

The only thing that wasn't real

is that we weren't actually hitting each other,

but you did get hit at times.

It was, it wasn't like it was perfectly choreographed.

It was all, it was real as, as real fake as you could get,

those fights were.

People are throwing each other all over the place,

but it was a good one, man.

It was really exciting.

It's under control, sir.

Where's Tyler?

Sir, the first rule of Project Mayhem

is you do not ask.

That, right, okay.

I had the prosthetics at the end,

something I had never done before.

I think it was the first time that I've worn prosthetics.

I remember getting super claustrophobic.

I fell asleep while they put this big life cast on me

made out of plaster.

I fell asleep, and then, for two minutes, and then woke up

and I was inside this thing and I didn't know where I was,

so I started ripping it off, running down the street

and had a full on just claustrophobic attack.

Yeah, I avoid those, they're called life casts,

and I avoid those to this day.

Requiem for a Dream.

Yeah, Requiem for a Dream is,

it's a big one for me personally

and made such a big impact on my life and my career.

It was just the 20th anniversary,

which is really hard to believe.

I was talking with Darren Aronofsky about it,

and we just were like,

Wait, did someone get the dates wrong?

This is just impossible.

But yeah, life changing experience.

I remember we knew that there was this young genius in town,

Darren Aronofsky.

He had made a movie called Pie

and there was a script floating around by Hubert Selby Jr

and Darren, and based on Hubert's book,

and it was just absolutely stunning script.

Brutal, just a brutal brutal read and heartbreaking,

but something very very special,

and I fought really hard to be a part of that film,

and Darren took a chance on me

and I'll always be so grateful for that.

But yeah, I remember going to New York

and living on the street and diving deep

and really getting close to some of the folks

that I met there that were living similar lives

to Harry Goldfarb.

Hey, what would happen if we went down and they had a cop?

Are you serious?

Why not?

What the [beep] are you saying?

We supposed to walk up to some mother[beep] room clerk

at some mother[beep] hotel and ask him for a connection?

Get with it.

You're telling me that you can't nose out

some dope when it's around?

Man, we got nothing to lose,

it's wide open and if we get there right away,

we can name our own price and we can sit back

and be cool and have those [beep] fools

scuffle the streets for us.

Jennifer Connolly, one of the greatest,

and Marlon, one of the funniest,

and Ellen, a legend.

It was just really special.

We all felt like, Okay, this is an opportunity to see

what we're made of, to push ourselves really hard.

And I did go through a really intense body transformation

for the role.

My thought was I wanted it, I wanted the character

to be in a place of constant starvation,

of craving, of desire, and food was a great way to do that.

I also just, from my own experience and education,

knew that it would be a good physical representation

of somebody that was living in that world at that time.

Really unique because I think Darren demanded

eight weeks of rehearsal or something,

which is never, you never do.

You're lucky if you rehearse at all on a movie,

and I think he was a little surprised when he thought,

he was encouraging us to all to go deep,

and then when I went deep,

I don't think he expected it to go that far

but it was a beautiful experience.

No.

No?

No, she won't.

She'll come.

No, she [sniffling and crying]

Yeah, I don't think there's,

there's no method in the world

that could make your arm go away.

But, I mean, I guess there is, but yeah,

I think there was a green,

there was a blue or green sleeve on it and,

or there was some kind of a trick, I can't remember,

but effective, I guess.

And it was just like that,

that there were days that were just full of tears and pain

and other days that were full of hope and dreams.

And Hubert Selby would always, I think he would say,

that the book was about the American dream

and how that can be a drug in and of itself.

A harrowing experience.

I remember almost every moment of that film.

It's funny how some things make such an impact on you.

Mr. Nobody.

Mr. Nobody is kind of my secret film.

Most people never even heard of it

but there was a movie I made right before that,

which maybe we should make a little special note of

called Chapter 27.

I played a guy named Mark David Chapman,

who had the distinct badge of taking John Lennon's life,

and I gained 67 pounds, and he was a character study

about this just disturbed and disturbing person,

and a very very big physical transformation.

When I look back at it, I kind of,

I wish maybe someone had stopped me and said,

Hey, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Maybe 20 pounds is good.

Maybe get some prosthetics.

But I went for it and it was fascinating how that,

gaining that 60 something pounds changed the way

that I walked, that changed the way that I talked,

changed the way even that I laughed.

Certainly I was unrecognizable.

I remember running into Darren Aronofsky at some Oscar party

and I still hadn't shed the weight from the film,

and I walked up to him at a party

and I was face-to-face with him,

and this is a guy who knows my face really well,

having directed it, but he didn't even recognize me.

He said, Can I help you?

And I said, It's me, it's Jared.

And then he just literally fell down on the floor.

He fell down, he slid down the wall onto the floor

with this face in his hands.

He could not believe that it was me,

it was quite a fun party trick.

But anyway, that's Chapter 27,

very very very very challenging, dark movie,

but was a big step, as far as the transformation

and transformative approach to things.

And Mr. Nobody, it's my European movie.

It was made by a really beautiful team of collaborators

in Belgium, but Jaco Van Dormael was the director,

and he's just a terrific talent.

Quite a beautiful experience,

a really beautiful group of people.

That's a film for the thinkers out there,

the philosophers, I think.

It's a heady one.

[Man] Can you tell me how old you are?

I am 34.

I was born February 9th, 1975.

[Man] Who are you?

[Mr Nobody] I'm Mr Nobody, a man who doesn't exist.

I played the oldest man in the world.

120 year old man or 120 something,

and yeah I play a dozen or so versions of the same person,

all on parallel tracks, diverging and crossing,

and when I played the old man, I really felt kind of at home

in a strange way.

It was a full prosthetics piece

that I thought they did a really great job.

It was a team out of Berlin.

Yeah, I really got into playing the old man,

that was quite funny, and he looked a lot

like my grandfather, so I guess they got it right.

It was many many many hours,

and I wouldn't be able to do that again

because I get pretty claustrophobic

and that was full head piece.

I mean, that goes on and you're in it.

You can't pull it off if you wanted to.

So it's, yeah, it makes my palms sweat

just thinking about it.

Dallas Buyers Club.

Well, it had been about five or six years

since I made a movie, I think, and then I got the script

and I was on tour with 30 Seconds to Mars at that point.

I really was so busy and things were going so well,

it was like, Why am I gonna get off this ride right now

to go make a film?

I wasn't in any hurry to make a film.

Not to sound ungrateful,

but my brother and I had worked for so many years.

I mean, we were signed as a band in 1998.

We were making demos and playing music

many many years before that, so we had just finally

started to get some traction.

I think we started playing arenas just a year

or two before that, all over the world,

and it was just like this impossible dream had come true.

So, firmly entrenched in that world and focusing on that,

and then the script comes along and I thought,

I just read it and I just knew

that it was something special.

I fell in love with the character and the opportunity

and the challenge and the ability

to kind of learn new things

and to go on a brand new adventure.

Relax, I don't buy it.

I guess you're handsome,

in a Texas hick white trash dumb kind of way.

Get the [beep] out of here, whatever you are,

before I kick you in the [beep] face.

Deadbeat asshole.

You wanna play cards?

For me, what I remember are the people that were involved.

I remember the time and the places.

I remember being in New Orleans for Dallas Buyers Club.

I remember the people that I met with that helped educate me

and guide me and advise me and teach me

and that support and that love,

I remember all of that as the most.

Of course there's a whole nother phase of that movie

when it came out and it was well-received and we won awards.

That's a whole nother kind of aspect,

but the making of film was, again, immersive, transformative

and Jean-Marc Vallee, just a really brave filmmaker,

and I knew Matthew was in a place

where he was doing just really incredible work,

so I felt happy just to be a small part of it, to be honest.

[coughing]

[Man] Okay, I'm taking you to the hospital.

No no no.

Rayon.

[Rayon] No.

Rayon, trust me, you need

No!

I don't wanna die.

You're not gonna die.

You're not gonna die, now just trust me.

Come on.

[Interviewer] Does it really help to experience

that weight loss and that kind of starvation

and that physical and mental toll

when you're playing those roles?

Yes, definitely.

I don't know how you do it another way,

but everyone has their own method.

I have mine, other people have theirs,

and they, to varying degrees, we all have our methodology,

and I kind of shy away from the term method actor

because it, I think, has taken on negative connotations.

I always think of it's, my approach to acting,

it's my job to do the best I can to help contribute

in a meaningful way and to help tell the story,

help bring a character to life,

to be a pleasure to work with,

to be kind and generous to my other actors.

All of that's part of the same bucket

and different people just have different approaches,

and I think it's up to everyone just to do

what they're comfortable doing

to contribute in a meaningful way.

I mean, people work so hard on movies, directors, writers.

20 years, that guy had the script for Dallas Buyers Club,

and the producers and the studio,

the people that invest the money, the crew.

When you show up, I always think,

Wow, this is, I better not let anybody down.

I do remember the process though.

I did lose so much weight.

People started treating me different,

which was good for the character and interesting,

and also surreal.

Even off the set, people, I guess I looked

like I was really ill or probably looked like I was dying,

and it was interesting to see

how people would deal with that.

So that was, that's something that you don't,

you can't really imagine.

You just have to experience it.

Suicide Squad.

Stepping into the Joker's shoes is,

it's an incredible opportunity.

I guess it's this generation's version of taking on

a infamous Shakespearian character.

Lots of people played the part before,

lots of people play it in the future,

so you really, it's an opportunity to kind of,

to do something new and to explore challenging territory,

and we had a lot of fun with it, but it's also interesting

how this stuff all takes on a life of its own.

But I never gave Margot Robbie a dead rat.

That's just, that's not true.

I actually gave her a lot of, I found this place in Toronto

that had great vegan cinnamon buns,

and that was a very common thing.

What do we have here?

I did everything you said.

I helped you.

You helped me?

By erasing my mind what few faded memories I had?

Oh, you left me in a black hole of rage and confusion.

Is that medicine you practice, Dr Quinzel?

What are you gonna do?

You gonna kill me, Mr J?

What?

I remember walking the streets of Toronto at night

and rehearsing my lines and going over things,

and there's a lot of pressure when you are a part

of those big movies.

Not even, just forget the character for a second,

when you're a part of these giant movies,

they inherently come with even maybe more responsibility,

it feels like.

Maybe it shouldn't, and that's maybe my fault

to not try to filter that out,

but I've done mostly smaller movies.

I mean, Dallas Buyers Club was a $4 million movie,

it's an experimental film in a lot of ways.

Same with Mr. Nobody, it was a small

independent European film.

So that was, I gotta step into a whole new world,

but it was a lot of fun and there was a,

just a mutual kind of respect and support on the set,

and just the feeling of comradery.

I stay a little bit separate

because I felt like my character was a little bit separate,

but I really, it was great to always hear

all the laughter and the comradery that was

in abundance on the set.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

All of that chit chat's gonna get you hurt.

Oh my God!

And the other thing I loved on that set

was a lot of times I play dark, I'm in darker films

and I played darker characters.

Certainly in Requiem, there wasn't a ton of laughter

on the set probably, but what was fun with the Joker

was he said such outlandish things all the time.

I can often hear the crew stifling laughter

or the camera which was on the shoulder would be shaking

'cause people would be laughing,

and that was really fun,

just to kind of entertain the troops and play with humor,

and that experience kind of, I think,

it's something that I carried with me

in some of the other stuff that I've done.

Blade Runner 2049.

Ridley Scott in Blade Runner, the original Blade Runner,

I mean, one of my top films for me, just a genius movie.

I fell in love with that movie on VHS as a kid

and watched it over and over,

and it just taught me a lot about cinema and acting

and set design and creativity.

I remember getting the call, Niander Wallace,

and I was like, Okay.

As soon as I saw that name on the script,

I thought, Wow, this is, where do we go from here?

This is amazing.

But I can't believe I got to be in Blade Runner.

I mean, for me, that's like, it just,

now I know I'm living in a simulation for sure.

Yeah, just incredible.

To preserve the clay is fascinating.

Before we even know what we are.

I had these contacts made that were opaque,

so I couldn't see, which was actually kind of great

because I didn't have to get confronted with the problem

of acting like I couldn't see, I actually couldn't see,

And I had a really wonderful teacher,

a guy named Chris, who was, who is blind

and an amazing coach, and we actually modeled my eyes

in the film after his eyes in real life.

And he was just a really special person,

he is just a really special person,

and there's a lot of him in that kind of,

in the physicality of that performance.

I have wanted to meet you for so very long.

You are a wonder to me, Mr. Deckard.

Working with Harrison Ford again, a dream.

Just, I couldn't see him, but that voice,

and I remember reaching out and I had to hold his hand

for a minute and that was great.

I know you know something.

Help me and very very good things can come to you.

You don't have children, do you?

Oh, I have millions.

I'll tell you a quick anecdote from that.

So we finished up the scene, long shoot day, very intense,

in this cavernous office, you could hear your voice

echoing off the walls.

And we did the scene bunch of times, bunch of times,

and it was my first day on set.

We're finished up and they kind of brought me,

shuffled me off to the side, the AD did,

and I was standing there alone

and someone comes up to me and wraps their arms around me

and gives me this huge hug, very emotional hug.

I'm not sure because I couldn't see,

but I felt like there may have been tears flowing

and it was Harrison Ford,

and it was a really special and beautiful moment.

And I think that he went somewhere really special

in that scene, and I was so happy to be there with him

as he was putting such great work on the screen.

The Little Things.

Well, good old Albert Sparma.

I'd be really happy if I saw someone dressed up

as Albert Sparma for Halloween,

that would be a fun one, right?

[Man 1] You must really like my car.

[Man 2] I do.

[Man 1] How's the trunk space?

Again, it was incredibly transformational.

It was a different eye color, different nose.

I had some other prosthetics.

I had different teeth.

There was a walk and there was a different way of speaking,

and I really just wanted to bring to life

a character that that people hadn't spent time with before,

and I felt like Albert Sparma,

from the name itself, you knew he was someone different.

He's an outsider, bit of a dark horse,

and I wanted to explore that territory

and just dove in deep.

[string music]

How's the trunk space?

I was so thrilled to be working with one of my heroes

in Denzel Washington, the master, the GOAT.

He is just terrific.

And Rami Malik was just a phenomenal partner in this.

I think the three of us felt

like there was an opportunity here

and we all just jumped in the ring with one another

and it was explosive.