Yes, another Jared Leto/Joker story. Much has already been written about the Oscar-winning Dallas Buyers Club actor and his new iteration of The Joker coming to screens in writer/director David Ayer’s villain-centric DC Comics adaptation Suicide Squad later this year. Of course this was inevitable with a character as iconic as The Joker, and coming off a portrayal as singular as Heath Ledger’s turn. But Leto’s iteration of the character has also gained traction for his unique—and sometimes off-color—process. Leto is a method actor by trade, and going into Suicide Squad he operated much the same way he does on his other films, although this time he was stepping into the skin of a homicidal psychopath.

We’ve heard stories about Leto sending his castmates weird gifts and not breaking character on set, but we haven’t heard a ton from Leto himself. With Batman v Superman behind us, however, that’s about to change, and during a recent interview with EW, Leto spoke pretty candidly about his iteration of The Joker and his process to bring him to life. To begin, Leto and Ayer acknowledged that in order to step out of the shadow of past portrayals, they had to find a wholly new approach:

“We knew we had to strike new ground. There had been such great work that we knew we had to go in a different direction. So you had a kind of direction from the very beginning, knowing that you can’t go that way, so you have to head this way. That was really helpful. But the Joker is fantastic because there are no rules. The Joker operates from instinct.”

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Image via Warner Bros.

Ayer let Leto go off and experiment and explore and then come back to continue their collaboration, but to begin with Leto likened the character to someone who doesn’t exist in a normal reality:

“He became a real person. I don’t know if person is the right word. I think the Joker lives in between reality and another plane. Kind of a shaman in a way. It’s a very intoxicating role to take on. You have permission to break rules and to challenge yourself and anyone around you in a really unique way.”

In terms of research, Leto dove deep into the comics but then, after a time, opted to move beyond the source material:

“I first started at the beginning, educating myself, researching, reading as much as I could, going back to the source material. And then at a certain point, I knew I had to stop doing that. Because the Joker has been redefined, reinvented many times before. I think the fun thing about it is when people have done it in the past, there is some spirit of the Joker essence that they keep, but they either build upon something or tear something down and start again at the beginning. For me, I knew once I had gone through the process of educating myself, I had to throw everything away and start from the beginning and really build this from the ground up. It was a transformative process. There was a physical transformation. There was a physical conditioning.”

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Image via Warner Bros.

When asked for specifics about his outside research, Leto revealed that he sought out real-life inspiration for the character:

“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.”

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Image via Warner Bros.

When it came time for cameras to finally start rolling, Leto explained that his decision to go method was all in service of putting his best foot forward:

“I had to be committed beyond belief. And I did what I needed to do to deliver the best I possibly could. There was a lot on the line and I want to do justice for all the work that has been done before. It’s not a part-time job. It’s immersive. It takes over your life and that’s what I needed to do for myself. Other people can show up and are genius but I did what I needed to do to deliver. And we had a good time with it. I think it was exactly what was needed for me, at least.”

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Image via Warner Bros.

Leto remained in character the entire time he was on set, which means he didn’t take part in some of the extensive rehearsals Ayer staged for the principal cast members. But the actor ensured that the Joker’s presence was felt, taping a video of himself in character and having his “henchman” drop a pig carcass onto the table as the other cast members were watching:

“I think in the beginning it was important to set up and define our relationship, so to speak. [laughs] There were a lot of things. It was fun. You’ve got to remember doing these things isn’t just about the result, it’s the process. It’s working with Mr. Frost, who is the Joker’s henchman. It’s making the choice and the decision of how am I going to introduce the Joker to the very first people who will meet him. So it becomes an exercise as much for me as it is for anyone else. And it’s as much about the process as it is about the results. How do you go about these sorts of things? How do you work with the people around you? It was a lot of fun. The attention to detail and the process that we went through helped to bring a life to the character for me. Those actions and those gestures—the Joker loves a grand gesture. Those were really important. And they were fun. The Joker is someone who doesn’t take things too seriously.”

So yeah, Leto went above and beyond to bring this new iteration of The Joker to life, and judging by what we’ve seen thus far in the trailers, it’s a portrayal unlike any we’ve seen before. I don’t know about you, but I’m mighty eager to see how this performance fits within the context of the film. It’s one thing to judge promotional photos or brief flashes of footage, but we won’t truly get a handle on what Leto’s going for until we see the full film. Luckily, the movie’s August 5th release date is looming closer. For more on Suicide Squad, peruse our recent stories below:

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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Warner Bros.

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