"I was never interested in "Teen Beat" like roles. I just wanted to work."
We live in a society where honor is a distant memory. Isn't that right, troper?
Jared Joseph Leto (born December 26, 1971 in Bossier City, Louisiana) is an American musician and actor.
He is the frontman for the rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars, which he founded in 1998 with his brother Shannon. Starting his acting career on television in the 1990s and moving on to movies, he is recognized for his Method Acting. He has won several awards over the years, including a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award in 2013.
Selected filmography:
- My So-Called Life (1995) as Jordan Catalano
- How to Make an American Quilt (1995) as Beck
- Urban Legend (1998) as Paul Gardener
- The Thin Red Line (1998) as 2nd Lt. William Whyte
- Fight Club (1999) as Angel Face
- Girl, Interrupted (1999) as Tobias Jacobs
- American Psycho (2000) as Paul Allen
- Requiem for a Dream (2000) as Harry Goldfarb
- Panic Room (2002) as Junior
- Phone Booth (2002) as Bobby
- Alexander (2004) as Hephaestion
- Lord of War (2005) as Vitaly Orlov
- Lonely Hearts (2006) as Raymond Martinez Fernandez
- Mr. Nobody (2009) as Nemo Nobody
- Dallas Buyers Club (2013) as Rayon note
- DC Extended Universe as The Joker
- Suicide Squad (2016)
- Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
- Blade Runner as Niander Wallace Jr.
- 2036: Nexus Dawn (2017)
- Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
- The Little Things (2021) as Albert Sparma
- House of Gucci (2021) as Paolo Gucci
- WeCrashed (2022) as Adam Neumann
- Morbius (2022) as Michael Morbius
- Haunted Mansion (2023) as the Hatbox Ghost
- TRON: Ares (2025)
Tropes & Trivia about his works:
- Chronically Killed Actor: He tends to pick tragic or mean roles, so usually his character dies. Even a 30 Seconds to Mars video had Leto dying!
- Dyeing for Your Art: He got fat to the point of contracting gout for Chapter 27, lost weight and waxed all his body hair for Dallas Buyers Club, and got seriously ripped for Suicide Squad.
- Method Acting:
- He invoked it to a literally insane degree on the set of Suicide Squad, where he sent Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn) a live rat, Will Smith a box of bullets, and of course, he sent the cast a lovely package containing condoms and anal beads, as well as ordering Jim Parrack, who plays Joker's henchman Johnny Frost, to fill bags with nine-inch nails (as in actual nails, not the band). It went so far that the rest of the cast deliberately avoided him due to him harassing/annoying them so much. That said, he's pointed out after the fact that not all of this was true and that a lot of the "horror stories" were exaggerated out of proportion, even though he previously admitted to it. Margot Robbie did get a rat, though, but later gave it to Guillermo del Toro.
- He did it again during the filming of Morbius, walking with a limp or using crutches like the character, even off-camera.
- Older Than They Look: He was actually 44 when he was cast as the Joker and 51 at time of the release of Morbius- in which the title character was in his late thirties at most.
- Pretty Boy: Slender with notable facial features; most of his characters cash in on it. He might get cast as a 20-something year old despite being in his 50s.
