While the praise for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker is pretty stellar, things were basically the polar opposite for Jared Leto, whose Suicide Squad costar managed to throw shade at him in a recent interview.
Much has been said about how Leto felt betrayed and was left angry by the recent Joker film, and how it was essentially the film he wanted to make, but there’s little sympathy for him outside of his mind and, who knows, maybe his mum.
This mainly has a lot to do with the actor’s frankly weird performance, as well as his gratuitous “method acting”, that saw him sending costars used condoms, dead rats and even dropping a dead pig on the script-reading table.
Just not necessary, is it? When Phoenix is experimented with the Joker character, he improvised a genuinely haunting scene and climbed in a fridge; when Leto did it, you could have caught hepatitis.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that the Fight Club actor’s colleagues in Suicide Squad weren’t best impressed, and in a recent interview, Joel Kinnaman – who played Rick Flag – opened up about how he loved Phoenix’s performance, while pretty much refusing to acknowledge the existence of Leto.
Advertising Apple TV’s For All Mankind, the Swedish-born actor appeared on The Big Ticket with Marc Malkin, and was asked if he felt like Warner Bros, cheated on Jared Leto when they made Joker with Phoenix. He responded with “No. Who?”
Genuinely. He said “who?” He then went on the completely ignore the concept of Jared Leto and wax lyrical about Joaquin Phoenix, saying:
“Joaquin just crushed. I mean, wow. He’s incredible. He’s such an actor.
“It’s surprising to see something have that kind of performance that has a DC wraparound because it’s a real art film.
“I have a sister who’s a schizophrenic and I’ve drawn on some of her behavioral things in some of the things I’ve done earlier and I was really struck by how accurate his performance was. I think he’s really one of the best of all time.”
High praise but man, that’s pretty damning for an Oscar-winning actor for one of your costars to literally say “who?” when your name comes up.
Leto couldn’t have made many friends on that set, given how he behaved, but I didn’t actually hate his performance. It was weird, but I mainly blame the script and the director, since he was just doing what he was told to do.
He could have done with some eyebrows though, and that “damaged” tattoo was a disaster. I’ll fix him up…
Actually that’s no better.
