‘Suicide Squad’ Star Will Smith Talks Jared Leto’s ‘Intense’ Transformation Into The Joker

One element many fans are looking forward to in the upcoming Suicide Squad film is Jared Leto’s take on The Joker. Leto, who once lost 30 pounds for his role in Dallas Buyers Club, is well known for his ability to transform both his personality and body in order to get into character. In addition to his transformations, he also tends to remain in character throughout the filming process, even when the cameras are not rolling.

In fact, Will Smith, who is set to play Deadshot in the movie, recently sat down for a radio interview with Complex, where he revealed that he still doesn’t know what Leto is like outside of his role as The Joker.

“[Suicide Squad] is insane… I’ve never actually met Jared Leto. We worked together for six months and we’ve never exchanged a word outside of ‘Action!’ and ‘Cut!’ I literally have not met him yet. So, the first time I see him will be ‘Hey, Jared. What’s up?’ He was all in on the Joker.”

Speaking of being all in with his Suicide Squad character, Leto took that to a new level when he sent gifts to his fellow cast members prior to filming. According to Adam Beach, who will be playing Slipknot in the movie, Leto’s gifts were anything but ordinary and well suited for a character like The Joker.

“He sent [Margot Robbie] a nice love letter with a black box with a rat in it — a live rat,” Beach stated. “It was beautiful. Then he sent bullets to Will [Smith] with a letter.”

In addition to the strange and Joker-inspired gifts, Leto also sent a somewhat disturbing video to the cast, in which he appeared in full character. In said video, Leto let his fellow cast mates know that even though he could not be with them at the start of filming, he was working hard with fine-tuning his character.

“Basically, what he said was, ‘Guys, I can’t be there but I want you to know I’m doing my work as hard as you guys… The video he showed is in character,” Beach revealed in the interview. “It blew our minds away. Then we realized that day, this is real.”

Based on what has been revealed so far in the trailers, one can get a sense of just how Leto’s rendition of the famous villain will be unique and different than what we’ve seen in recent years. With that said, Leto’s version of The Joker was inspired, at least in part, by the help of the famous comic book writer, Grant Morrison.

In fact, according to Comic Book Movie, Morrison shared some advice to Leto about how she should approach playing such an iconic villain as The Joker. In that interaction, Morrison revealed that he told Leto to be different and not play the character in the typical manner.

“He [Leto] called me to talk about his approach to the character and I steered him in a few directions,” Morrison stated. “I’m keen to see if anything other than slicked back hair and the Marilyn Manson vibe made it into his performance.”

Clearly, Leto took Morrison’s advice, as his character is far from any sort of Marilyn Manson vibe. Hopefully, we’ll get to see more of Leto’s character in the coming trailers as producers build up for the release.

Suicide Squad is set to hit theaters everywhere on August 5, 2016. The film stars Jared Leto (The Joker), Will Smith (Deadshot), Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), Joel Kinnaman (Rick Flagg), Viola Davis (Amanda Waller), Jai Courtney (Captain Boomerang), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agabje (Killer Croc), and Cara Delevingne (Enchantress).

[Lead Image Courtesy: Kevin Winter / Getty Images]