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Jared Leto On Picking Up The Joker Where César Romero, Jack Nicholson, And Heath Ledger Left Off

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 04:49 PST, Apr 14, 2016

Jared Leto will be portraying the iconic role of the Joker in the upcoming movie Suicide Squad. The Joker is one of the most famous characters in current popular culture and is considered as one of the greatest comic book villains ever created.

The character of the Joker is a difficult role to play and it has been played previously by César Romero, Jack Nicholson, and Heath Ledger. According to Altpress, perhaps the most famous portrayal of the Joker was that performed by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.

Jared Leto knew before filming that he had to live up to the expectations of his fans as his performance would be compared to those great artists who have stepped in to play the Joker before. According to Vanity Fair, Jared Leto was passionate about playing the role to perfection because the portrayal of the Joker in earlier movies has been both beautiful and impactful.

In fact, it was challenging and risky for Jared Leto to take on the responsibility of recreating the role in his own unique style. And Jared Leto has put his own tattooed, crazy-eyed spin on the Joker that fans will most likely love. Ultimately, Jared Leto wants to do justice to the role because he feels that any portrayals of recurring characters fail to have a profound impact on the audience if the directors or the actors portraying it fail to reinterpret the role.

And the Fight Club actor agrees that it is challenging to play the Joker because getting into the character of the calculating villain is a painful process which requires the actor to be both physically intense and psychologically tough. However, Jared Leto did not allow the work to affect his psyche and admits that he enjoys the role and had fun playing psychological games on the set.

In fact, the Daily Mail reported that Jared Leto posed as the “Bearded Joker” in sweatpants and a long purple coat on April Fools Day and posted his video on social media with an announcement that Batman is dead.

This is not the first time that Jared Leto has thrown himself wholeheartedly into a film role. In 2014, Jared Leto played the role of an HIV-positive transsexual woman in Dallas Buyer’s Club and he won the Academy Award in the best supporting actor category for his impeccable transformation and portrayal of the difficult role. Vulture reported that David Ayer, the Suicide Squad director, praised Jared as he spoke about the intensity with which the Requiem for a Dream actor has played the Joker.

“What he’s done is so powerful, so menacing, so palpable, you can feel him. The crew stops working and just watches him.”

The director was so fascinated by Jared Leto’s portrayal that the media compared the impressed director to the fictitious 15-year-old sophomore, Angela Chase; a character from the famous 1990’s American teen drama television series My So-Called Life. David Ayer’s admiration for Jared Leto is similar to Angela’s love towards her fellow student, Jordan Catalano; a good looking rebel with a learning disability. Incidentally, it was Jared Leto who played the role of the enigmatic Jordan Catalano.

In fact, Jared Leto acted so well that it is difficult to shrug off the image of the fictitious loner character who was perceived to be a bad boy but who sang, wrote songs, played guitar and preached philosophy. Two decades have passed since, but Jared Leto’s portrayal of bad boy Jordan Catalano remains a teenage character archetype which symbolizes a guitar-playing, carefree guy who never wanted to change.

[Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images]

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