In a world where even highly-skilled actors crash and burn before the public’s eyes, one man has defied the odds by being exceptionally mediocre. You may know him as the Joker, Paul Allen, or even the mighty Morbin’ living vampire, Dr. Michael Morbius. That’s right, we’re talking about everyone’s favorite (alleged) cult leader, Jared Leto, and how he manages to keep landing major acting roles.
First off, it’s hard to understand how this man who has more Razzie nominations in his career than Emmy and Golden Globe nominations combined keeps getting big parts. However, it might be possible to figure out this mystery by digging deep into the past of Mr. Leto. Many people remember him as the lead singer in the band Thirty Seconds To Mars, yet that wasn’t his first time in the public eye.
Humble Beginnings
Back in the early to mid-90s, Leto added multiple acting credits to his resume on TV (My So-Called Life) and the big screen (How to Make an American Quilt). Still, it wasn’t until the late 90s and early aughts that he finally started amassing a following when he hit it big in the music scene and landed some significant roles in major cult hits like Fight Club, American Psycho, and Requiem for a Dream.
During this time, he became a household name thanks to his music and ability to lose himself in a role. The latter of which is only currently rivaled by some of the greatest actors of our time, like Christian Bale and Joaquin Phoenix.
The one commonality between those three different roles was that the characters he played looked nothing like each other. There’s no doubt Leto is a highly adaptable actor who can slide into a variety of roles. Yet, he has never truly been seen as one of the most famous stars in Hollywood. A big part of that is his alleged method acting antics during the production of Suicide Squad.
Suicide Squad Situation
Before the release of Suicide Squad, it came out that Leto sent many gross gifts to his castmates to help him get into the Joker character. Leto and his castmates fueled the fire of this story by suggesting he gifted them dead pigs, used condoms, anal beads, and more unspeakable items.
Leto has since walked back many of these comments, saying that the gifts never went beyond a live mouse he sent to Margot Robbie and that there were definitely never any used condoms sent to castmates. Later on, he talked about his methods in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, “I’m an artist at the end of the day. If I do something risky and you don’t like it, basically, you can kiss my ass.”
Admittedly, Leto has a point about his artistic process. If it works for him, it’s not illegal, and nobody gets hurt, then we really have no grounds on which to question his methods. Still, it sounds a bit childish to tell people off like that. Leto is essentially blaming everyone for not understanding that he was joking about the gifts and then gets mad even though he never previously talked about the situation with anything other than sincerity.
He Can Act
Despite that whole debacle, it’s certainly possible for Leto to have competent performances. He fully immersed himself in the role of Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club, supposedly never breaking character while on set. When asked about the actor, director Jean-Marc Vallée told Eonline that Rayon tried to seduce him on set and, “I don’t know Leto. Jared never showed me Jared.”
Leto earned an Oscar for this role, no matter if you try to say it was just great casting, good writing, or chemistry with the rest of the cast. No matter if it was Leto’s acting abilities or another set of circumstances, there’s no doubt that he still put in the work to make his performance as in Dallas Buyers Club Oscar-worthy.
It’s also worth noting that he has a fairly decent following because of his roles in multiple cult classic films. Small roles in Fight Club and American Psycho led to a bigger role in Requiem for a Dream. While they’re not necessarily award-winning performances, there’s still something to be said about being able to captivate an audience.
But He Mostly Can’t
There’s no discounting his excellent performance as Rayon, yet it’s most likely an outlier. On top of that, he hasn’t starred in any cult hits since Mr. Nobody in 2009. Leto also clearly has the capacity to completely stink it up with multiple Razzie nominations for his work in House of Gucci, Suicide Squad, and Morbius. The last one there was so bad that it gained a life of its own with the catchphrase “It’s Morbin’ time!” entering the online lexicon despite it never being uttered in the film or any comic run of Morbius.
The memes surrounding the film became so popular that Sony re-released Morbius in theaters for one weekend only, completely missing the joke. Predictably, the film only grossed a total of approximately $300 thousand in the US. It was a magical time on the internet where it didn’t matter where you came from or what you believed in, everyone was just dunking on Leto and Morbius.
Even better is the fact that after the news broke about the paltry response to the re-release, people online started joking that they were all too busy to see Morbius that weekend and suggested Sony do another weekend-only release. Sadly, the studio didn’t take the bait.
Just Weird or Worse?
All of this adds to the public persona of Jared Leto being kind of a weird dude. In terms of overall weirdness, it’s not to the point where you’re worried about what he does in the privacy of his own basement. He’s just weird enough that it’s offputting to the casual onlooker. While that’s good for some roles, it’s not the kind of thing that people flock toward in cinema.
Leto continued to build on this persona in 2019 during the Met Gala. Wearing an extravagant outfit to the flashy event is pretty standard these days, but bringing a replica of your own head definitely isn’t. It is kind of hilarious, but at the same time reeks of trying too hard to play up his own weirdness. In reality, most of the weirdness attributed to Leto is just based on people taking his jokes and antics too seriously.
However, the part of Leto’s public persona that has to do with him allegedly texting underage girls constantly while living in New York and touring with Thirty Seconds to Mars is no laughing matter. There were never any allegations of anything beyond texting, but more than anything else, it still gives off major creepy vibes.
Maybe this is more of an indictment of what is seen as acceptable behavior in Hollywood than it is a teardown of Leto’s acting acumen. We see the same thing with Ezra Miller, who arguably has a worse reputation and publically gets the full support of Warner Bros. in The Flash. The only possibility is that since Leto is weird, directors don’t mind giving him roles that fit his strange mold.
Either way, it’s just bizarre to see Leto consistently landing major roles every year when he seems like a weird creep who sends gifts that only Vito Corleone would send to keep people in line. Despite all that, it seems incredibly unlikely that things will change. As long as Leto stays active in show business, it’s hard to imagine that directors will stop placing him in major roles.
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