Billboard Cover: Jared Leto on Packing on the Pounds to Play the Joker, Thirty Seconds to Mars’ Success and Why He’s ‘Terminally Dissatisfied’
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Leto is guarded about his personal life, and his last long-term relationship, with Cameron Diaz, ended in 2003. In the last few months alone, gossips have linked him with the actress Lupita Nyong’o, Dutch model Dimphy Janse and Miley Cyrus, but he brought his mother as his date to the 2014 Oscars ceremony. He says he has never seen Claire Danes’ CIA drama Homeland, but only because he watches almost no TV. Still, he’s open to returning to TV as an actor: “I understand now the pleasure in consuming a story that doesn’t end after 90 minutes and the ability to work on a character that long.” He has, however, consistently declined offers to star in rock biopics and turned down roles in movies that promised to put his music on the soundtrack, because he doesn’t want to promote one career on the basis of the other. “When we first signed a record deal in ’98, it was like breaking a commandment.” he says, explaining that he was wary of how people were judged for trying to cross over. “Now, if you can talk, you put an album out.”
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Leto as Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club, with Matthew McConaughey (right) as Ron Woodroof
What drew him to the Joker for just his second film role in seven years? “The opportunity to take on this nearly Shakespearean character — that’s what graphic novels and comic books are becoming, right?” Leto never actually says the words “the Joker” out loud, as if the very name might summon the ghosts of Heath Ledger and Cesar Romero. “This beautiful disaster of a character — what a big challenge,” he muses.
Jared Leto Jokes His Way Through SAG Awards Presentation
Leto is known for seeking out dark material and immersing himself in his roles. Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallee says, “At the beginning, I was scared of him and Matthew [McConaughey, Leto’s co-star]. I’m from the less-is-more school, and these guys were doing more-is-more. But I was using their more-is-more takes.”
During his conversation with Billboard, Leto quotes everyone from Mahatma Gandhi to Milton Berle. The theme across the quotations: persistence. Ruminating on the skepticism that greeted Thirty Seconds to Mars, Leto drops one more: “Oscar Wilde said, ‘The greatest revenge is massive success.'” Wilde didn’t say that, actually; Frank Sinatra, one of the all-time great double threats, apparently did. But with massive enough success, you can make Oscar Wilde say whatever you like.
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