It’s common knowledge that Hollywood actors, especially the really successful ones, are all weirdos to some extent, ranging from lovable to Shailene Woodley to straight-up criminal. However, no one currently working in Hollywood is quite as committed to letting the world know just how utterly strange and, thus, insufferable they are to work with as Morbius star Jared Leto.
This week, another one of the 50-year-old actor’s infamous method-acting stories went viral following a new interview with the Marvel film’s director Daniel Espinosa. And while the behind-the-scenes detail didn’t come directly from Leto’s mouth, we can only assume he would’ve revealed it eventually, given his history of giddily sharing these stories with the press. In the Uproxx article, the director confirmed that Leto first walked on crutches to use the bathroom on set to better embody the role of Michael Morbius, who suffers from chronic pain, and when that took too long, was wheeled to the toilet in a wheelchair, after writer Mike Ryan inquired about the rumor.
Yes, you read that factoid correctly. Some overworked, underpaid below-the-line worker (maybe multiple) was given the task of pushing a multi-millionaire feigning a limp to urinate. And we don’t even know if Leto was assisted beyond being transported to the loo, but one can only imagine the lengths of this bit.
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Espinosa defended Leto’s choice to act like a disabled person off-camera, stating, “I think that what Jared thinks, what Jared believes, is that somehow the pain of those movements, even when he was playing normal Michael Morbius, he needed, because he’s been having this pain his whole life. Even though he’s alive and strong, it has to be a difference. Hey, man, it’s people’s processes.”
It’s certainly Leto’s process. Over the past two decades he’s been a top-billed performer, the 30 Seconds To Mars singer has become widely known as one of Hollywood’s top method-acting nightmares, rivaling maybe only Dustin Hoffman. The star has been decidedly open with the press about his dangerous, self-punishing and wholly offensive preparation tactics. For example, while promoting Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000), in which Leto plays a drug addict, the actor shared that he abstained from sex for two months, lived on the street with real heroin addicts, and damaged his liver after dropping 25 pounds for the role.
Mainly, it’s Leto's obsession with putting on and dropping weight as a form of commitment to his characters that’s been the most irritating to watch—and be rewarded—throughout his career. Notably, he gained almost 70 pounds to play John Lennon’s murderer Mark David Chapman for the 2007 biographical movie Chapter 27, which garnered minimal awards attention and hardly exists in the pop-culture lexicon beyond this factoid. During the film’s press tour, he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and casually admitted that he lost the weight by forgoing solid food for 10 days.
Several years later, he underwent another drastic physical transformation for the 2013 Oscar-winning film Dallas Buyers Club, in which he played a transgender woman living with HIV named Rayon. Leto’s embodiment of that particular character as a cisgender man, as well as the specific choices he makes, sparked rightful outrage from the trans community. However, the Academy—and practically every film association—was more impressed that the actor was bold enough to drop 30 pounds, wear eyeshadow and wax his eyebrows, giving him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
During Leto’s brief turn as the Joker in the critically panned Suicide Squad, the public learned about maybe the most egregious preparation he did for a role, sending his castmates some disturbing and extremely unhygienic gifts in the mail—in addition to remaining in character the entire shoot. Margot Robbie, who played his love interest Harley Quinn, was sent a live rat, while Viola Davis revealed that she received a dead hog. (Leto has since denied giving Robbie a rat, although both Davis and Robbie confirmed he did). According to Leto, Will Smith received used bullets, condoms, and anal beads. For anyone with a regular job, this behavior would prompt the speediest call to human resources—and probably the cops—an employee could ever make. Of course, in the boundary-less film industry, Leto was simply “creating a dynamic.”
The thing about method actors like Leto, Christian Bale and Joaquin Phoenix, among others, is that they don’t understand how deeply uncool they sound when they reveal that they clogged their arteries eating five pounds of Häagen Dazs a day, gave their co-stars the silent treatment or made set employees do unnecessary, time-wasting work for them. There’s nothing admirable about risking your health or putting your co-workers through hell for the sake of a movie no one will reference in three years. In the specific case of gaining weight for movies, it’s ridiculous that certain directors would rather encourage someone to risk giving themselves a heart attack than hire an actual fat person to play a fat character.
In light of this trend, it’s been refreshing to hear young, capable actors like Robert Pattinson, whose entire public persona is just a parody of a method actor, poke fun at this approach. “I always say about people who do method acting, you only ever see people do the method when they’re playing assholes,” he said in a Variety’s Actors on Actors interview in 2019. It goes without saying that we also largely hear these stories told proudly by men.
Leto’s recent press run for Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, in which he plays Paolo Gucci in a fat suit and makeup, gave some hope that maybe the actor was finally in on the joke of taking on an all-consuming role like his alleged ghost-seeing co-star Lady Gaga seemed to be.
“I did it all. I was snorting lines of arrabbiata sauce by the middle of this movie. I had olive oil for blood. This was a deep dive I did,” Leto said in an interview for i-d. “If you took a biopsy of my skin, it would come back as Parmesan cheese! This is my love letter to Italy.”
While many publications seemed to interpret this soundbite literally, this quote reads like an actor aware of the campiness and stereotypical Italian-ness his role required, and willing to play up that absurdity for the press. But given what we now know about the making of Morbius, his weird on-set rituals seem far from over. He may very well have been snorting actual pasta sauce between takes.
