METHOD MAN
In all aspects of his life, actor and rock star Jared Leto goes all in
To play John Lennon’s killer in Chapter 27 (2007), Jared Leto gained so much weight he gave himself gout. For Dallas Buyers Club (2013), in which he played a trans woman with HIV, he lost 30 pounds. For Requiem for a Dream (2000), he shot up with real junkies — though he only injected water. For Blade Runner 2049 (2017), he kept himself blind, on and off-set, and as The Joker in Suicide Squad (2016), he pranked his co-stars by sending them used condoms.
As a rock star, he really goes there, too. Since he formed Thirty Seconds to Mars 20 years ago, he has sold 15 million albums, and in 2011 entered Guinness World Records for the longest tour in one album cycle (300 shows in support of their third album, This Is War). A fifth album, America, went on sale April 6.
When I meet the 46-year-old frontman backstage, Leto is damp from the shower and dressed in leggings. Barely half an hour earlier, though, he was a vision in a Jesus beard, sunglasses, a shin-length kilt and a red plaid double-breasted coat, wowing 13,000 fans with his band’s anthemic rock-metal.
So far, so rock ’n’ roll. Bear in mind, too, that he lives in a 100,000 square-foot decommissioned U.S. air force base in the hills above Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip. Forming the band with his brother Shannon, did more for the siblings than supply rock ’n’ roll kicks. Shannon is a reformed drug addict.
Leto himself has been sober now for “oh man, f---, so long.”
Not just an A-list actor and occasional model, Leto is also a politically engaged philanthropist and he is a serious investor, mainly in tech companies.
Leto has become more picky about his acting roles, partly because he can afford to be. Even though his part in Dallas Buyers Club won him a best supporting actor Oscar, if he were offered that role right now, “I would probably pass.”
He was heckled for being a straight, white male playing a part a genuine trans actor could have played. “I think we should make sure we always think first of people in the minority that don’t have as many opportunities,” says Leto. “And that was made very clear to me through that process.”
He confirms his Andy Warhol biopic is in the works, with Terence Winter (The Sopranos, The Wolf of Wall Street) writing the script. Recently, it was “announced” he would play Hugh Hefner in a biopic. Director Brett Ratner reportedly said: “Jared is an old friend. When he heard I got the rights to Hef ’s story, he told me, ‘I want to play him. I want to understand him.’ And I really believe Jared can do it. He’s one of the great actors of today.”
The plug was pulled after Ratner was accused of sexual harassment (he denies the allegations). Leto insists his involvement was only ever a “rumour. It was never true.”
Should that project get back on track, and if the allegations remain unproven, would he work with Ratner?
He exhales and thinks. “I would never want to do anything that would make someone else feel any sort of pain. So for me, I ...” Leto frowns. “Like, I don’t make very many films, so it’s almost a hypothetical question because the reality for me is, it’s easy not to work.”
With a career as varied as Leto’s, it is inevitable that he has worked with other movie industry figures subsequently accused of sexual harassment.
Step forward James Toback, with whom Leto made the 1999 film Black and White. After first being accused of sexual harassment and assault in a Los Angeles Times report last October, the director has subsequently been accused by 357 women (Toback denies the charges).
“Oh my God!” exclaims Leto, at the figure. “Yeah, I worked for five hours on the set. I really did it because it was me and Robert Downey Jr., and I just showed up for those five hours. (So) I didn’t see much of anything beside a very funny Robert Downey Jr.”