Step aside, Jared Leto. No-one’s impressed that you sent used condoms and anal beads to your fellow Suicide Squad cast members all in the name of method acting. Sure, that’s one way to attract attention for your new, KER-AZY take on The Joker, but Jai Courtney’s potentially got you beat.
It’s no secret that director David Ayer pushed his cast to the limit during filming. In addition to Leto’s self-directed antics, Ayer apparently made Task Force X punch each other in the face. Talking to Empire Magazine (via Batman News), Courtney revealed how much farther this behavior went when he arrived for a seemingly-normal meeting with his director:
“I turned up to discuss my look, expecting we’d have a long discussion and slowly he refine it. David [Ayer] just walked right in, picked up some clippers and started shearing chunks of hair off my head, Eventually he said, ‘You look like bad news.’ Then he left.”
Okay, that’s not THAT bad right? A terrible haircut will grow out. But it doesn’t stop there. Before the trimmers came out, Courtney and Ayer had a Skype call during which the former decided to really get out of his gourd on shrooms and scar himself with cigarettes:
“That night I happened to eat some mushrooms, and I did self-inflict some burns,” the actor said.
That’s quite the commitment for a movie. We’ve already seen how far Courtney pushed himself in the gym to play the unhinged Boomerang – he’s buffed up like a brand new Rolls. Most people would welcome the added pressure to get into shape, for sure, but self-harm? It seems a bit too extreme, no?
We’ll find out how it all comes together when Suicide Squad hits theaters on August 5. Courtney and Leto are joined by Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Cara Delevingne as Enchantress, Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc, Jay Hernandez as El Diablo and Adam Beach as Slipknot.
