3) Imbalance
It probably helps to be a little bit mad already in order to play a character like The Joker. Nicholson might have had the long, arching eyebrows and Ledger might have been able to smack his lips like a dog waiting for dinner scraps, but Leto has something about him that suggests he is genuinely a little, let’s say, imbalanced.
The actor has peculiarly described playing the part of The Joker as akin to “giving birth out of my prickhole,” but has also managed to compare Batman’s arch nemesis to Hamlet in a separate interview. Rumours have circulated that he was notoriously difficult to work with during the whole time he was on set for the Suicide Squad, resolutely remaining in character in between shooting takes.
His method acting looked to be teetering on the tipping point of insanity at one point when it was revealed he sent a rat in a box to his co-star Margot Robbie, and a box of bullets to Will Smith as ‘gifts.’ He also smeared the question “AM I AS GOOD AS HEATH LEDGER YET?” across the skin of a dead pig and sent it to the entire cast.
Leto brings a sense of natural imbalance and eccentricity to the role, the kind any committed method actor can’t help but possess, and also the kind that a character like The Joker could potentially benefit from in so many wildly unusual ways.
