Jared Leto Attempts To Clear Up His Bizarre Behavior On Suicide Squad Set

David Ayer keeps telling us that there’s a much better performance that we didn’t get to see, but unless his fabled version of Suicide Squad becomes a reality, Jared Leto’s take on the Joker will remain wildly polarizing and incredibly divisive.

Given his penchant for immersing himself fully into character, it’s no surprise that the actor went to fairly extreme lengths to embody the Clown Prince of Crime. As the story goes, that extended to gifting his co-stars such items as dead hogs, porno mags, used condoms and anal beads.

While Leto has previously claimed the rat he gave Margot Robbie was very much alive, the Academy Award winner has attempted to set the record straight about his behind the scenes antics in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly.

“Any of the very few gifts that were ever given were given with a spirit of fun and adventure and received with laughter, fun, and adventure. It’s all filmed! They filmed it all! People were dying. We were just having a goof. The only gifts I ever gave Margot were cupcakes. I think I gave her a mouse, and some of the other guys got gifts that you’d get as a joke at a party… I’m playing a guy called the Joker, it’s okay to play some jokes. Nothing ever crossed any lines, and it’s not up to other people on the internet to create those lines… I’m an artist at the end of the day. If I do something risky and you don’t like it, basically, you can kiss my ass.”

Nobody’s going to sit there and try to claim that Jared Leto doesn’t seem like a very peculiar individual that can often become a little too dedicated to his craft, but used condoms and anal beads hardly seem like the type of items that would characterize the spirit of adventure. He did get a much better response when he returned as the Joker in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, though, but the jury remains out on his portrayal of the iconic villain unless we get the Ayer Cut.