Every actor to have played the Joker in live-action has put their own distinctly different spin on the character, but four and a half years after Suicide Squad was released, it’s still difficult to figure out exactly what Jared Leto was trying to accomplish with his approach to the Clown Prince of Crime.
After all, he went so Method that Will Smith admitted he was never properly introduced to Leto until the movie’s premiere, while he also sent his co-stars an assortment of strange ‘gifts’ that included live rats, dead hogs, bullets, dildos, switchblades, anal beads and used condoms for reasons unknown to anyone other than himself. All that effort, and the majority of his scenes were left on the cutting room floor.
Since signing on to reprise the role for Zack Snyder’s Justice League reshoots, though, the Academy Award winner has found himself linked with a slew of DCEU projects, despite confirming that he isn’t contracted for anything yet. That being said, he’s already admitted that he’d be open to playing the Jester of Genocide again in the future.
Not only that, but insider Daniel Richtman is now claiming that Leto wants his Joker to return in the vein of the more abusive and psychopathic iterations of the iconic villain that have appeared in the comic books, which would be about as far away from his Juggalo/pimp hybrid in Suicide Squad as possible.
Of course, if Richtman’s recent Joker-related intel is to be taken at face value, then we’ll be seeing the 49 year-old headlining a violent R-rated movie or TV show directed by Zack Snyder that would tell the story of how he murdered Robin and burned Wayne Manor to the ground. Indeed, Leto’s been the subject of countless rumors lately, so at this stage, we’ll just have to wait and see if he makes a full-blown comeback or not before jumping to any conclusions about what it could entail.
