David Ayer’s Suicide Squad is almost assured to have an R-rated sequel, so we’ll keep pulling up the folding chair and waiting for every story about Jared Leto’s method acting to emerge from a vat of neon hair dye and (we assume) Drakkar Noir. The newest one comes from Leto himself in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box.
As it turns out, not only did Leto hone his Joker on the set — answering only to “Mr. J” and never breaking character between scenes — but he kept up some of the pageantry off set as well.
Leto tells CNBC he tried out different versions of his Joker laugh around bystanders in New York and Toronto, testing which laughs would most effectively get under people’s skin. Because meeting with psychopaths and sending anal beads to coworkers and giving Margot Robbie a live rat and giving the rest of the squad a dead pig filled with bullets just isn’t enough preparation when you’re going full method. (Never go full method.)
Here’s what Leto says in the video above about developing his Joker laugh by unnerving strangers, as transcribed by MovieWeb:
“I worked on the laugh walking around the streets of New York and Toronto, and I kinda would walk around the streets and see what laugh would get under people’s skin. You know when you hear someone laugh at a restaurant? It’s a little jarring. I tried them out. And I kind of got to a place where I would laugh and people are always turning around like, ‘Who is this creepy guy behind me?’ “
That’s so edgy, you guys.