Jared Leto has had a long and wildly successful career as an actor, including an Oscar win for Dallas Buyers Club. And while there are plenty of great Jared Leto movies, most recently he’s made headlines after multiple women accused him of sexual assault. Now, after that report went viral, stories about his behavior on set have been coming out as well.
Jared Leto is known for being a method actor and going to great lengths to stay in character while filming various projects. He famously sent his Suicide Squad co-stars disturbing gifts, and now more stories are coming out about him from the set of Tron: Ares (streaming with a Disney+ subscription) and more. Let’s break it all down.
More ‘Odd’ Set Behavior From Jared Leto
An anonymous source who was on the set of Tron: Ares spoke to Page Six about some of the 54-year-old’s antics on the movie’s set. They claim Jared Leto had a long list of demands during principal photography, including that he reportedly wanted no “eye contact of any kind” from the movie’s cast and crew. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
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The Blade Runner 2049 actor reportedly had a diet that “consisted of eating only fish”. And as a result, he allegedly demanded that a fisherman be brought to the movie’s set to “catch and prepare fresh fish every day.” Plenty of celebrities have riders, but the fish request allegedly had the studio scrambling to find adequate food for Leto.
Aside from those stories, he also reportedly refused to break character and speak to anyone as himself while filming the Tron movie. That story is far less wild, and would fit in well with how he’s behaved on other movies like Suicide Squad. Leto also isn’t the only actor who has chosen to stay in character on set. For instance, Meryl Streep used method acting for The Devil Wears Prada, and stopped talking to co-stars Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway until production wrapped.
Regarding the new allegations against him, the source who spoke to the outlet about Tron: Ares did clarify that they never witnessed Jared Leto doing anything sexually inappropriate on set.
This Isn’t The First Time The Actor’s Method Acting Strategies Have Come To Light
Jared Leto’s method acting is somewhat infamous at this point, as there have been stories about him from various movies over the years. In addition to his Suicide Squad antics, he also reportedly went method when playing the title character in Morbius.
The movie’s director Daniel Espinosa spoke to Uproxx about this in 2022, confirming a rumor that Leto would use crutches and limp as Michael Morbius even when the cameras were down. This includes bathroom breaks, which would take much longer as a result of his inability to move. In fact, it slowed down production so much that a crew member would push him around in a wheelchair to help cut down these long breaks. The filmmaker said this about the actor’s process:
Yeah. Because I think that what Jared thinks, what Jared believes, is that somehow the pain of those movements, even when he was playing normal Michael Morbius, he needed, because he’s been having this pain his whole life. Even though, as he’s alive and strong, it has to be a difference. Hey, man, it’s people’s processes.
For his part, Espinosa didn’t seem to criticize Jared Leto’s method acting. In fact, he said that “all of the actors believe in processes.” But the wheelchair move was key to keep things moving on set and stop breaks from taking too long as a result of the actor’s reported refusal to walk properly.
While stories are coming out about Leto’s process as an actor, only time will tell what happens regarding the allegations of sexual assault. For his part, the actor/singer had denied any wrongdoing, calling the claims “absolutely and categorically false.” We’ll just have to see if the situation ever goes to court, as well as if/how his career is affected by these serious allegations.
