Suicide Squad: Jared Leto Made Everyone Raise Their Level
Will Smith talks about working with both David Ayer and Jared Leto in Suicide Squad
We’ve all heard stories about how Jared Leto went completely method for his role as the Joker in Suicide Squad. He sent weird gifts, several cast members claimed they were very intimidated by him and only saw him in character, never as Jared Leto. Suicide Squad star Will Smith, who plays expert assassin Deadshot in the film is one of those people. But he also says Leto’s dedication to the role made everyone else work much harder at owning their roles:
"He’s a nice guy! He’s not the kind of guy that’ll send a rat and a dead pig to your rehearsal. That was the craziest s–t, dude. He was all in. All in. He really raised the bar for the rest of us. We were having such a great time. And then we saw Jared’s first [screen] test, and we were like, ‘Uh, Jared is taking this s–t really seriously. We need to stop f–king around."
Smith also talked about how director David Ayer approached Suicide Squad, mixing both humor and seriousness:
"It’s definitely concentrated on a certain amount of levity set into a serious, harsh reality. So what [director] David Ayer did that was really good is he didn’t allow us to be in a comic-book movie. You’re playing this character, but this character has real ideas, has real feelings. So he set us firmly into this authentic world, but then allowed for the comedy. It shifts, it moves around. It is really violent, and then there’s beautiful scenes. Deadshot has a daughter. It covers a lot of ground. It’s not a full-out comedy. It is a superhero movie in its definition. There’s heavy action to it. We shot real hardcore military war-type action. But it’s also really funny. In one scene, Boomerang [Jai Courtney] sits down and has a beer while we’re fighting."
Next: David Ayer On Appealing To Comic & Casual Suicide Squad fans
That should definitely quash any lingering rumors of Suicide Squad not being full of fun and humorous moments. Hey it turns out you can mix humor and seriousness and it works really well! Hopefully Suicide Squad will be a great example of this when it hits theaters August 5th.
h/t CBM