Suicide Squad: David Ayer Says You Can’t Direct The Joker

Suicide Squad director calls The Joker a “force of nature”

Suicide Squad is the next DC film coming our way, and it’s already generating plenty of positive buzz. Part of that buzz is definitely Jared Leto as the latest incarnation of The Joker. His look may be controversial, but his performance and all the stories about ow deep he went into the character have been applauded for the most part. Suicide Squad director David Ayer says he didn’t even really direct Leto, he just tried to steer him properly:

"It’s tough directing the Joker because the Joker’s gonna do what the Joker does. You can steer the Joker but, I mean, [Leto] showed up and he was the Joker. That was the easy part. He did a lot of work on that character. You’ve gotta be respectful. Seventy five years of pop culture. The most well-known villain in modern fiction. It’s a scary job to tackle and he killed it."

Ayer also described Suicide Squad as a film where the characters actually become a family:

"It’s got a lot of soul. It’s fun. It’s funny. But at the end of the day it’s really about the journey these characters take together. They start out separate and they grow into a family and they discover that together, as a family, they can do anything.Next: Batman Put All Of The Suicide Squad Away"

Ok, I still have a lot of excitement for Suicide Squad and Jared Leto’s performance in it, but the whole “you don’t direct the Joker” line of thinking seems really dumb to me. Granted, I’m sure if it like delayed the movie significantly and Leto was just tossing dead pigs and condoms everywhere instead of doing his lines, he’d be booted from the set, but that’s almost an Ed Wood level of dangerously high confidence. Let’s hope it’s warranted. Suicide Squad opens August 5th.

h/t Comicbook.com