The co-star Viola Davis seriously considered pepper spraying: “It scared me a little bit”
There’s a fine line between method acting and using a villainous role as an excuse for bad behaviour off-screen. If an actor chooses to starve themselves or live on burgers and ice cream for a part, that’s their choice. But when it escalates to sending bullets to co-stars, that’s no longer dedication to the craft. It’s a clear sign that something has gone too far.
Hollywood is a breeding ground for terrible people, because if there’s one thing that bad people like, it’s attention, and thus, it’s all too often that we see actors exposed for strange behaviour; so, when Viola Davis appeared in a certain superhero movie, she found herself faced with one of the industry’s strangest stars.
I guess that doesn’t really narrow it down, as Hollywood is full of actors who like to take things too far, but Jared Leto is one of the most notorious of recent years. Not only did he start his own cult, but he has been accused of sexual assault numerous times, leaving him with a rather tarnished reputation, to say the least.
But back when he was filming Suicide Squad, in which Davis starred as Amanda Waller while Leto played the Joker, you could tell that he thought he was on the level of Daniel Day-Lewis, or perhaps he believed he was the second coming of Heath Ledger playing the villain. Leto wasn’t either, though, because to get into character, he decided to just annoy his own co-stars, which sounds like the perfect excuse for him to exercise his own bizarre desires under the guise of method acting.
Now, I’m not saying that Leto was mailing odd items to the cast for his own kicks necessarily, but you have to wonder why he thought that anyone would be OK with receiving used condoms, anal beads (it’s unclear if they were used or not), and a dead pig. Recalling the experience, Will Smith, who starred as Deadshot, revealed to Entertainment Weekly that “Jared went full Joker”, adding that he was “dead serious”.
Leto’s antics left Davis considering the need for pepper spray to defend herself from this maniac, whose actions were unpredictable and rather unhinged, regarding which she told Vanity Fair, “He had a henchman who would come into the rehearsal room, and the henchman came in with a dead pig and plopped it on the table, and then he walked out. And that was our introduction into Jared Leto.”
When she received the bullets, though, Davis really started to get scared, opening up to E News, the actor said, “It was a little worrisome. It made you a little bit nervous, and I’m pretty tough. You know I got into a few fights when I was growing up…but it scared me a little bit.”
Davis continued, “Before that, I was only introduced to the Joker…and I almost had my pepper spray out.”
Leto’s behaviour reflects the audacity that many male actors seem to possess, thinking they can get away with anything for the sake of their art, but really, a good enough actor wouldn’t need to send his co-star some bullets to get into character; that’s just lazy, shock value antics.
