Jared Leto was so committed to playing a character with chronic pain that he likely became a chronic pain to crew members.
Daniel Espinosa, the director of Leto’s latest film “Morbius,” confirmed to Uproxx on Monday that the star — who is totally capable of walking and notorious for being an unnecessarily over-the-top Method actor — was pushed to and from the bathroom in a wheelchair every time he needed to relieve himself.
Leto plays Morbius, the title character in the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe offering, who essentially turns himself into a vampire when he finds a cure for a rare blood condition that renders him disabled due to chronic pain. We’re not even going to get into how ableist the plot and the casting of Leto is, but in short: gross.
“I heard a story about filming and I want to see if this is true,” Uproxx’s Mike Ryan said to Espinosa. “Someone told me that Jared Leto was so committed to playing Michael Morbius that even when he had to go to the bathroom, he would use his crutches and slowly limp to get to the bathroom. But it was taking so long between for pee breaks, that a deal was made with him to get him a wheelchair so someone could wheel him there quicker, and he agreed to that. Is this true?”
“Yes,” Espinosa said, explaining that Leto felt he needed to mimic and fully embody his character.
“Hey, man, it’s people’s processes,” the director later added, defending Leto’s behavior.
“I think it’s really mysterious, what they do,” Espinosa said of actors embodying their roles. “I think that all of them have these traits. If you want a completely normal person that does only things that you understand, then you’re in the wrong business. Because what’s different is what makes them tick.”
Leto has a reputation for taking Method acting to an uncomfortable extreme.
He sent his “Suicide Squad” co-stars some truly bizarre gifts — including a live rat and a video of a dead hog — while living authentically as the Joker.
He also got so into his role as designer Paolo Gucci in “House of Gucci” that he said he was “snorting lines of arrabbiata sauce by the middle of this movie.”
