Jared Leto Went Full Method For ‘Blade Runner 2049’, Temporarily Blinded Himself

Jared Leto never saw a meaty leading man part he didn’t like, and the 45-year-old actor is notorious for going full method in his performances. He whipped live snakes out on his Suicide Squad co-stars when inhabiting the role of the Joker, and gained so much weight so fast for Chapter 27 that he literally gave himself gout, so the guy knows how to commit to a role.

Leto appears in the upcoming Blade Runner 2049, as blind bad guy Niander Wallace, and unsurprisingly, he went balls-deep into that role, wearing special contact lenses on set to black out his vision throughout the shoot.

According to director Denis Villeneuve, who praised the actor’s “insane” choices in the role, he showed up to his first audition completely in character. He told the Wall Street Journal:

“He could not see at all. He was walking with an assistant, very slowly. It was like seeing Jesus walking into a temple. Everybody became super silent, and there was a kind of sacred moment. Everyone was in awe. It was so beautiful and powerful — I was moved to tears.”

Will Smith claims that he never actually met Jared Leto during the filming of Suicide Squad, and only ever interacted with the Joker, so yeah, that definitely checks out.

A recent short film, 2036: Nexus Dawn, shed some light on the events that happened between the original Blade Runner and Denis Villeneuve’s sequel, and introduced Leto’s character, a sinister industrialist who wants the ban on synthetic life forms to be lifted.

Blade Runner 2049 is out on October 5 in Australia.

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