10 F*ck Ups That Made Suicide Squad A Disaster

Jared Leto's performance as the Joker always threatened to be bigger than the film: his antics on-set were the stuff of media dreams and his intense preparation and commitment were one of the key points of the marketing. They had to be, given the context of what Heath Ledger went through.

But his performance in the end was too scatter-gun, and he definitely believed in the self-made mythology of his character too much. To the point that he chews every scene, obliterates the content and dialogue and believes he's making a Joker film, when he's not even that important.

He made his cuts inevitable.

You need discipline and direction in these circumstances. Look at Jack Nicholson's turn in The Shining - a role Jared Leto allegedly sought to channel with his Joker. He was encouraged to perform, he was encouraged to try things and experiment, but Stanley Kubrick kept him on a leash and turned that spirit into one of the greatest horror movie performances ever.

What Should Have Happened

Allowing an actor to "feel" the role and "experiment" is all well and good: it leads to performances like the ones Daniel Day-Lewis dines out on, and improvisation is responsible for some of the greatest moments in film history.

But you need direction, and it really doesn't feel like Leto has that in his scenes (and the fact that so much of his content was cut says something similar). He's too much of an unfocused wildcard, jumping through quirks, and having a firm, Kubrickian hand on him while still allowing creativity would have gone a long way.