10 Movies You Won't Believe Were Released 1 Year Apart

Today, Jared Leto has quite a reputation in the cinematic world as a narcissistic perfectionist due to stories of how he treats his co-stars (take Suicide Squad for example where he tried to be The Joker off screen as well). However, this does mean that Leto is willing to go above and beyond other actors for his roles, and nowhere was this more evident than with the contrast between his characters in Lonely Hearts and Chapter 27.

In Lonely Hearts, a neo-noir movie about the infamous “Lonely Hearts Killers”, Leto played pretty boy conman Raymond Fernandez. His figure in this film is as a balding, skinny charmer who uses his beguiling ways to lure lonely women into a murderous trap.

Fast forward one year later and Leto looks completely different as Mark Chapman, the murderer of John Lennon in Chapter 27. Leto put on nearly 65 pounds for the role in a very short space of time, altering his body in very a dangerous way as he developed Gout which forced him into a wheelchair whenever shooting was done.

It was a drastic change that Leto himself would go on to admit wasn't a good idea, but the change is an astounding feat of dedication. Putting on so much weight so quickly is very dangerous, meaning Leto sacrificed a lot for this role. However, poor reviews for both films meant that the sacrifice wasn't really worth it in the end.