Suicide Squad: Why Jared Leto Won't Learn From His Joker Performance
How can he ever make it better?
If you're looking forward to Jared Leto continuing on as the Joker in the DCEU and potentially channelling everything he learned from his experience on Suicide Squad to improve his performance and grow Mr J as a character, you might be in for disappointment.
Leto has spoken to SYFY Wire to explain that he has never watched his Suicide Squad performance, because “as soon as you watch it, that’s when it becomes subjective.”
It's unclear why that would be an issue, really, but Leto does go on to explain why it's one for him:
“I just think with watching your own films, it can be too self-conscious of a process. You either like what you did and you’re prone to repeat it, or you didn’t like it, and it can make you self-conscious. I’m not sure how much win there is for me. But I read the scripts, so I know what’s going to happen.”
Fair enough - nobody likes self-criticism when it leads to a crisis, but surely looking back at particularly divisive performances when you're still playing the character has some merit?
Wouldn't it be useful to Leto to watch himself back and try and work out what it was that fans didn't enjoy about his characterisation - particularly when there are potentially two more films upcoming with him in?
There is an argument to say that Leto's Joker was screwed by direction - and over-zealous editing, specifically - but it would also be plainly wrong to not accept that there were nuances and quirks in what he put into the character that were... unwelcome with some fans. He was a little too self-consciously weird. A little too honka honka burning odd-ball. A little too provocatively annoying.
What Leto lacked was restraint - either from himself or his director - and he needs to learn from the experience. And that makes his decision not to watch it all the more furstrating.