Jared Leto Gets In Character At ‘Suicide Squad’ NYC Premiere

Jared Leto appeared to be getting into character as The Joker at the New York City premiere of DC Comics’ Suicide Squad Monday night.

Jared Leto At ‘Suicide Squad’ Premiere

Leto hit the red carpet at Suicide Squad‘s premiere at Manhattan’s Beacon Theater decked out in a denim trench. When he wasn’t posing solo for the cameras, he was joined by the rest of the film’s star-studded cast. Will Smith, Joel Kinnaman, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Cara Delevingne, Karen Fukuhara, Scott Eastwood and Jay Hernandez were all in attendance as well.

Much of the press ahead of Suicide Squad‘s premiere revolved around Leto taking his method acting to the next level in order to play the Joker, a character made famous by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger’s interpretations. According to cast and crew members, Leto took to sending horrifying gifts to the other actors in the movie during filming. While Leto doesn’t deny that he did this, he believes that something has been missed in translation.

“The Joker loves to play games, he loves to manipulate, and that was part of the reason to do that. When you do give a gift to someone, even in real life, you think about, ‘What do I get them?,’ you think about who that person is to you, what would they like?” Leto told Fox 5 DC. “So that immediately started to be really good homework for me. What do I give Deadshot? What’s my relationship with Deadshot? I gave Deadshot a briefcase full of bullets. It was kind of a message, it was kind of a threat, it was kind of a reminder. I wrote every character a note — a poem. What it did was that it started me on a journey into thinking what these people are, and it was a lot of fun.”

Leto added, “I did give some nice gifts as well, but people don’t talk about that. And by the way, some of the strange ones aren’t even true. I’m not gonna say what’s true or what’s not, but the press love to have fun with it. There were some crazier ones and some nicer ones that I gave. I did give cupcakes.”

Suicide Squad hits theaters in wide release, Friday, Aug. 5.