Actor and singer Jared Leto’s eye-catching performance as the late Paolo Gucci in Ridley Scott’s biopic The House of Gucci is already generating talk of a second supporting actor Academy Award, after his win for Dallas Buyers Club in 2014.
In The House of Gucci Leto gets a full prosthetic makeover to transform him into the dumpy, overweight, and balding former Gucci VP and chief designer, following in the footsteps of Tom Cruise’s turn as fictional Hollywood producer Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder (2008).
Leto’s performance as Gucci hasn’t gone down well with his daughter Patrizia, who called it: ‘Horrible, horrible. I still feel offended.’
House of Gucci isn’t the first time Leto has donned a fat suit and prosthetic jowls. Back in 2007 he starred in Chapter 27, playing Mark Chapman, the killer of John Lennon.
The wilfully eccentric Leto, who, in addition to acting, is lead singer of American band Thirty Seconds to Mars, is something of a ‘Marmite’ performer, with his role as The Joker in DC’s Suicide Squad (2016) generating blow-back from the fanbase, cinemagoers and reviewers. Talk that an in-character Leto allegedly sent used condoms and other disturbing ‘gifts’ to fellow cast members on the movie didn’t help either, although he denied that particular rumour, blaming his ‘team’ for some of the other unwelcome surprises received by his Suicide Squad colleagues.
Even Leto’s Dallas Buyer’s Club Academy Award for his role as Rayon, an HIV positive drug-addicted transgender woman generated criticism for ‘trans-misogyny.’
Nonetheless, Leto has a body of work well worth checking out, as whatever his perceived faults, he always manages to make an impression.
House of Gucci (2021) released 26th November in the UK
Coming in hard on the heels of the COVID delayed release of The Last Duel, House of Gucci sees director Ridley Scott return to the mega-rich milieu of his 2017 picture All the Money in the World.
The movie is already proving controversial, with the Gucci family predictably disgruntled by the depiction of a family riven by feuds and greed, culminating in the 1995 murder of Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) gunned down by a hitman hired by ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga).
Early reviews singled out Gaga for praise, a further boost to her success in A Star is Born (2018), although it should be noted that a few critics found her performance a tad overripe.
As said, Leto has earned kudos for his dishevelled Fredo Corleone-esque take on Paolo Gucci, but it must be said that commentators tend to concentrate on the transformation effected by the make-up artists and costumiers rather than his thesping.
The Little Things (2021) – Sky Movies, Amazon Buy
Leto turns up the weird dial to eleven in director John Lee Hancock’s (The Founder) patchy attempt at a Se7en-style Neo Noir with a Shyamalan final twist.
The actor plays creepy Albert Sparma (crazy name, crazy guy), the chief suspect in a long-running serial killer case, pursued by dogged LA detectives Deke Deacon (Denzel Washington) and Jim Baxter (Rami Malek).
Leto wheels out his patented spooky staring technique (see Blade Runner 2049 below) yet again, a now familiar part of his schtick.
Despite this, he is the most memorable player in the picture, which apparently was originally going to be directed by either Steven Spielberg, Danny DeVito, Clint Eastwood, or Warren Beatty.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) Amazon Prime, Rent/Buy
A distracting turn from JL in Denis Villeneuve’s lengthy but excellent sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 picture, playing blind evil conglomerate boss Niander Wallace who heads up the self-named successor to the Tyrell Corporation.
Leto’s Wallace is a sadistic narcissist, given to lengthy speeches and casual cruelty. The affected nature of Leto’s performance may well reflect the character, but I still find it as grating as his Joker in Suicide Squad.
Dallas Buyers’ Club (2013) Amazon Rent/Buy
Famed as the film that rescued Matthew McConaughey’s career from the years-long Rom-com mire, the actor stars in the true story of Ron Woodroof, a philandering electrician/rodeo cowboy who, after contracting AIDS, hits on a scheme to smuggle effective but non-FDA approved pharmaceutical drugs into Texas.
Leto delivered a scene-stealing performance as Rayon, a fictional trans woman with HIV which nabbed him the Best Supporting Academy Award, but it is McConaughey (winning the Best Actor Oscar) who sticks in the mind.
Alexander (2004) Amazon Rent/Buy
Oliver Stone’s historical homo-erotic epic improves on repeated viewing, despite some dodgy acting and accents. Leto is Hephaistion, Alexander the Great’s boon companion and apparent ‘alter-ego.’
Leto has little to do aside from casting alternately anguished or adoring looks at Colin Farrell’s Dublin-brogued Alexander as the Macedonian’s insatiable desire for world conquest takes hold of the monarch.
Not a bad performance though, but one overshadowed by the grandstanding of other cast members including Val Kilmer, Angelina Jolie and Brian Blessed, in bellowing mode as per usual.
Panic Room (2002) Netflix, Amazon Rent/Buy
If I’ve previously damned Leto with faint praise, he really is very good in David Fincher’s Panic Room, his second role for the director after 1999’s Fight Club.
Fincher reined in his pretensions to give us a tense, well-paced home invasion thriller.
Newly divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and diabetic daughter Sarah (a young Kristen Stewart) move into an upscale Manhattan brownstone which contains the titular panic room.
Which proves useful when burglars Burnham (Forest Whitaker), Junior (Jared Leto), and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) break into the apartment in search of bearer bonds hidden by the previous owner, Junior’s deceased millionaire grandfather.
Leto gives Junior a scuzzy air of entitlement, a would-be hard case who finds himself outmatched when he butts heads with Yoakham’s trailer trash thug.
Requiem for a Dream (2000) Amazon Rent/Buy
Leto went full method in Darren Aronofsky’s (Black Swan) seriously depressing take on Hubert Selby Jr.’s equally chuckle-free 1978 novel of the same name.
Jared hung out with drug addicts, lost 28 pounds, supposedly lived rough on the streets of New York, and, at the director’s urging refrained from sex (and sugar) to become his character in the movie, junkie Harry Goldfarb. As Laurence Olivier once said to Dustin Hoffman on the set of Marathon Man (1976): ‘Why not try acting? It’s much easier.’
American Psycho (2000) STARZPLAY, Amazon Rent/Buy
Another of the actor’s roles in a left-field novel adaptation, Leto takes the secondary part of yuppie Paul Allen, Mary Harron’s take on Bret Easton Ellis’s satire American Psycho (1991).
Allen becomes Patrick Bateman’s (Christian Bale) third victim after outshining him with a superior business card and the ability to secure upscale restaurant bookings.
Which naturally enough provokes Bateman into killing his perceived rival with a mirror-polished axe to the strains of Huey Lewis’s Hip to Be Square. As you do.
Fight Club (1999) Netflix, Amazon Prime, Amazon Rent/Buy
Leto first worked with David Fincher in his adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s cult 1996 novel.
Standing out from the other shaven-headed FC members by virtue of his peroxide locks, Leto plays Angel Face, a leading light in Tyler Durden’s (Brad Pitt’s) ‘Project Mayhem’.
Unfortunately, Angel Face’s good looks earn him a vicious beat down from Ed Norton’s Narrator.
Prefontaine (1997) Amazon Rent/Buy
After his successful stint as Jordan Catalano in the cult teen drama series My So-Called Life (1994-5), sports biopic Prefontaine gave Jared Leto his breakout role.
Aided by his resemblance to the athlete, Leto played Steve Prefontaine, the record-breaking long-distance runner who died tragically young in a car crash aged just 24.
Leto’s typical dedication led him to adopt Prefontaine’s voice, running style and mannerisms, so much so that the runner’s sister Linda broke down in tears when she met him in character.
The following year Billy Crudup (The Morning Show) played Prefontaine in Without Limits.
Jared Leto’s next starring role will be in the upcoming Marvel movie Morbius, playing a non-supernatural ‘living vampire.’ I shudder to think how far the actor’s method researches took him in preparing for this particular role.
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