David Ayer's Joker Inspired By Drug Lords Of Instagram

Director David Ayer is striving for a Joker planted in some sort of reality in his upcoming Suicide Squad, a person who for all his eccentricities could still actually exist in our world.

That led to Ayer utilizing several known traits of the criminal underworld, including using Joker's body to tell a story through several tattoos, mimicking ones seen on various drug lords and noteworthy criminals.

In an interview with Yahoo UK, the Director went into some details about his process, saying: "A lot of it has to do with creating a character with some kind of history and footprint in our world. And not have this sacrosanct being outside of our continuum, our reality. If a guy like him really existed today, where would he come from? How would he do business? Who would he know? What would he look like? In my mind, I took a lot of inspiration from drug lords on Instagram. It's a great way to understand the lifestyle of a villain."

It is the same reason this Joker (played by Jared Leto) is more akin to an actual gangster as opposed to a villainous (and crazy) cartoon. Ayer continues: "The tattoos tell a very specific story. And eventually people will decipher them and understand what's going on, but obviously, they're contentious, anytime you do something new it's contentious. There's very specific stories and easter eggs in those tattoos. And even his teeth, there's an entire story behind that which is absolutely canon. It's putting his history on his body. This Joker is a little more working class, who I believe could live in our world."

Like most fans, I'm interested to see the actual meaning behind all that ink when Suicide Squad hits theatres on August 5th.