Harley Quinn wasn’t the only one calling Jared Leto’s The Joker “Mistah J” on the set of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad movie.
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According to costume designer Kate Hawley, the famously “method” Leto refused to break character, made easier when others on set called him “Mr. J.”
Since his first name starts with a J, our first guess was that it was a specific choice to allow him to stay method while also allowing those around him to call him something that didn’t make them feel too strange.
Not so — it all started with set security, according to Hawley.
“There’s a sh–load of these characters for a start and when you’re having dialogue with people to protect in emails and things, you have a code and it goes onto call sheets and everything else like that. But then some of them end up with three. Even when Jared came, we had to refer to him as Mr. J or Mr. Smiley. It’s kind of entertaining and when you’re going ‘oh, we have to have a fitting with Mr. J.’ It’s like, should we put our bullet-proof vest on because he’s been totally method all the way through and it has provided a lot of entertainment and genuine fear. He’s brought a whole punch-like quality to it.”
The fashion-conscious Joker of Suicide Squad was a boon to some of the others around Leto: a number of his rejected costumes apparently went on to become wardrobe for the movie’s goons and extras.
It feels good to be bad…Assemble a team of the world’s most dangerous, incarcerated Super Villains, provide them with the most powerful arsenal at the government’s disposal, and send them off on a mission to defeat an enigmatic, insuperable entity. U.S. intelligence officer Amanda Waller has determined only a secretly convened group of disparate, despicable individuals with next to nothing to lose will do. However, once they realize they weren’t picked to succeed but chosen for their patent culpability when they inevitably fail, will the Suicide Squad resolve to die trying, or decide it’s every man for himself?
Suicide Squad hits theaters August 5, 2016.
