Jared Leto Went Full Method (Again) On Tron: Ares & Jeff Bridges Ignored His 1 Rule

Jared Leto describes himself as a “bona fide superfan” of 1982’s Tron, but his costars might have another word for the Suicide Squad actor: “Method.” The Dallas Buyers Club Oscar winner infamously stayed in character as the Joker while making the 2016 DC film Suicide Squad, going so far as gifting his castmates everything from a dead pig to a live rat and used condoms and anal beads. (In June, multiple women accused the actor of sexual misconduct. Leto has denied the allegations.) Leto said at the time that “the Joker is somebody who doesn’t really respect things like personal space or boundaries.”

But Jeff Bridges, Leto’s co-star in the upcoming Tron: Ares, didn’t oblige the Method-acting Leto’s request to refer to him by his character’s name. Leto plays Ares, a highly sophisticated Program created by the Dillinger corporation (headed by a mother-son duo, Gillian Anderson’s Elisabeth and Evan Peters’ Julian Dillinger).

“He would come on set and not talk to anyone, which to some cast members could be intimidating, but that’s what he wanted,” director Joachim Rønning says of Leto in the August 2025 issue of Empire Magazine. “That’s what he used, to play the character.”

Leto “was in character on and off set, for the entirety of the shoot,” according to Empire. “And when I spoke to him, I’d need to go into a role of some sort too,” Rønning said. As Master Control, Leto’s Ares is “like the general of the Grid, so I would treat him like that. When he’d come on to set we’d all straighten up a bit.”

All except Bridges, reprising his role as Kevin Flynn from the original Tron and 2010’s Tron: Legacy. “Since I’m Flynn, who created that whole world, I figured that I could call him whatever I wanted to,” Bridges told the magazine. “I respected his desire to be called Ares, and not have to switch back and forth, but as Flynn I felt sort of special, so on set I called him ‘Air.’ Flynn’s above the whole thing.”

Leto downplayed his “immersion” as the light suit-clad Program, saying, “It’s hard not to be immersed when your suit weights 40 lb. That’ll put you right in the sweet spot. It was painful. But I loved it. I was always happy to be in that suit. And that dictates the way you move, the way you hold your body, the way you walk. So a lot of the character was in the suit. You can’t put that suit on and not feel like a warrior from the future.”

In the third Tron movie and the first in 15 years, Ares is “sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with A.I. beings,” per the logline. Greta Lee, Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turner-Smith, Arturo Castro, and Cameron Monaghan also star.

Tron: Ares opens only in theaters October 10.