Suicide Squad star Jared Leto is just mad about his Justice League director Zack Snyder, calling the Snyder Cut filmmaker a “warrior” and a “madman.” In Zack Snyder’s Justice League — the superhero ensemble’s never-before-seen director’s cut coming to HBO Max in March as a four-hour movie — Leto reprises the Joker role for the first time since the David Ayer-directed Suicide Squad in 2016. Leto was among the DC Extended Universe actors recruited for a brief round of additional photography needed to complete Snyder’s Justice League in October, joining Ben Affleck (Batman), Henry Cavill (Superman), Ray Fisher (Cyborg), Amber Heard (Mera), and Joe Manganiello (Deathstroke).
“He’s a warrior. He’s a madman. I really love him,” Leto gushed to Jake’s Takes about his Justice League director. “With every character I play — I don’t know if its because I work so intently and I tend to dig really deep and put a lot of time and energy into it — but when I’m done playing with them, done playing the parts, I do miss them a little bit.”
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Acknowledging that it would be nice to “go back and explore” characters like Blade Runner 2049‘s Niander Wallace and Albert Sparma, Leto’s suspected serial killer in HBO Max movie The Little Things, the Morbius actor appreciates the opportunity to revisit the Joker.
“You do all this work and then you’re done, so it is nice to revisit things. You know, parts like the Joker, like Sparma, what’s really great about those roles is they can be intense and dark, but there’s also a lot of freedom and abandon there,” Leto said. “And that’s really fun for me, it’s fun for the other actors, it’s fun for the crew. With both of those roles, there was lots of laughter on the set and a lot of joy because you would improvise and say something really funny. So it’s always a lot of fun when you can hear people cracking up on the other side of the camera, and I like that quite a bit.”
Snyder confirmed Leto’s Justice League return when he revealed his “road-weary” Joker would appear with a new look that will “honor what had been created with him [in Suicide Squad] because I thought it was really cool.”
“I’m not going to tell you what happens in the little scene, but some water has gone under the proverbial bridge between when last we saw Joker and this appearance. He’s a road-weary Joker, I guess that’s a way of saying it,” Snyder previously told Beyond the Trailer. “I will say it was fun having a segment of the band together for this little vignette, if you will. Working with Jared was really amazing, his attention to detail, he really cares a lot about it being awesome. It was fun and everyone did an amazing (job).”
Zack Snyder’s Justice League releases on HBO Max in March.
