Morbius director Daniel Espinosa confirms Jared Leto pretended to be disabled between shoots
In a new interview, Espinosa defends Leto's method acting choices for the movie
Aux News Jared Leto
Jared Leto doesn’t know how not to take things to the extreme. He’s taken his method acting to alarming measures, like living on the streets in New York City to prepare for Requiem For A Dream; creepily gifting his Suicide Squad costars anal beads, condoms, and a mouse; and blinding himself with special lenses while playing Niander Wallace on Blade Runner 2049.
But it appears that Leto took things too far in order to play living vampire, Morbius. In an interview with Uproxx, Morbius director Daniel Espinosa confirmed the rumor that Leto was so committed to playing a disabled character that he would use crutches and limp his way to the bathroom whenever he had to go, so production had to convince the actor to use a wheelchair to speed up the process.
Espinosa tries to shine light into Leto’s decision, saying, “Because I think that what Jared thinks, what Jared believes, is that somehow the pain of those movements, even when he was playing normal Michael Morbius, he needed, because he’s been having this pain his whole life. Even though, as he’s alive and strong, it has to be a difference. Hey, man, it’s people’s processes.”
He adds, “All of the actors believe in processes. And you, as director, you support whatever makes it as good as you can be.”
When writer Mike Ryan notes that it must be frustrating when antics like that slow down production, Espinosa still defends Leto’s decision. “It’s more that I think the directors that don’t like actors get really frustrated about that. I think it’s really mysterious, what they do,” he responds. “Almost all actors, in general, have their own reputation of being an interesting person how he works with their characters. I think that all of them have these traits. If you want a completely normal person that does only things that you understand, then you’re in the wrong business.”
He continues, “It’s very hard to be able to say, “I can take this part away and I will still get the same stuff from him.’ I don’t do that. I’m more to see like, “Hey, if you’re doing this, we have to do this.”
Espinosa also talks about Leto’s problematic method acting in an interview with Movie Maker, where he says the actor would arrive to set acting like a “fully disabled person.” He says, “It would take him like 20 minutes to come to the front of the camera, because it was so hard [to walk]. This would also create pains in his body, to twist himself like that. But it was for him to remember the pain that the character had.”
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To quote Olivier, why don’t you just try acting?
When you hear about Day-Lewis’ quirky methods, you might be going like “what a weirdo!” but then you see one of his movies and it’s like “oh shit, I get it”.The same cannot be said about Jared Leto, who by all acounts sounds absolutely insufferable and doesn’t even act that great.I think he is a pretentious douchebag, vain and narcissistic, probably a real drag to be around. I cannot prove this. I just kind of know it to be true.
Right? I mean, Day-Lewis is bad enough and is insufferable in a lot of ways, he still comes off as a great actor and produced some very memorable films/characters. Leto is just insufferable without the skill or charisma that Day-Lewis has. (I still like Day-Lewis best in Last of the Mohicans over any of his other roles)
I can’t think of that movie with being reminded of this sketch.
“It’s important to me, as an actor, to fully realize the world and the pain inherent in the character of” *checks notes* “a comic book vampire.”
Didn’t you know, comic book movies are haute cinema now? Just ask the people in the comment sections of this very site who believed No Way Home deserved multiple Oscar nominations for the unheard of, groundbreaking cinematic feat of… having 3 different Spider-Men in the same movie.
Practically frustrating, Daniel Day-Lewis’ refusal to leave his
wheelchair meant that the film’s production assistants were forced to
lift the actor over the masses of equipment littered on set to get him
ready for his next scene. He had to be lifted across the lighting cables each day to reach the set. Furthermore, the actor took this a step
further during the production’s lunch break where it was reported that My Left Foot’s set assistants were made to spoon-feed the actor in accordance with the lifestyle of his character.
i’m not okay with an actor being a pain in the ass to the crew who work far more hours, get paid pennies compared to actors, and are treated like crap.
Oh well. That does sound bad. I am not okay with it either. BUT imagine the same routine being done for Jared Leto. That is still a much worse cost-benefit ratio.I mean damn, watching Day-Lewis in a movie still ends up being an incredible experience.
But yeah, ultimately, fuck all of that ridiculous bullshit. You’re an artist, use your imagination, for fuck’s sake. WTF is wrong with y’all?!
it makes him sound like a terrible actor, to be honest.
Lawrence Olivier: “My dear boy, why don’t you just try acting”
I’m a former actress, stopped when my disability got in the way – it’s REALLY not that hard to get into the head of a character without being the character. Every child nplayed “Let’s pretend”, actors just do it for a paycheck.
ditto
The hard part with DDL is he really does use those ridiculous ends to fully inhabit the characters he portrays. He won his first Oscar for My Left Foot. It’s sort of like an athlete who’s a pain in the ass in the locker room, but delivers on the field. It’s tolerated because it’s worth it. I…don’t get that from Leto.
What a fucking joke. I don’t care how good his performance was. Completely unnecessary. It’s ACTING. What a prick.
From most accounts Daniel Day-Lewis is just fine to the crew. This is from a quick Google search though so you never know I guess.
Also, if you’re going to do all of this anyway, hire an actually disabled actor.
I know hundreds who would step up.
Ok this DDL story is confusing – I’ve worked on a set, and you can’t have tripping hazards everywhere like that. It’s a workplace safety violation, and the union would riot. Even if standards were different then, why couldn’t they just make clearways for his wheelchair to get through, why carry him?
My favorite example of this was Johnny Depp’s insistence on having both his arms (which were hidden under long sleeves and did not appear on camera) covered fully in meticulously designed tattoos to “get in character” for his role on the 21 Jump Street movie.The process took hours, according to an interview with Phil Lord.
Which is ironic since according to other reports Depp hated his original 21 Jump Street role so much that he only accepted being in the film if they killed him off at the end.Maybe he was doing it deliberately to piss off everyone.
Maybe it was a case of “I don’t really want to be in this movie so I’ll make some ridiculous demands to make sure they really, really want me in the movie.”
“I’m too busy with this movie in which at best I will have very limited screentime in” did seem like a lame excuse at the time but apparently his Penguin will get some sort of spin-off so *shrugs*
Penguin?
Oops, sorry, wrong thread.
It’s not ok when Daniel Day Lewis does it, either. We just haven’t heard multiple stories about people saying that Lewis is a huge asshole on set. We have heard those stories about Leto, several times.
But with Lewis, its once like every 6 years. He’s not pulling that shit for every script tossed into his lap.
He’s not pulling that shit for every script tossed into his lap.
He pretty much did, since he only made 1 movie every 6 years or so. Lewis wasn’t a very prolific actor.
You missed the point. Lewis picks his scripts carefully, which is why his movies are so far apart but nearly all great.
Leto is the Walmart Joaquin Phoenix. It’s fine he has a process, but christ, some of those crew members would really like to go to lunch sometime soon.
But imagine how bad Leto’s acting might be if he DIDN’T stay in character!
Jesus I don’t even want to think about that…
You’d get….Requiem for a Dream, Fight Club, American Psycho. All good performances.
I don’t know about the latter two – or even remember his performance in them – but he was definitely problematic for Requiem, where he was repeatedly fainting on set, as the result of losing 30 pounds, living on the streets and injecting himself with water.
I mean, he’s barely in fight club or American psycho. Fight club he’s the pretty boy nothing who gets beaten to a pulp and mentally shattered, all without about facial expression from him. Psycho he’s the douchebag who gets axed to death. Both those films he seems to simply be acting and never seemed to do any method stuff. David Fincher in particular I imagine would never tolerate that.
If these obnoxious shenanigans keep him too busy to record more shitty music with his shitty band then I am all for it.
his band is better than his acting and i wish he would focus on that.
That’s damning with faint praise right there.
Oh, I know.But THIS IS WAR is one of my favorite albums of 2000-2009 and I am not being ironic nor apologetic. 30STM was a tremendous live show, had a blast, great experience. I’ve been to hundreds of concerts, that was up there with the best.That said, I enjoyed the music without any of the Leto-ness informing it. I don’t think I could genuinely move past the Leto of it all now to enjoy the music. That includes the bands’ fans and the weirdness around them. *shrug*
Exactly! I was just going to chime in the difference. When DDL goes into method mode, he turns film into gold. When Leto does it, he actively becomes the worst, most insufferable part of just about everything he’s in, on and off camera.
Nah. I still think “fuck that guy”
I think method acting is fucking ridiculous, and it the venn diagram of “assholes having behavior excused because of supposed ‘genius’” and “method acting” is a circle. however, to your point: DDL stories are miserable, but he has delivered unbelievable results. Leto acted as a shlocky vampire man in a shlocky vampire movie and needed to disgustingly act like he was “actually” disabled.
Method is for actors who don’t know wtf they’re doing. You DON’T need to BE the character to portray them and often doing so is a sign of mental disorder (being unable to separate reality from fiction) or someone with no thought process to see beyond themselves and empathize.
DDL and his three Oscars and countless other awards disagree with you. Maybe you can take it up with him if he wanders in for coffee on your next shift.
It’s clearly something that works for some people. To say Day-Lewis, Brando etc. “don’t know what wtf they’re doing” seems more like you want it to be true than an actual review of their performance.Brando’s got his own shit (ever since learning about “Last Tango in Paris” I’ve tried to de-Brando my media input, because Jesus H. Christ), but you watch Streetcar Named Desire or something and you can understand why the man was so feted in his time.
Actor Martin Freeman recently called out Jim Carrey for his over-the-top antics during the filming of the 1999 film, Man on the Moon, which included “stuffing his pockets with smelly cheese and hanging out with Hell’s Angels”. Freeman said: “It was the most self-aggrandizing, selfish, narcissistic fucking bollocks I have ever seen…You need to keep grounded in reality, and that’s not to say you don’t lose yourself in the time between ‘action’ and ‘cut’, but I think the rest of it is absolute pretentious nonsense”.Source: https://theconversation.com/hollywood-has-got-method-acting-all-wrong-heres-what-the-process-is-really-about-172568
Pro wrestler and real-life Andy Kaufman nemesis Jerry “The King” Lawler, who played himself in “Man in the Moon,” talked about how when they were on set Carrey wouldn’t talk to him, would run across the room. Basically treated Lawler like crap.Which is hilarious because of course the truth is that Lawler and Kaufman were in cahoots and working everybody.
Up until now, I had really been hoping that Leto would find a happy medium between what he was trying to do and what actually works because I feel like he does have what it takes to be good. But now it’s clear he’s more concerned with the process than the product. What a waste of everyone’s time!
I think I read too that DDL was able to use the general, “this fookin’ guy” attitude he was getting from the crew as some insight into how people treat people with disabilities.
The only time I really rolled my eyes at him was when he got sick from refusing to actually wear warm clothes on a set once because they weren’t period appropriate.
He was believably skinny for Requiem, but you don’t have to live on the streets for that. His character wasn’t even homeless in the movie
this. nic cage movies are more often than not enjoyable and he’s not an insufferable prick
I would rather act against Cage’s insanity then Leto’s, you would at least have fun.
This all sounds like reporting on how bad it would be to employ an actor who was actually disabled. Which is to say…. I don’t like being collateral damage in your hate boner for Jared Leto.
Except that hiring a disabled actor, you know going in what you’re getting into. With Leto, it was just as likely that he would have shown up on set sucking on a blood bag as it was him showing up on crutches.
I guarantee he absolutely 100% drank blood at some point to prepare for this.
Or told people he did, more likely.
Well said. She and Germaine both can Fuck off.
When a disabled person is hired, accomodations are made. When your non-disabled actor shows up and tells everyone “I’m going to pretend to be disabled even when I don’t have to and you all have to deal with it”, that actor is just an asshole.
What actually happens here is, people don’t want to “deal with it,” so they don’t hire a disabled person in the first place. Accommodations aren’t made because Bryan Cranston doesn’t need any.That “dealing with it, if I have to” attitude is the problem. This is apparently an industry where taking longer to use a bathroom is a fuckin headline — how the hell is a paraplegic supposed to catch a role? You get IBS, you never work again? They don’t even hire disabled voice actors. This industry deserves zero benefit of the doubt about accessibility, period.
Exactly – people are acting as though being a bit slow around the set was the end of the world. “Oh, if he has a medical excuse for it I guess I can put up with him if I have to but otherwise he’s a motherfucker who should never work again”. Well yeah, or we could give workers a little bit of breathing space to be human beings finding their own way of working, even if that means being a little inefficient now and then. Because if we assume that perfect efficiency is what we should always demand, unless someone has a doctor’s note, then in practice we’re going to skeptical of the doctor’s note too – we’re going to make you really ‘prove’ you ‘need’ the accomodation, or, as you say, we’re just quietly going to hire someone who doesn’t need the accomodation. [and this is not exactly hypothetical!] Whereas if we just expect that everyone will be “suboptimal” in their working, whether they have a doctor’s note or not, then we build a little leeway into the system in which everyone – ‘un-disabled’, visibly disabled, invisibly disabled, disabled but can’t prove it, disabled but won’t admit it, etc – can be cut a little slack without fear of being cut. After all, if a workplace can’t find a way to cope with the great DDL acting mostly as though he’s paraplegic most of the time, then there’s no way it’s going to be willing to find a way to cope with an unknown actor actually being paraplegic all the time.
Ya honestly the way this is framed makes it sound like the issue was the special needs he was afforded due to walking on crunches/using a wheelchair which is shitty. We should NOT hate Leto for that…
We should hate him because he’s an able bodied man who decided to cosplay being disabled so he could get into the wild and unimaginable head space of… Someone who uses mobility aids. Because god people with disabilities are so alien to *normal* people that in order to understand them you have to BECOME THEM! Its the only way to even begin to relate to their lives.*
*I am disabled myself, this is all sarcastic. Obviously.
I would argue that the one being disrespectful to physically disabled people here IS Leto. I feel the same way when people wear non-prescription glasses as a fashion statement. Here, let me wear your disability for a few hour for a laugh!
But that’s an argument against whomever cast him in the role. Whether that was right or wrong, once he’s in the role surely it’s even worse if he DOESN’T try to understand the experience he’d trying to convey?
Faking a disability when the cameras are off was a choice Leto made. Nobody told him to do that.Can it be argued that a disabled actor should’ve been cast? Yes. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about an able-bodied person faking a disability because 1) he wants to and 2) because he thinks nobody will call him out for it.People have been calling out Leto for being an asshole on sets for years now. It’s pretty clear that Leto’s just an asshole. That’s the reality.
As a disabled person and former acto4, I felt HIGHLY insulted by Leto. If I were to portray a blind person (not my current disability), it begins and ENDS in that scene. CLOSEST I might come is to wonder around my house blind to get a feel, interview people with the disability to get their thoughts on something and done.I don’t mock and play at being them non-stop, because I have a brainand imagination to fill the role.
I’ve worn glasses since I was 6, I’m 44 now and my kids wear them too and if you think that is equatable to mocking a disabled person and their disability there is something very wrong with you (or you’re being extremely sarcastic and doing it well)Please please tell me you’re kidding.
Yeah, frankly this sounds pretty mild on all three of the “being weird about acting”, “being annoying on set” and “being problematic in terms of representation and appropriation” scales. If the worst that’s going on on set is that an actor playing a character who uses crutches continues to use crutches around the set… meh. That seems both a reasonable “getting into the mood” preparation, and also just something people on a set should be able to put up with. [and it’s not like people wouldn’t have known in advance and prepared for something like this – you cast a famously method actor as a character who uses crutches, you just have to factor more leeway into your schedules].As you say, lots of actors and crew have disabilities at least as potentially disruptive as “walking slowly when going to the toilet between takes”; this is the kind of ‘disruption’ that reads less as ‘Leto is an asshole*’, and more as ‘the film set is a mechanical production line and people freak out over the slightest inefficiency’.*I mean, I’m not saying he’s NOT an asshole (independent evidence suggests he is), just that this seems a really weak new reason for hating him.
I think you have to overlay asking for that kind of cast and crew patience to the general experience of being around Leto.
something people on a set should be able to put up with
Why should they have to put up with entitled asshole insisting on faking a disability when the cameras are off?
As you say, lots of actors and crew have disabilities at least as
potentially disruptive as “walking slowly when going to the toilet
between takes”; this is the kind of ‘disruption’ that reads less as
‘Leto is an asshole*’, and more as ‘the film set is a mechanical
production line and people freak out over the slightest inefficiency’.
No, Leto’s an asshole for faking a disability when the cameras are off, causing issues for everyone around them. It wouldn’t be an issue if he was actually disabled. Accommodations can be made. This was a choice that Leto made, and it’s a choice that reinforces earlier reports that Leto is just a dick on set.
Someone appropriating a disability =/= someone who has a disability.
I run a Hotel. I will go ABSOLUTELY out of my way to help any guest out with disabilities. Anything at all they need to make their stay comfortable – it’s theirs. The shit-house guests wanting preferential treatment over everyone else because…they think they deserve it? They think everyone around them should pamper their fucking needs for some reason? They’re paying that tiny bit more so any asshole behaviour should be ignored? Fuck them.And any motherfucker that’s ever worked for me that thought they could get away with acting like a cunt because they decided they were too good at their job to not get told to fuck off, very quickly got told to fuck off.This type of behaviour just shouldn’t slide in any workplace in any factor. If you’re oblivious to how your actions are making other people miserable… everyone around you should have the right to tell you to sort your fucking shit out.
If an actor with a disability is hired, then the crew will almost certainly be notified well in advance and be able to arrange the set in order to accommodate said disability in order to minimise inconvenience and disruption for all.In this case, my guess is that Jared Leto pretty much just showed up on set on the day of shooting being all “oh, by the way, I have to act disabled for the sake of my method”, causing disruption and forcing everyone to accommodate him.
I also like the implication that people with disabilities spend all their time “hobbling” to the bathroom and slowing down the non-disabled people in their vicinity. It’s especially awesome because Jared Leto is supposed to be playing a professional with a chronic illness, and his perception is “this person can’t get to the bathroom in a timely fashion.” What a fucking turd.
Ok, as of now there is an updated 0.0% chance that Leto wasn’t sipping actual human blood during the filming of this magnum goofus.
I hope instead of reading any comic he just watched the 90s Spider-man cartoon and was running around set with suction cups on his fingers
Get that plasma!!!
PLAAAASMSSAAAAA
(Kang quietly pocketing the term ‘magnum goofus’)
Brilliant!
Thank you!
Espinosa seems to have been royally screwed by Sony who changed the movie radically over that past two years and have left him to basically promote it by himeself. Biggest revelation? The much discussed Spider-Man Murderer image from the trailers wasn’t shot by him and was never intended to be part of the movie.
Jesus Christ, did you and Germaine get “slack” boners over getting to write shit about Leto? I bet you were both ecstatic.Btw, this “Espinosa also talks about Leto’s problematic method acting” is your opinion, not fucking fact. YOU say it is problematic. Nowhere did Espinosa say that. Fucking hack.
Several of Leto’s costars from several other projects have said he’s an giant asshole on set.Not sure why writing about a celebrity who’ll never care that you exist pisses you off so much, but you clearly need professional help.
This is about the level of emotional control I would have imagined a passionate Jared Leto fan to have
RELEASE THE LETO-CUT!!!!
Don’t you have a 30 Seconds to Mars album to re-listen to?
I mean, yes? But also Leto is an asshole. 😉
The subtitle literally reads “Espinosa defended Leto’s acting choices.” To echo what others have said — and I say this with no resentment — you should get professional help because your anger clearly clouds your ability to think.
He’s not going to love you, you know?
Relax, nobody’s going to take your Jared Leto computer desktop wallpaper away.
I mean, did anyone seriously think Leto was suddenly going to stop going full method on every project?
Maybe they thought a comic book vampire would be where he had to draw the line, out of simple necessity??
Maybe Leto has been “going method” as a terrible actor everyone hates for years and years.
I kinda feel for the director. The quotes here really give off a sad “Leto’s more important than I am. This is my shot at directing a superhero franchise, and I’m chained to the cast. So yeah, I’m not going to bite the hand.”
Very much. This is a “say nothing and maybe you get more” statement.
From the linked Oral History of Requiem: There were so many great actors for that role that could have done it, but Marlon just came in and there was a level of commitment — I think he didn’t shower for three days.Like, wtf? lol even Marlon Wayans was weirdly method?
Please tell me Jennifer Connelly didn’t really film that ending scene…
please tell me she did…………….
No way man. That was like a horror movie. I don’t need my Jennifer Connelly degraded. Just let me have “The Rocketeer” and leave me alone for a few minutes a few times a day.
Yeah lol you’re probably right. I’d like Blood Diamond Jen Con because she is gorgeous, but also morally superior to me.
Jared Leto is an asshole. In other news, water is wet.
In other news, water is wet
dammit, zack snyder, you had such a great fucking cast and you had to suck
Jared Leto is such an exhausting person.
To quote Laurence Olivier’s famous rejoinder to Dustin Hoffman’s insistence on staying awake for days to get his character right in Marathon Man: “Why don’t you just try acting?”
Not as fun if you leave out the “dear boy”
“My dear boy, have you considered *acting*?”
And you have to say it mildly concerned.
“Have you tried acting, dear boy?”
gold. and when sir laurence fucking olivier is telling you that, you best come correct.
To be fair, that came when Olivier was fully in the, “You guys are paying me in cash, right?” stage of his career. From what I’ve read of him, the techniques he used in the 30s and 40s were annoying to the old-timers of that day.
I wonder if he tried to fly.
Has anyone seen a Jared Leto performance in anything that would come close to justifying any level of this method bullshit?
(crickets)
I did like his bit in American Psycho when Christian Bale chopped him up with an axe. He should take more roles like that.
Requiem for a Dream, but that is it…
He’s an entitled rich white boy with a show biz mom, i’m sure he didn’t have to stretch to far here.
I have a similar process. I plan to watch a bunch of really terrible movies so that I know how to react when I finally watch Morbius (I probably won’t). The pain will be exquisite.
dear andrew garfield: i’m sure sony is throwing money at you to reprise spider-man in this “venom verse”runrun awayplease
Note that in the photo of the three Spider-Men recreating the “Spider-Man pointing” thing, Andrew Garfield has his legs and torso angled into that awkward three-quarters angle that was common in 80s animation. Dude is a treasure and can do whatever he wants, is what I’m saying.
omg treasure
As Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman while making Marathon Man: “My dear boy, why don’t you try acting?”
I think it’s only fair if one person gets to be “method”, then all cast and crew get to. See how quick Leto stops when a PA keeps forgetting his lunch order because they’re in character as a goldfish.
“Sorry Jared, I have to keep hitting you with this two-by-four. I’m in character as someone who violently hates Jared Leto.”
Yeah, no. This is disgusting. Being an actor begins when you tell action and ends when they yell cut. Being disabled isn’t a process or prop and I would like to stop being treated as such.
I think he was trying to get out of finishing this utter shit of a movie
I have a visceral dislike of Jared Leto that is usually reserved for Scientologist actors.
The AV Club Outrage Machine just keeps chuggin’ along!
Yeah, no one is outraged. It’s just fun to dunk on Jared Leto.
To be fair, Leto was the least of the problems with the movie.
“I think it’s really mysterious, what they do.”
No, it isn’t. They read a script, they build a physicality and find a voice (shockingly, this is often extremely close to their own physicality and voice) and then they repeat it over and over and over again.
There’s no mystery, there’s no magic. It’s just work. Actors are not special, they’re just not embarassed to play pretend in front of people.
Unbelievable how little able-bodied actors respect the disabled community that they pretend to have physical ailments in between takes. If you actually have disabilities, a production will naturally understand the undertaking. But pretending to be unable to walk so you can “stay in character?” What an atrocious, vain, ostentatious man. Color me unimpressed when a 50-year old cult-like jerkwad’s plan of action is to pretend to be a disabled person for months on end.
Too bad he didn’t get into his Fight Club character by letting someone punch him in the face a dozen times.
The gap between “what a tool” and “weird genius” is basically in how you treat people.
There are few, if any, stories out there about Daniel Day-Lewis being an absolute dick to people. You hear a few stories about actors who couldn’t cut it acting opposite him – the kid who Paul Dano replaced in There Will Be Blood for one – but there don’t seem to be any horror stories of him being awful.
More often, it’s like Sally Field, who says she never met DDL until after the picture. More importantly, when you sign on for a DDL movie, you kind of know the drill, and he chooses roles where you expect it going in.
If anything, other than the My Left Foot thing, his excesses only seem to hurt himself. He made himself sick on Gangs of New York, but Leo and Cameron Diaz and Liam Neeson weren’t in constant danger. There’s also the famous story of him having to quit Hamlet mid-performance because he actually managed to conjure his father’s ghost in his mind and he lost his shit.
As for as Leto: I’m sympathetic to the notion that if you work hard to get your body in a specific stance, or master a specific accent, then it might be easier to keep using it than to go in and out, especially when God knows how many takes and special effects and all that are being used.
Notwithstanding his other bullshit antics, which have been a bit exaggerated – Viola Davis basically said Leto would not be alive today had he done to her what he is claimed to have done – this sounds like sour grapes from a director who is sad his movie isn’t getting good reviews.
I’m beginning to think method acting is just an excuse to be an asshole.
F
This
DOCUCHE
On behalf of disabled people, fuck him. To quote Dominick Evans on a recent webinar, “Disability is not something you can act – full stop.” If he’s going to put on being disabled like a costume for the cameras, that bad enough, but this type of behavior is just complete horseshit, and extraordinarily insulting to those of who who are disabled.
Fundamentally, being disabled isn’t about being “wrong” or “broken” or any of that crap – it’s about having a body/mind that society has decided isn’t “correct” for entirely arbitrary reasons. The very idea that acting “disabled” to try to put yourself in a place of pain is demeaning to our existence and the way we live our lives.
Either cast an actual disabled actor or get someone who isn’t so unbelievably self-absorbed as to think this is an okay way to act. (And that’s putting aside the extremely abusive behavior he’s shown in many other productions towards pretty much everyone around him in the name of his “method,” for which there is absolutely no excuse either.)
I would have just let him sit there and piss himself.
Then again i would never hire him for a project if he were the last actor on earth.