'Suicide Squad' News: Jared Leto Sent Weird Gifts - Including a Dead Pig - to the Film's Cast, Viola Davis Reveals
Although the film is yet to be released, "Dallas Buyers Club" actor Jared Leto has received much praise for his portrayal of the psychopathic villain Joker in the upcoming superhero film "Suicide Squad."
Leto is succeeding the late actor Heath Ledger, who played the role in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" (2008), for which he was posthumously awarded the 2009 Best Supporting Actor Oscar. And just like Ledger, Leto reportedly employed the Method acting technique for his role in "Suicide Squad."
In an interview during Vanity Fair's Hollywood cover shoot, "How to Get Away With Murder" actress Viola Davis, who plays Amanda Waller in "Suicide Squad," talked about the extents to which Leto inhabited his role and revealed how the actor would send the film's cast members creepy gifts. The actor reportedly sent a live rat to Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), bullets to Will Smith (Deadshot), and a mysterious package to Jay Hernandez (El Diablo).
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But the most bizarre of all the actor's gifts may be the one he sent via a henchman.
"He gave some really horrific gifts," Davis told Vanity Fair. "He had a henchman who would come into the rehearsal room, and the henchman came in with a dead pig and plopped it on the table, and then he walked out. And that was our introduction into Jared Leto."
"Now I'm terrified this is a person thinking, 'Is he crazy?' But the second part was, 'Oh s–t. I gotta have my stuff together,'" the actress continued. "You talk about commitment and then he sends Margot Robbie a black rat. It was still alive in a box. She screamed, and then she kept it."
In the upcoming film, which is based on the antihero team of the same name in the DC Comics, Davis plays the role of a government official in charge of putting the Suicide Squad together and giving them their orders.
"Suicide Squad" hits movie theaters on Aug. 5.
