Jared Leto on ‘Suicide Squad’ Joker Deleted Scenes: ‘Were There Any That Didn’t Get Cut?’
The following post contains SPOILERS for Suicide Squad.
Jared Leto is the second name on the poster for Suicide Squad. The only actor billed above him is Will Smith; Leto is listed ahead of actors like Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, and Viola Davis, who, unlike the Joker, are all actual members of the Suicide Squad. Despite Leto’s billing, though, and despite the large amount of publicity surrounding his unusual version of the character (not to mention his unusual preparations to play the role, which included sending disgusting “gifts” to his colleagues), Leto has very little screen time in the final film. He’s featured mostly in flashbacks about Robbie’s Harley Quinn and her time before she was captured by Batman. When Joker finally appears in the contemporary story, he shows up to “rescue” Harley, fails, and crashes in a helicopter. Then he doesn’t show up again until the very last scenes of the movie, when he tries to break her out of prison.
Despite Leto’s commitment to the role, it’s not a very memorable performance. It’s barely a performance at all; Ben Affleck’s Batman almost has as much screen time and as many lines of dialogue in what was billed right from the get-go as a cameo. But as has already been detailed elsewhere, Suicide Squad went through a lot of changes in the editing room. Were there more Joker moments in the script or in previous cuts of the movie?
IGN posed that question to Jared Leto himself and got a revealing response. Asked what happened to the Joker between his helicopter crash and the final scene of the movie, Leto replied. “That’s a good question. I have no idea.” The dude went to the trouble to send dead pigs to people to get into character and he couldn’t even be bothered thinking about what happened to him after this key moment in the movie? That’s sort of odd.
Asked about deleted scenes, here‘s what Leto said next:
“Were there any that didn’t get cut? I’m asking you, were there any that didn’t get cut? There were so many scenes that got cut from the movie, I couldn’t even start. I think that the Joker ... we did a lot of experimentation on the set, we explored a lot. There’s so much that we shot that’s not in the film.
Director David Ayer is on record saying the theatrical cut of Suicide Squad is his cut of the film, regardless of any behind the scenes battles that went into making this version of the movie. That said, don’t be surprised if Warner Bros. repeats their Batman v Superman plan and announces some kind of “Ultimate Cut” of Suicide Squad for home video, with more footage, more violence, and plenty more of Jared Leto’s Joker. Financially, it’s a brilliant move. Warners gets a PG-13 movie for the big theatrical audience, then gets their hardcore fans to pay twice by putting a darker version with more stuff out on Blu-ray.
Hopefully an Ultimate Cut happens before Leto’s creepy prediction to IGN: “If I die anytime soon, it’s probably likely that it’ll surface somewhere. That’s the good news about the death of an actor is all that stuff seems to come out.” Man, is he still in character as the Joker after all these months?