Jared Leto says he is “fascinated” by immersive character work and enjoys seeing other actors transform themselves for roles.
The US actor said he finds transformative work “really rewarding” and “exciting”.
He is known for having played roles requiring intense physical changes, including for 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club and most recently House Of Gucci, in which he starred alongside Lady Gaga.
Makeup and hair for his character Paolo Gucci took six hours per day while filming and Leto said the styling teams were “genius”.
Speaking about the character compared to his other roles, he told Deadline: “(Paolo) stands with equal weight alongside other characters that I’ve played.
“I’m really fascinated by immersive work and transformative, transformational work, it’s exciting to me.
“I like to see other actors do it, I really enjoy diving deep like that and I find it really rewarding”.
Leto will also star as vampire-superhero Michael Morbius in the upcoming film Morbius, a role for which he also made a physical transformation.
“(While filming House Of Gucci) my hair was down to (my waist) because it was during Covid and we went and shot this film and they literally deserve an award for hiding all that hair,” he said.
“We had some additional shooting for Morbius so we couldn’t cut it.
“The hair and make up on this project were just genius and I’m so grateful to them, not only did they do beautiful work but they did it in such a short amount of time.
“I never even thought about the hair and makeup, I never even felt it”.
He added: “The physical part of it is really fascinating, whether it’s hair and make up and the way you walk and talk, the dialect, your accent, the rhythm or range – all of that is meaningless if you don’t have the heart and soul and spirit of this character”.
House Of Gucci has been nominated for several awards so far in 2022, including the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award for best cast in a motion picture.