Director Daniel Espinosa was left “scared” for Jared Leto after seeing his Method acting on the set of Morbius.
The Dallas Buyers Club actor is known for living as his characters while filming his projects. Rumours circulated that he had sent his fellow cast-members used condoms and dead rats while playing the Joker in Suicide Squad, which he denied. He also supposedly made himself “partially blind” on the set of Blade Runner 2049.
His latest role is in the Marvel film Morbius, in which he plays a supervillain with vampiric tendencies.
Speaking to Variety, director Espinosa said that filming the superhero movie was often intense, with certain scenes seeing Morbius lock himself in a room to resist his desire for a blood, as well as shattering glass.
“I got scared for Jared,” Espinosa said. “He really commits. You have to watch out for it.”
Of the glass-shattering scene, he continued: “I could sense the crew backed off. It was a bit spooky.”
Elsewhere in the profile, the creators of TV series WeCrashed – in which Leto also will star – insisted that his method acting was not tiring or irritating for other members of the cast, but rather that it encouraged them to up their games.
“I found it electric,” Lee Eisenberg said. “He is saying to you, ‘For the next four months, I’m going to inhabit this person.’”
Co-creator Drew Crevello added: “The highest compliment I could pay is that it felt strange to call him ‘Jared’ after production.”
It comes after Leto’s WeCrashed co-star Anne Hathaway explained the hilarious way she made the actor break his four-month long Method acting streak on set.
“I didn’t know what would happen because he’s so intense in his commitment to his process, but I swear to god, he split into three,” Hathaway said.
Morbius is out on Friday 1 April.
