“Morbius” Director Talks Jared Leto’s Method Acting

While Sony’s Spider-Man spin-off Morbius might be something of a critical dud, it was still able to bring audiences to the theaters, as the film took home the box office crown in its opening week.

And a lot of the early success for the project has to be laid at the feet of lead actor, Jared Leto, who’s known to go all in with his methods, living his characters, similar to screen greats like Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando. However, Leto’s approach has led to many wild stories from the sets of films like Suicide Squad, where he infamously played The Joker and refused to break character for anything.

Speaking with Uproxx, the director of Morbius, opened up about Leto’s commitment to method acting and what it looked like during production on the Marvel movie, commenting that:

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. All of the actors believe in processes. And you, as director, you support whatever makes it as good as you can be. But 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. 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. Because what’s different is what makes them tick. 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.

While this approach has led to a lot of success for Leto, such as his Oscar winning turn in Dallas Buyers Club and the recent Apple TV+ series, WeCrashed, Morbius has drawn dismal critical reviews, though audiences have been a little kinder. Whether the film has legs remains to be seen, and it might be that not even Leto’s focus on his craft can save this Vampire flick from biting the dust.