BEAUTY issue
aRUDE comment
ONLINE content
ARBITERS
Questions for Stephen Knoll
A Girl's Best Friend
BON APPÉTIT
Questions for Nobu Matsuhisa
Questions for Tony Esnault
the new Le Cirque interview Iké Udé
BUSINESS OFF THE WALL
Questions for Nicholas Callaway
Questions for John Hunt
FASHION
Chinatown photography Norman Watson
Passions of Rihanna photography Iké Udé
KULTURE & ART CINEMA
Dominique Swain Lolita Has A Tattoo interview Brandon Judell
Jared Leto My Bashed-up Life On Screen interview Brandon Judell
Zoe Saldana No Regrets interview Brandon Judell
KULTURE & ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders portraits backstage at Olympus Fashion Week interview Valerie Steele
Francesco Clemente Impermanence of The Self interview Johan Falkman
Roger Szmulewicz Looking at Pictures interview Parker Stephenson
aRUDE comment
beauty_issue_jleto.php
ONLINE content
ARBITERS
Questions for Stephen Knoll
A Girl's Best Friend
BON APPÉTIT
Questions for Nobu Matsuhisa
Questions for Tony Esnault
the new Le Cirque interview Iké Udé
BUSINESS OFF THE WALL
Questions for Nicholas Callaway
Questions for John Hunt
FASHION
Chinatown photography Norman Watson
Passions of Rihanna photography Iké Udé
KULTURE & ART CINEMA
Dominique Swain Lolita Has A Tattoo interview Brandon Judell
Jared Leto My Bashed-up Life On Screen interview Brandon Judell
Zoe Saldana No Regrets interview Brandon Judell
KULTURE & ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders portraits backstage at Olympus Fashion Week interview Valerie Steele
Francesco Clemente Impermanence of The Self interview Johan Falkman
Roger Szmulewicz Looking at Pictures interview Parker Stephenson
JARED LETO my bashed-up life on screen
interview Brandon Judell
Jared Leto photography Garth Stead
click image to enlarge
Brandon Judell: In many of your films, you are disfigured or killed. In Requiem For a Dream, your arm becomes infected and is amputated. In Fight Club, your face is pulverized. In Panic Room, you're badly burned. In American Psycho, you're brutally murdered with an axe, while in the highly underrated Lord of War you're blown up. Is mutilation of your character necessary for you to accept a part?
Jared Leto: It's become a common contractual obligation to destroy myself as often as possible! I don't know what my problem is! The movie I did after Lord of War is even worse. It's called Lonely Hearts with John Travolta, James Gandolfini and Salma Hayek. And in the one after that, the one I?m doing this year, which I can't talk about yet, I get a beating in it as well. I don't know, maybe I?ll die a horrible violent death soon, and people can kind of translate that and interpret it in all kinds of bizarre ways. Really, I just want to make films that I?m proud of, and do work that is challenging. And these are the scripts and the parts that I respond to, and I feel fortunate to work with good directors; that's what I really like to do.
BJ: You're rumored to be a method actor, taking your parts extremely, sometimes dangerously, to heart. In Lonely Hearts you had to go around killing old ladies. How did that affect you?
JL: That movie really made me want to never make a film again. It was so dark—brutal and dark… . The people were great. The director was great. Everything was fantastic as far as that went, but it was so dark.It was very, very, very challenging. The two women [Hayek and Laura Dern] did an incredible job. I played a guy who was bald. So I plucked my hair with tweezers every single day for hours every morning. That was just the beginning of it. I played this very strange guy with this moustache and this weird voice. It was just something that was… it actually made me question why I was doing it, made me really want to just make fucking romantic comedies—make a movie about a sheepdog that talks or something. But I think there was a great amount of reward there. I'm still discovering it—creative reward. But it was just a very, very challenging time. It?s either going to be the best thing I've ever done or ruin me completely. Really.
BJ: What was your reason for plucking the hair and not shaving it?
JL: Because I wanted to leave some strands, and I don't like to wear wigs or do any of that. I wanted to look as authentic as possible…. So every day or so, you got to go and pluck all the hairs!
BJ: When you look in the mirror, do you see what we see? The perfect bone structure, the lush lips…the…
JL: (Laughs out loud) Oh yeah, right! Let me tell you something: oh no! Come on, man, I just try not to look into the mirror!
BJ: The rest of us examine our faces, and moan, Why couldn't my parents have had at least one of Jared's genes?!
JL: (Laughs) That is very kind. Thank you.
JL: Not at all, not one bit. I think we're all dissatisfied. That's what makes us human, makes us want more. But I'm grateful for my healthy body and mind, and that I'm able to pursue my dreams. But beyond that, I don't… there is plenty, I think, for any person to get insecure about.
BJ: I came across some tabloid articles that appeared in local South African papers when you were shooting Lord of War over there. They're so gossipy, I don't know if you want to discuss them….
JL: Tabloidy stuff? It's all bullshit probably. It's funny, but South Africa's very much like a small town. And when I went down there, it happened more than a few times where people met me and then sold stories to the papers. I was talking to Colin Farrell, and the same thing happened to him—people you were meeting and having a conversation with, would just go sell a story or a photograph that you had taken. It happens, and you deal with it…I did have a giant S&M party down there that never made the papers. So there you go!
BJ: Do you have any photos?
JL: Oh, I've got photos but they're not developed. I invited everybody! I was trying to learn how to have fun. It was the first party I ever threw and it was a giant fetish Sand everybody from the crew…. I gave out, I think, 50 invitations and 500 people from Cape Town showed up at my house. Then police showed up, and it was insanity.
BJ: Should readers take this tale with a grain of salt?
JL: It's the complete truth, the complete truth. You should have seen me. I'd give you a picture if I had it. It was great fun. I'm proud of that night. No shame in that. It was a blast. Everybody got dressed. There were girls in nurse's outfits. I was in some bizarre mixture of a gimp and a priest. I changed outfits at midnight actually.
BJ: Won't your publicist have conniptions if this story is printed?
JL: Oh, no. It's all in good fun, all in good fun. Andrew [Niccol, director of Lord of War] was there. Just ask Andrew.
interview Brandon Judell
Jared Leto photography Garth Stead
click image to enlarge
Brandon Judell: In many of your films, you are disfigured or killed. In Requiem For a Dream, your arm becomes infected and is amputated. In Fight Club, your face is pulverized. In Panic Room, you're badly burned. In American Psycho, you're brutally murdered with an axe, while in the highly underrated Lord of War you're blown up. Is mutilation of your character necessary for you to accept a part?
Jared Leto: It's become a common contractual obligation to destroy myself as often as possible! I don't know what my problem is! The movie I did after Lord of War is even worse. It's called Lonely Hearts with John Travolta, James Gandolfini and Salma Hayek. And in the one after that, the one I?m doing this year, which I can't talk about yet, I get a beating in it as well. I don't know, maybe I?ll die a horrible violent death soon, and people can kind of translate that and interpret it in all kinds of bizarre ways. Really, I just want to make films that I?m proud of, and do work that is challenging. And these are the scripts and the parts that I respond to, and I feel fortunate to work with good directors; that's what I really like to do.
BJ: You're rumored to be a method actor, taking your parts extremely, sometimes dangerously, to heart. In Lonely Hearts you had to go around killing old ladies. How did that affect you?
JL: That movie really made me want to never make a film again. It was so dark—brutal and dark… . The people were great. The director was great. Everything was fantastic as far as that went, but it was so dark.It was very, very, very challenging. The two women [Hayek and Laura Dern] did an incredible job. I played a guy who was bald. So I plucked my hair with tweezers every single day for hours every morning. That was just the beginning of it. I played this very strange guy with this moustache and this weird voice. It was just something that was… it actually made me question why I was doing it, made me really want to just make fucking romantic comedies—make a movie about a sheepdog that talks or something. But I think there was a great amount of reward there. I'm still discovering it—creative reward. But it was just a very, very challenging time. It?s either going to be the best thing I've ever done or ruin me completely. Really.
BJ: What was your reason for plucking the hair and not shaving it?
JL: Because I wanted to leave some strands, and I don't like to wear wigs or do any of that. I wanted to look as authentic as possible…. So every day or so, you got to go and pluck all the hairs!
BJ: When you look in the mirror, do you see what we see? The perfect bone structure, the lush lips…the…
JL: (Laughs out loud) Oh yeah, right! Let me tell you something: oh no! Come on, man, I just try not to look into the mirror!
BJ: The rest of us examine our faces, and moan, Why couldn't my parents have had at least one of Jared's genes?!
JL: (Laughs) That is very kind. Thank you.
It's become a common contractual obligation to destroy myself as often possible.
BJ: So you don't see that?
JL: Not at all, not one bit. I think we're all dissatisfied. That's what makes us human, makes us want more. But I'm grateful for my healthy body and mind, and that I'm able to pursue my dreams. But beyond that, I don't… there is plenty, I think, for any person to get insecure about.
BJ: I came across some tabloid articles that appeared in local South African papers when you were shooting Lord of War over there. They're so gossipy, I don't know if you want to discuss them….
JL: Tabloidy stuff? It's all bullshit probably. It's funny, but South Africa's very much like a small town. And when I went down there, it happened more than a few times where people met me and then sold stories to the papers. I was talking to Colin Farrell, and the same thing happened to him—people you were meeting and having a conversation with, would just go sell a story or a photograph that you had taken. It happens, and you deal with it…I did have a giant S&M party down there that never made the papers. So there you go!
BJ: Do you have any photos?
JL: Oh, I've got photos but they're not developed. I invited everybody! I was trying to learn how to have fun. It was the first party I ever threw and it was a giant fetish Sand everybody from the crew…. I gave out, I think, 50 invitations and 500 people from Cape Town showed up at my house. Then police showed up, and it was insanity.
BJ: Should readers take this tale with a grain of salt?
JL: It's the complete truth, the complete truth. You should have seen me. I'd give you a picture if I had it. It was great fun. I'm proud of that night. No shame in that. It was a blast. Everybody got dressed. There were girls in nurse's outfits. I was in some bizarre mixture of a gimp and a priest. I changed outfits at midnight actually.
BJ: Won't your publicist have conniptions if this story is printed?
JL: Oh, no. It's all in good fun, all in good fun. Andrew [Niccol, director of Lord of War] was there. Just ask Andrew.
