How could Jared Leto top the performances of Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson as The Joker? Obviously, we have no idea as Leto’s role as Batman’s arch-enemy in 2016’s Suicide Squad has yet to be seen and is currently being filmed.
But after director David Ayer released the first photo of Leto in his full Joker make-up, it appears that may have been the wrong question to ask.
The Suicide Squad wishes you a Happy Anniversary Mr. J! #Joker75 #SuicideSquad @WarnerBrosEnt @DCComics pic.twitter.com/LZXz0x947Q
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) April 25, 2015
That picture looks, quite frankly, insane. And since we’re talking about a character that is completely psychotic, that’s probably a good thing. But what strikes me about this image is that it’s actually unsettling. It’s scary.
Could you say that about Nicholson’s Joker? He looked great, with a brilliant wardrobe design. But did he strike any sort of fear in you? Ledger’s version of the character was disturbing, also due in large part to his costuming and make-up. Yet there was a darkness to him, a sense of anarchy and evil. Those aspects of the character were far more apparent because of how he was written, what he was like when you saw him in action.
But based solely on one photo, Leto’s Joker is chilling. I mean, do you know what to make of that guy? Are you worried what he might be capable of doing? I’m not just on edge when I look at him; I want to run the hell away from him. If you leave this on your monitor, let it go to sleep and someone else turns the screen back on in the morning, Leto’s face will scare the shit out of that poor soul.
So if the idea was to create a version of The Joker that was actually terrifying — and again, this is going off a photo, not on any moving images — Leto and Ayer have done their job well. If the intention was to come up with something that wasn’t anything close to previous incarnations of the character, taking his look to such an extreme that comparisons don’t even apply, then that objective has been achieved. Mission accomplished, gentlemen.
My initial reaction to seeing Leto as The Joker was that I hated it. What is with all those tattoos? Where are the facial scars that make his face into a permanent, warped smile? But as I study the picture more — while having to take breaks and look away, because come on — I’m coming around on the tattoos. More specifically, I’m coming around on the idea of The Joker having tattoos. As a friend of mine said, they provide a punk rock edge.
However, I think I still have an issue with the actual tattoos. “HAHAHAHA” inked all over his left forearm and chest? That seems more like something an artist would draw in an abstract illustration of The Joker. But maybe there’s a point in that somewhere. Perhaps he considers himself some sort of abstract concept and made his body into the canvas of expression.
The wide, creepy grin on his right forearm appears to be a concession to previous interpretations of the character. See, the ol’ Joker smile is there! The skull-faced jester on the right chest is intriguing. Perhaps that’s how The Joker sees himself, a clown who’s also a harbinger of death. It looks like a tattoo a biker might have, and maybe there’s a little bit of that in Leto’s Joker. And the teardrop? Hey, he’s been in prison (and is reportedly there at the beginning of Suicide Squad), so that makes sense.
But what I can’t really process is the “Damaged” scrawled on his forehead. The elegant font makes it kind of funny, perhaps. As if The Joker is the star of his own perfume or clothing ad. But it’s just a little too on-the-nose, right? It’s like Batman having “Grim” written on his face. Yes, we get it: This guy is damaged. Maybe he also considers himself damaged, and that’s his explanation for why he is what he is. Can you blame me? I’m damaged.
Yet maybe The Joker truly does view himself as damaged and that’s why he’s into so much body mutilation and modification. Instead of the signature facial scars, we have a man who’s literally scarred himself. That’s extended to his teeth as well. This Joker has a grill. I can’t quite believe I just typed those words, but there they are. Is there a little bit of hip-hop in this Joker too? Or are his teeth decayed enough where he needs those metal inserts? Metal dentures! Now that’s scary.
As I think more about it, perhaps I — along with just about every other pop culture and movie blogger or fan — am taking this image too literally. Maybe The Joker won’t really have all of these tattoos in the Suicide Squad movie. Perhaps this is sort of a concept, almost like an Instagram photo to fandom to celebrate the character’s 75th anniversary. Again, maybe this is meant to be an interpretation of how The Joker sees himself, rather than his actual physical appearance.
Part of me hopes that’s the case. Yet this Joker could definitely grow on me. I hate it less as I look at it more. This is like nothing we’ve ever seen before, though the green and purple nods to the character’s famous color palette.
I admire the desire to create something different here, something that makes an immediate impression, something that we’re definitely going to be talking about for months to come. We’ll probably be talking about it for more than a year, as Suicide Squad doesn’t hit theaters until Aug. 5, 2016. Leto and Ayer probably are actually laughing about that.
[The Wrap]
