дневник заведен 01-04-2004
постоянные читатели [44]
4ertik, BLACK CROW, GephUllen, Handler, Hrofyaltur Censoriel, Hydralisk, IrUsJA Backsey inc, Johannes Kreisler, Julkin, kivi, LaTristesse, Leave-me-alone, Longhkaster, miu-miu, mute, nedo, pms, Poison Heart, Princessen, RADAR, ryecat, Strange Mind, Supernatural, Tonchi, Uxia, Ville Vikernes, Альхен, Амедеа, Анхесенпаатон Ра, Белокурая Бестия, Бордо, Букля_, Ибтихадж, Королева Кошка, Ленивая кошка, Мелюзина, ПАРАД УРОДОВ, Паранормальный клуб, Пиковая Дама, Политклуб, Правители Эотеллы, Скромняга-2, Совы нежные, ТАРЗАНКА
4ertik, BLACK CROW, GephUllen, Handler, Hrofyaltur Censoriel, Hydralisk, IrUsJA Backsey inc, Johannes Kreisler, Julkin, kivi, LaTristesse, Leave-me-alone, Longhkaster, miu-miu, mute, nedo, pms, Poison Heart, Princessen, RADAR, ryecat, Strange Mind, Supernatural, Tonchi, Uxia, Ville Vikernes, Альхен, Амедеа, Анхесенпаатон Ра, Белокурая Бестия, Бордо, Букля_, Ибтихадж, Королева Кошка, Ленивая кошка, Мелюзина, ПАРАД УРОДОВ, Паранормальный клуб, Пиковая Дама, Политклуб, Правители Эотеллы, Скромняга-2, Совы нежные, ТАРЗАНКА
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- • лента
25-01-2005 10:35
..не качегары мы не плотники...а мы изображаем бухого скалолаза.........или - как раздвигаются рамки возможного после почти года съёмок у Стоуна..гыгы 
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Камрад
Rock & Roles
Source: Flaunt Magazine #59
Article By: Shari Roman
Transcribed By: Jared Leto Media
Date: December 2004
"This is fantastic," murmurs Jared Leto as the relentless Moroccan sun sears destiny into his bronzed, bare skin. He is sweating under his tight armor. His dark horse, Mateo, quivers beneath him and paws the ground nervously. A signal is given.
Leto howls a great animalistic yowl straight from his belly to the ears of the gods. There is another howl, then another. Thousands of voices fuse into one animal cry. A legion of alpha males surges forward to meet the enemy, Leto, blond hair hair streaming past his shoulders, muscular thighs gripped bareback on his galloping horse, rides hard into the thick of a bloody combat. His sword cuts through all who oppose him.
This is the filming of Oliver Stone's Alexander and the legendary battle of Gaugamela, Alexander's greatest victory over the Persians - a turning point in his conquest of the known world. Stone's sweeping historical saga charts the life and the legend of one of the greatest figures in world history. The story is an epic that is a daring and ambitious as its subject, a relentless conqueror who, by the age of 32, had amassed the greatest empire the world hade ever seen.
Through the clouds of dust, Leto can see Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great, his massive blade slicing into flesh and sinew. There is the director, Oliver Stone, shouting, moving rapidly behind the camera line. There are hordes of men bellowing, bleeding, bodies everywhere. On the fringes lurks famed military trainer and Stone cohort, Captain Dale Dye. Today, the Captain isn't wearing his favorite T-shirt emblazoned with the motto: "Pain is weakness leaving the body," but Leto needs no reminders.
Leto has always propelled himself into physical extremes to live inside a character. As the champion runner Steve Prefontaine, he bled his feet to the bone. In the drug-fueled Requiem For A Dream, he reportedly swore off sex (with then girlfriend, Cameron Diaz) and lost 28 pounds to play a junky. Then there was Fight Club (he'd been recommended for the part his friend, fellow pretty boy, Brad Pitt.), in which he begged to have his angelic face beaten to a pulp by a jealous Ed Norton to prove his fealty. Suffering, pain, causality, creation through transformation. Leto has pledged himself above and beyond to those epithets years ago.
"Killing people face to face for a living, that was their job," explains a laidback Leto a few months later from a low-key restaurant in Southern California. It's early afternoon. His clothing is relaxed and he looks pleasantly tired.
"It's not jet lag. I'm over that. I just couldn't sleep." It's not due to time spent with his (purported) new, luscious It-girl Scarlett Johansson. He's been concentrating on working on some new songs for his band, 30 Seconds To Mars, taking meetings between rehearsals before he heads off to New York and South Africa for three months to play another aggressor of sorts - an arms dealer - in the film Lord of War, with Nicolas Cage and director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca).
He is still pretty tan, making those pioneering blue eyes even more startling. His long, blonde warrior-god locks are gone now, dyed and clipped into a light brown Erik Estrada-style shag for the new movie. But there is still a trace of the Irish lilt he took on for Alexander. (Aside from gearing it toward Farrell's natural tones, Stone's rationale for the accent was that historically, the Macedonians were to the Greeks what the Irish have been to the English.) Most of the 15 pounds of muscle weight that he strapped on for the six-month shoot has slipped from his slim frame. Even so, the intensity of that experience is still on his mind and in his body.
"The film has plenty of f***ing and fighting and killing and death and blood. My job was to murder people and stand by Alexander." who, according to history, was his best friend since childhood, and his lover.
"Hephaestion, the character I play, and [Alexander] have a really special connection. It's a strong, strong relationship. I don't think there is a term we have today to define their relationship," he says, deliberately muddling around the oft-asked erotic question.
Farrell says, "There was no term for 'bisexuality'. It was just the way society was. People made love to men and women. It was only later on you had to pick one side of the fence."
"But I promise you, in the film," Leto teases, despite the magnetic charms of Farrell, and costars Rosario Dawson and Angelina Jolie, who play Alexander's wife and mother, "the only kiss I gave out was to my horse. My one true love."
He takes the tape recorder and places it gently against his chest, which holds within it the soul of a man who many have tried to reveal before. "I always tell the truth. What else do you want to know? What do people really want to know? What is the truth?" His face is a pure cheeky choir boy dare. "When have I ever not told you the truth? How can you tell that I'm lying?"
I remind him that the last time we met, he told me he owned three Uzis, that the first girl he kissed was a 47-year-old tranny named Jorge, that he was 19, raised by circus performers, and that he studied art at the American University of Paris for a semester, but was booted out when he wouldn't give in to the attentions of the headmaster. And he wouldn't back down to any of those "facts".
He laughs. "Really? As Ronald Regan used to say, 'I have no memory of saying such things.' "
Says producer/director David Fincher, who worked with Leto on both Fight Club and Panic Room, "When it comes to his acting, he is beyond method. He gets into this whole image of his character. It is interesting how that kind of pain and sacrifice can translate. I mean, look at Requiem. I wish I had 100 Jareds working for me. He was amazing.
"Jared definitely strives not to be a victim of his genetics. On the films we did together, he was the guy who is constantly curious, the one you couldn't bottle up. The one who wouldn't hit his mark. He was like, 'Hey, I'm living it! Over here!' But he does like to tell stories. It goes kind of like, 'How can you tell when Jared is lying? His lips are moving.' "
Leto, who prefers to see his playful fibbing as a way to keep his private life private, was born the day after Christmas, 33 years ago, in Bossier City, Louisiana. His mother was an artistic soul, and with his father out of the picture, he and his brother, Shannon (who is also in 30 Seconds To Mars), traveled a great deal while they were growing up. After a stint at New York's School of Visual Arts, he says, he came to Los Angeles around 12 years ago with a couple hundred bucks in his pocket, no friends, and nowhere to stay. For awhile, he slept on Venice Beach. Then kaboom! a role on television's My So-Called Life (opposite Claire Daines) and for the next few years, he reigned as a teen pinup - a tag and a look he has been successfully living down ever since.
According to Leto, "Luck is the residue of destiny." It's a phrase he's heard which he likes very much. He feels it means that we can get caught up in so many things, but the world has what it has for us. That, in our natural state, everything is the way it's supposed to be - free and joyous - and that our own insecurities get in the way of all that. It's an idea which could be applied to his early life.
"When I was young, all that traveling was exciting," says Leto. "You do develop an ability to read people more quickly. You have to learn to adapt to whatever comes along, to survive. Maybe the way I grew up is why I'm drawn to acting, to different characters. From film to film, I'm constantly finding myself, reaching different places outside and inside myself. I want to change, to morph into something else." To be able to do that for Oliver Stone is a gift, says Leto. "He is one of my f***ing heroes. He is a great man. Present, connected, very physical. I find his way very endearing."
To work with Stone, he traveled to Morocco, where the oncoming sunset had turned the world orange, into the color of dark rust. But the sky was growing dark, the golden scorpions were scuttling under the rocks, another sandstorm was moving toward the camp, fast.
Within moments, Leto, wearing his usual training gear - a T-shirt, tight shorts, boots covering his calves - couldn't see two feet ahead of him. The sand whipped raw against his skin as he made for his tent. Inside, he tightened the flap and listened to the wind howl. He had switched off his cell phone, his e-mail. He hadn't spoken to anyone in the U.S. for months. Apocalyptic fantasies crowded his brain. Many in the cast had already been horribly sick. There was a virus in the dust. His tent was next door to the latrine and he could hear cast and crew heave by the dozens.
One night, Leto got so sick, he thought he was going to toss a spleen. "I lay in bed for a couple of hours staring at the stars, just breathing really slow, willing it away. I fell asleep dreaming strange, surreal dreams. When I woke up, it was gone. That's the desert."
Says Dawson, "It was beyond primal, all those men bonding - horse training, fighting, all buffed up wearing nearly nothing. And as soon as a woman came on set, the energy was so damn erotic.
"One time Jared came to visit the hotel [where women stayed]. He was so happy to be there. He got to take a shower, have some proper food. So he's talking, sitting there, and just sort of adjusting the package, not sexually, but in this slow, languorous way, like there was no one else around. It was all suited to his character, but I was like, 'Hey dude...'
"And he was like, 'I'm sorry! We're out there in our underwear and boots all the time... maybe it's got us a little too relaxed.' Maybe. But it was all good." She bats her eyes. "It was wonderful being around that kind of really masculine environment."
"Oh, Rosario," responds Leto, "she is so beautiful. Such a great woman." He drops his head, smiling, not exactly asking for forgiveness. "Working on Alexander was an amazing experience. It's all about connectivity. There is an old saying that the greatest leader is the servant of them all. Meaning, you are the most powerful when you are giving."
"I think that as an artist, in any kind of expression of creation, that you must have to be in love with the process. It is the most exciting part of the work, and that if you have a desire for greatness, you will have to be willing to f***ing bleed. I think it's true for me. That's what drives me."
He claps his hands over his face. "F***. People are going to read this and think, 'What the f***? Is weirdo Leto on crack? Hitting the old acid tab again.' But honestly, it's what I believe. One of my favorite things about getting older is that my intuition is often wrong. To me, it means I'm uncovering something new about the world.
Source: Flaunt Magazine #59
Article By: Shari Roman
Transcribed By: Jared Leto Media
Date: December 2004
"This is fantastic," murmurs Jared Leto as the relentless Moroccan sun sears destiny into his bronzed, bare skin. He is sweating under his tight armor. His dark horse, Mateo, quivers beneath him and paws the ground nervously. A signal is given.
Leto howls a great animalistic yowl straight from his belly to the ears of the gods. There is another howl, then another. Thousands of voices fuse into one animal cry. A legion of alpha males surges forward to meet the enemy, Leto, blond hair hair streaming past his shoulders, muscular thighs gripped bareback on his galloping horse, rides hard into the thick of a bloody combat. His sword cuts through all who oppose him.
This is the filming of Oliver Stone's Alexander and the legendary battle of Gaugamela, Alexander's greatest victory over the Persians - a turning point in his conquest of the known world. Stone's sweeping historical saga charts the life and the legend of one of the greatest figures in world history. The story is an epic that is a daring and ambitious as its subject, a relentless conqueror who, by the age of 32, had amassed the greatest empire the world hade ever seen.
Through the clouds of dust, Leto can see Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great, his massive blade slicing into flesh and sinew. There is the director, Oliver Stone, shouting, moving rapidly behind the camera line. There are hordes of men bellowing, bleeding, bodies everywhere. On the fringes lurks famed military trainer and Stone cohort, Captain Dale Dye. Today, the Captain isn't wearing his favorite T-shirt emblazoned with the motto: "Pain is weakness leaving the body," but Leto needs no reminders.
Leto has always propelled himself into physical extremes to live inside a character. As the champion runner Steve Prefontaine, he bled his feet to the bone. In the drug-fueled Requiem For A Dream, he reportedly swore off sex (with then girlfriend, Cameron Diaz) and lost 28 pounds to play a junky. Then there was Fight Club (he'd been recommended for the part his friend, fellow pretty boy, Brad Pitt.), in which he begged to have his angelic face beaten to a pulp by a jealous Ed Norton to prove his fealty. Suffering, pain, causality, creation through transformation. Leto has pledged himself above and beyond to those epithets years ago.
"Killing people face to face for a living, that was their job," explains a laidback Leto a few months later from a low-key restaurant in Southern California. It's early afternoon. His clothing is relaxed and he looks pleasantly tired.
"It's not jet lag. I'm over that. I just couldn't sleep." It's not due to time spent with his (purported) new, luscious It-girl Scarlett Johansson. He's been concentrating on working on some new songs for his band, 30 Seconds To Mars, taking meetings between rehearsals before he heads off to New York and South Africa for three months to play another aggressor of sorts - an arms dealer - in the film Lord of War, with Nicolas Cage and director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca).
He is still pretty tan, making those pioneering blue eyes even more startling. His long, blonde warrior-god locks are gone now, dyed and clipped into a light brown Erik Estrada-style shag for the new movie. But there is still a trace of the Irish lilt he took on for Alexander. (Aside from gearing it toward Farrell's natural tones, Stone's rationale for the accent was that historically, the Macedonians were to the Greeks what the Irish have been to the English.) Most of the 15 pounds of muscle weight that he strapped on for the six-month shoot has slipped from his slim frame. Even so, the intensity of that experience is still on his mind and in his body.
"The film has plenty of f***ing and fighting and killing and death and blood. My job was to murder people and stand by Alexander." who, according to history, was his best friend since childhood, and his lover.
"Hephaestion, the character I play, and [Alexander] have a really special connection. It's a strong, strong relationship. I don't think there is a term we have today to define their relationship," he says, deliberately muddling around the oft-asked erotic question.
Farrell says, "There was no term for 'bisexuality'. It was just the way society was. People made love to men and women. It was only later on you had to pick one side of the fence."
"But I promise you, in the film," Leto teases, despite the magnetic charms of Farrell, and costars Rosario Dawson and Angelina Jolie, who play Alexander's wife and mother, "the only kiss I gave out was to my horse. My one true love."
He takes the tape recorder and places it gently against his chest, which holds within it the soul of a man who many have tried to reveal before. "I always tell the truth. What else do you want to know? What do people really want to know? What is the truth?" His face is a pure cheeky choir boy dare. "When have I ever not told you the truth? How can you tell that I'm lying?"
I remind him that the last time we met, he told me he owned three Uzis, that the first girl he kissed was a 47-year-old tranny named Jorge, that he was 19, raised by circus performers, and that he studied art at the American University of Paris for a semester, but was booted out when he wouldn't give in to the attentions of the headmaster. And he wouldn't back down to any of those "facts".
He laughs. "Really? As Ronald Regan used to say, 'I have no memory of saying such things.' "
Says producer/director David Fincher, who worked with Leto on both Fight Club and Panic Room, "When it comes to his acting, he is beyond method. He gets into this whole image of his character. It is interesting how that kind of pain and sacrifice can translate. I mean, look at Requiem. I wish I had 100 Jareds working for me. He was amazing.
"Jared definitely strives not to be a victim of his genetics. On the films we did together, he was the guy who is constantly curious, the one you couldn't bottle up. The one who wouldn't hit his mark. He was like, 'Hey, I'm living it! Over here!' But he does like to tell stories. It goes kind of like, 'How can you tell when Jared is lying? His lips are moving.' "
Leto, who prefers to see his playful fibbing as a way to keep his private life private, was born the day after Christmas, 33 years ago, in Bossier City, Louisiana. His mother was an artistic soul, and with his father out of the picture, he and his brother, Shannon (who is also in 30 Seconds To Mars), traveled a great deal while they were growing up. After a stint at New York's School of Visual Arts, he says, he came to Los Angeles around 12 years ago with a couple hundred bucks in his pocket, no friends, and nowhere to stay. For awhile, he slept on Venice Beach. Then kaboom! a role on television's My So-Called Life (opposite Claire Daines) and for the next few years, he reigned as a teen pinup - a tag and a look he has been successfully living down ever since.
According to Leto, "Luck is the residue of destiny." It's a phrase he's heard which he likes very much. He feels it means that we can get caught up in so many things, but the world has what it has for us. That, in our natural state, everything is the way it's supposed to be - free and joyous - and that our own insecurities get in the way of all that. It's an idea which could be applied to his early life.
"When I was young, all that traveling was exciting," says Leto. "You do develop an ability to read people more quickly. You have to learn to adapt to whatever comes along, to survive. Maybe the way I grew up is why I'm drawn to acting, to different characters. From film to film, I'm constantly finding myself, reaching different places outside and inside myself. I want to change, to morph into something else." To be able to do that for Oliver Stone is a gift, says Leto. "He is one of my f***ing heroes. He is a great man. Present, connected, very physical. I find his way very endearing."
To work with Stone, he traveled to Morocco, where the oncoming sunset had turned the world orange, into the color of dark rust. But the sky was growing dark, the golden scorpions were scuttling under the rocks, another sandstorm was moving toward the camp, fast.
Within moments, Leto, wearing his usual training gear - a T-shirt, tight shorts, boots covering his calves - couldn't see two feet ahead of him. The sand whipped raw against his skin as he made for his tent. Inside, he tightened the flap and listened to the wind howl. He had switched off his cell phone, his e-mail. He hadn't spoken to anyone in the U.S. for months. Apocalyptic fantasies crowded his brain. Many in the cast had already been horribly sick. There was a virus in the dust. His tent was next door to the latrine and he could hear cast and crew heave by the dozens.
One night, Leto got so sick, he thought he was going to toss a spleen. "I lay in bed for a couple of hours staring at the stars, just breathing really slow, willing it away. I fell asleep dreaming strange, surreal dreams. When I woke up, it was gone. That's the desert."
Says Dawson, "It was beyond primal, all those men bonding - horse training, fighting, all buffed up wearing nearly nothing. And as soon as a woman came on set, the energy was so damn erotic.
"One time Jared came to visit the hotel [where women stayed]. He was so happy to be there. He got to take a shower, have some proper food. So he's talking, sitting there, and just sort of adjusting the package, not sexually, but in this slow, languorous way, like there was no one else around. It was all suited to his character, but I was like, 'Hey dude...'
"And he was like, 'I'm sorry! We're out there in our underwear and boots all the time... maybe it's got us a little too relaxed.' Maybe. But it was all good." She bats her eyes. "It was wonderful being around that kind of really masculine environment."
"Oh, Rosario," responds Leto, "she is so beautiful. Such a great woman." He drops his head, smiling, not exactly asking for forgiveness. "Working on Alexander was an amazing experience. It's all about connectivity. There is an old saying that the greatest leader is the servant of them all. Meaning, you are the most powerful when you are giving."
"I think that as an artist, in any kind of expression of creation, that you must have to be in love with the process. It is the most exciting part of the work, and that if you have a desire for greatness, you will have to be willing to f***ing bleed. I think it's true for me. That's what drives me."
He claps his hands over his face. "F***. People are going to read this and think, 'What the f***? Is weirdo Leto on crack? Hitting the old acid tab again.' But honestly, it's what I believe. One of my favorite things about getting older is that my intuition is often wrong. To me, it means I'm uncovering something new about the world.
Камрад
и ещё.
))
Jared Leto
Source: Interview Magazine
Article By: David Fincher
Transcribed By: Jared Leto Media
Date: December/January 2005
With his latest role as the reputed lover of Alexander the Great in Oliver Stone's new movie on the infamous conqueror, the once ambivalent teen heartthrob, born travel rat, budding rock star, and reluctant thespian is no longer running away from audience's expectations - he's facing them head-on.
His handsomely brooding face may have taken center stage when he first emerged as the mysterious Jordan Catalano, the grungy object of Claire Danes's wish-fulfillment fantasies, on the mid-1990's cult TV show My So-Called Life, but the years - at last onscreen - have not been so kind to Jared Leto. He was pummeled by Edward Norton's anticonsumerist everyman in David Fincher's Fight Club (1999); Christian Bale, as Me-decade mass murderer Patrick Bateman , hacked him up with an axe in Mary Harron's American Psycho (2000); a nasty abscess born from an out-of-control heroin addiction caused him to lose an arm in Darren Aronfsky's Requiem For A Dream (2000); and he was charred in a backdraft fire in 2002's Panic Room, again under Fincher's direction.
But while calamities tend to befall Leto in his movie life, the trajectory of roles he has taken are all part of the larger puzzle that is the actor himself. Born on a commune, he grew up bouncing around with his photographer mother from Alaska to Florida to Louisiana and Wyoming, followed by stints in Haiti and Brazil, before landing in New York as a teenager.
In Alexander, Oliver Stone's controversial new epic about famed conqueror Alexander the Great, Leto plays Hephaistion, Alexander's close friend and lover, joining a cast of Hollywood heavy-weights that includes Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Val Kilmer, and Colin Farrell in the title role. Fincher caught up with the 30-year-old actor in South Africa, where he was completing work on Andrew Niccol's upcoming gun-running thriller, Lord of War, and preparing to hit the road with his rock band, 30 Seconds To Mars.
DAVID FINCHER: So, dude, tell me about your pursuit of rock stardom. It just wasn't debauched enough, so now you're back to acting?
JARED LETO: Why? Are you disappointed that I'm making movies again?
DF: No, I'm just curious.
JL: Well, I took a lot of time off - I think I made three movies in five years - so now I'm just going through a phase where I'm working more. But I'm still doing the music thing. I just finished about 80 percent of our second record [the follow-up of the group's 2002 self-titled debut]. It comes out in March on Virgin Records.
DF: Are you going to get the support this time -.
JL: That we so badly deserve? With the first record, we had a record company that was falling apart, and as everybody knows, the industry is kind of in its version of the Great Depression right now. We were casualties of all that. But, you know, we did sell more than 100,000 records and toured everywhere, playing more than 350 shows, and we had an incredible time doing it. So, in those terms, it was all a success. What are you up to, by the way?
DF: I'm in the first trimester of my gestation on the next film. I've been trying to put together this Benjamin Button movie. [bird calls in the background] What is that?
JL: Those are some really weird African birds.
DF: C'mon, Jared, are you allowed to keep sheep in your house?
JL: Well, it's a secret, so don't tell anybody. [laughs] Those f***ing birds wake me up every morning. So you're going to make a movie called Benjamin Button? With a title like that, I can't tell if it's about a stuffed animal or a pedophile.
DF: Well, it's both. [laughs] No, it's based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story ["The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"] and we've been working on it for about five months, trying to get the budget down to something that two studios can swallow.
JL: I can't believe that I actually made another movie after Panic Room before you did.
DF: And you made a record, and went on tour, and had a life. But I also went to a premiere and did a DVD commentary, if that counts.
JL: I didn't even get to the premiere of Panic Room. I'm such an asshole.
DF: Well, that's part of your mystique.
JL: It's not even mystique! I was probably in Grand Rapids, Michigan, playing with the band at a bowling alley. You know, that's my exciting life.
DF: So tell me about Alexander. I have friends who worked on the movie who are extremely high on it, and they're not drug-addicted and deluded. How did you get roped into this thing?
JL: Well, I met with Oliver Stone, and then had a reading, which was... uh... interesting.
DF: Oh, do tell.
JL: At one point during the audition, the casting director, Billy Hopkins had his head in my lap. I was whispering sweet nothings to him, so it was kind of ridiculous in a way. It also sort of felt like we had a moment together - and we've been dating ever since. [laughs] But it was good because I got the part. The script was unbelievable. Oliver, man - the guy is an incredible writer. There's no doubt about that. He was one of my favorite directors growing up, and I would have died to do anything with him. Going in and meeting with Oliver, talking about this project, I felt like I did when I met you, when you were casting that little role that I did in Fight Club.
DF: But you didn't have to travel around the world for that.
JL: I just had to show up with white eyebrows and say about three lines in the whole movie.
DF: And you had to go through six hours of makeup and then get pummeled. You don't get pummeled or disfigured in Alexander, do you?
JL: Well, yeah, I kind of do. I'm trying to keep that trend up.
DF: Then I'll be there opening night. As long as Leto gets disfigured, I'm there.
JL: Bastard. [laughs] But I'm really psyched to do Alexander. I had the audition, and then Oliver went around the world, seeing other people for the part. I kept hearing that I was the top choice for the role, but then I would find out that he was still auditioning guys in London. It was like that for a month or two. But it ended up happening, and we had this crazy adventure in Morocco, Thailand, and England.
DF: How was Morocco?
JL: It was bizarre, man. I've done a lot of traveling, but when you're in Morocco, which is a Muslim country, as moderate as the culture there is, it's still really intense. It is so different. But I fell in love with it. Working on Alexander in Morocco, I felt like John Malkovich in The Sheltering Sky [1990]. I kept thinking to myself, "You know, I could live here for awhile." The sunsets, the mint tea, the call to prayer that echoes through the whole country - it's all eerie at first, but I grew to love it. It's so beautiful, just incredible. I mean, you give my grandmother a camera over there, and she would come back with amazing pictures.
DF: So, Val Kilmer. Do tell.
JL: I'll tell you the strangest thing about Val Kilmer: He is so unbelievably nice. He's the nicest guy to work with.
DF: So is his evil hidden?
JL: [laughs] You know, people have heard stories about Val, but everybody on the set, all the other actors and stuff - we all loved him. He was so great. He was a joy to work with, and he kicked ass in his part. It's odd because he's playing Colin's father. When you first think of Val, you think he might be too young to pull that off, but it really fits.
DF: He's got a weight, a presence onscreen.
JL: He's a great actor, hands down. He wasn't in Morocco for three and a half months like the rest of us were, but when he came in and started working, he was great. It was really fun.
DF: And you liked Colin Farrell?
JL: Colin's cool. He's almost like an Irish Brad Pitt. The first time I met Brad, I was, like, wanting him to be my best friend because he was so nice and cool and easygoing and funny. Colin has a lot of those same qualities. But he also works his ass off, too. I never saw that guy forget a line. He plays hard, but he works even harder. He really nailed it with this movie. Overall, making Alexander was a really solid experience. It was an adventure. It wasn't like when we made Panic Room - I actually had some fun this time.
DF: [laughs] Okay, we can turn the tape off now.
JL: No, it's just that usually I don't enjoy acting.
DF: Yeah?
JL: I really don't. I hate acting, to tell you the truth. But there are moments when I've enjoyed it, and I had a really good time on Panic Room because as an actor working with you, you know that no matter how big a fool you make of yourself - like I did in that movie - you're going to be ok because you're in good hands.
DF: You don't know that.
JL: Well, you are because you're working with a master! [both laugh] Oliver is the same way: You know at the end of the day the guy's not going to make a bad movie. The actors are always good, and his movies look incredible. They're always engaging and compelling, so that's a big relief. It let's you relax a little bit.
DF: Because you know that you're part of a bigger thing. His movies are extremely elaborate both emotionally and narratively. I remember going to see JFK on Christmas Day when it came out in 1991 and feeling like I wanted to see it again. It's not often that you feel that way after sitting through a three-hour movie. [laughs]
JL: Yeah, Oliver's got the goods, man.
DF: So, now you're working on this Andrew Niccol movie?
JL: Yeah, it's called Lord of War, with Nic Cage and Ethan Hawke. Nic plays an arms dealer, and I play his brother. It's a really cool script, one where you read it and go, "Wow! I've never seen this world before." It's about these guys who are selling weapons to rebels in war-torn countries, and at the same time they're also selling them to the governments that the rebels are fighting. A lot of the movie takes place in Africa - some of these African countries have just been devastated by war. It's really an independent film. Even though it was huge, Alexander was also an independent film in a way because it wasn't just produced by one studio - although Warner Brothers was part of it.
DF: So you've already done like a $150 million independent film in Alexander, and now you're working on this other big-budget independent movie. But it sounds like they're both kind of out there, so you're not just taking it for the money.
JL: Well, I've never ever made choices based on anything but creative reward and being challenged. You know, I've made some mistakes that I'm not proud of, but for the past five or six years, I haven't been screwing around.
DF: It's funny because whenever you take the money, people want to punish you for it, and then you go, "Oh no! I was trying so hard to be part of that club."
JL: And then you learn that that club is not for you. Sometimes I think that instead of doing three lines in a movie like Fight Club, I could have been off doing some cheesy-ass piece-of-crap movie and getting paid a ton of money and buying my grandma a house or something. But I could never do that. I have to tell you, though, I'm going to become a giant movie star just so you can cast me in your next movie. That's the only reason I'm doing any of this: so you will cast me in a movie again, and then [video director] Chris Cunningham will be able to finance a movie around me, and I'll be able to work with anyone I want.
DF: So, how's your personal life? I'm asking only because I recently saw you on the cover of Out magazine, and I was like "Finally!"
JL: [laughs] The character I play in Alexander, Hephaistion, is gay, and Alexander is sort of an iconic figure to a lot of gay people because there was a lot of speculation that he was a homosexual. Society was very different at that time: If you felt like getting it on with a guy, it was all good as long as you produced an heir and had a family at the end of the day. Those were the responsible, manly things to do.
DF: It was a freer time.
JL: The golden days.
DF: So, when you're done with Lord of War, you're going to finish your record. Then you're going to give movies a rest?
JL: I don't know, man. There's another film I'm doing after this called Awake.
DF: Will you be shooting that in Los Angeles?
JL: No, New York.
DF: But you're still living in L.A., right?
JL: You know, I'm there so seldom. I was on the road for a long time and living out of a bus. Then I was gone for six months doing Alexander and off for three months working on Lord of War.
DF: Did you like being on the road?
JL: Yeah, I love traveling. I also love the process of making movies more than the actual acting, which I've told you I don't enjoy so much. I had a good time with you working on Panic Room, but it was a different scenario.
DF: Well, I think that's probably because you were working in this extremely rigorous context. I mean, shooting for 90 days in the same friggin' house - you really have to be aware that you're not doing something that's completely different from what you set out to do.
JL: I think it's about the quality of the people you're working with, too.
DF: Well, shucks, man. Right back at you. [laughs] But I do want to see you again when you have the time.
JL: I really don't. I'm completely booked.
DF: Ouch, man.
JL: Yeah. [laughs] And frankly, I think we've had enough of each other.
))Jared Leto
Source: Interview Magazine
Article By: David Fincher
Transcribed By: Jared Leto Media
Date: December/January 2005
With his latest role as the reputed lover of Alexander the Great in Oliver Stone's new movie on the infamous conqueror, the once ambivalent teen heartthrob, born travel rat, budding rock star, and reluctant thespian is no longer running away from audience's expectations - he's facing them head-on.
His handsomely brooding face may have taken center stage when he first emerged as the mysterious Jordan Catalano, the grungy object of Claire Danes's wish-fulfillment fantasies, on the mid-1990's cult TV show My So-Called Life, but the years - at last onscreen - have not been so kind to Jared Leto. He was pummeled by Edward Norton's anticonsumerist everyman in David Fincher's Fight Club (1999); Christian Bale, as Me-decade mass murderer Patrick Bateman , hacked him up with an axe in Mary Harron's American Psycho (2000); a nasty abscess born from an out-of-control heroin addiction caused him to lose an arm in Darren Aronfsky's Requiem For A Dream (2000); and he was charred in a backdraft fire in 2002's Panic Room, again under Fincher's direction.
But while calamities tend to befall Leto in his movie life, the trajectory of roles he has taken are all part of the larger puzzle that is the actor himself. Born on a commune, he grew up bouncing around with his photographer mother from Alaska to Florida to Louisiana and Wyoming, followed by stints in Haiti and Brazil, before landing in New York as a teenager.
In Alexander, Oliver Stone's controversial new epic about famed conqueror Alexander the Great, Leto plays Hephaistion, Alexander's close friend and lover, joining a cast of Hollywood heavy-weights that includes Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Val Kilmer, and Colin Farrell in the title role. Fincher caught up with the 30-year-old actor in South Africa, where he was completing work on Andrew Niccol's upcoming gun-running thriller, Lord of War, and preparing to hit the road with his rock band, 30 Seconds To Mars.
DAVID FINCHER: So, dude, tell me about your pursuit of rock stardom. It just wasn't debauched enough, so now you're back to acting?
JARED LETO: Why? Are you disappointed that I'm making movies again?
DF: No, I'm just curious.
JL: Well, I took a lot of time off - I think I made three movies in five years - so now I'm just going through a phase where I'm working more. But I'm still doing the music thing. I just finished about 80 percent of our second record [the follow-up of the group's 2002 self-titled debut]. It comes out in March on Virgin Records.
DF: Are you going to get the support this time -.
JL: That we so badly deserve? With the first record, we had a record company that was falling apart, and as everybody knows, the industry is kind of in its version of the Great Depression right now. We were casualties of all that. But, you know, we did sell more than 100,000 records and toured everywhere, playing more than 350 shows, and we had an incredible time doing it. So, in those terms, it was all a success. What are you up to, by the way?
DF: I'm in the first trimester of my gestation on the next film. I've been trying to put together this Benjamin Button movie. [bird calls in the background] What is that?
JL: Those are some really weird African birds.
DF: C'mon, Jared, are you allowed to keep sheep in your house?
JL: Well, it's a secret, so don't tell anybody. [laughs] Those f***ing birds wake me up every morning. So you're going to make a movie called Benjamin Button? With a title like that, I can't tell if it's about a stuffed animal or a pedophile.
DF: Well, it's both. [laughs] No, it's based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story ["The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"] and we've been working on it for about five months, trying to get the budget down to something that two studios can swallow.
JL: I can't believe that I actually made another movie after Panic Room before you did.
DF: And you made a record, and went on tour, and had a life. But I also went to a premiere and did a DVD commentary, if that counts.
JL: I didn't even get to the premiere of Panic Room. I'm such an asshole.
DF: Well, that's part of your mystique.
JL: It's not even mystique! I was probably in Grand Rapids, Michigan, playing with the band at a bowling alley. You know, that's my exciting life.
DF: So tell me about Alexander. I have friends who worked on the movie who are extremely high on it, and they're not drug-addicted and deluded. How did you get roped into this thing?
JL: Well, I met with Oliver Stone, and then had a reading, which was... uh... interesting.
DF: Oh, do tell.
JL: At one point during the audition, the casting director, Billy Hopkins had his head in my lap. I was whispering sweet nothings to him, so it was kind of ridiculous in a way. It also sort of felt like we had a moment together - and we've been dating ever since. [laughs] But it was good because I got the part. The script was unbelievable. Oliver, man - the guy is an incredible writer. There's no doubt about that. He was one of my favorite directors growing up, and I would have died to do anything with him. Going in and meeting with Oliver, talking about this project, I felt like I did when I met you, when you were casting that little role that I did in Fight Club.
DF: But you didn't have to travel around the world for that.
JL: I just had to show up with white eyebrows and say about three lines in the whole movie.
DF: And you had to go through six hours of makeup and then get pummeled. You don't get pummeled or disfigured in Alexander, do you?
JL: Well, yeah, I kind of do. I'm trying to keep that trend up.
DF: Then I'll be there opening night. As long as Leto gets disfigured, I'm there.
JL: Bastard. [laughs] But I'm really psyched to do Alexander. I had the audition, and then Oliver went around the world, seeing other people for the part. I kept hearing that I was the top choice for the role, but then I would find out that he was still auditioning guys in London. It was like that for a month or two. But it ended up happening, and we had this crazy adventure in Morocco, Thailand, and England.
DF: How was Morocco?
JL: It was bizarre, man. I've done a lot of traveling, but when you're in Morocco, which is a Muslim country, as moderate as the culture there is, it's still really intense. It is so different. But I fell in love with it. Working on Alexander in Morocco, I felt like John Malkovich in The Sheltering Sky [1990]. I kept thinking to myself, "You know, I could live here for awhile." The sunsets, the mint tea, the call to prayer that echoes through the whole country - it's all eerie at first, but I grew to love it. It's so beautiful, just incredible. I mean, you give my grandmother a camera over there, and she would come back with amazing pictures.
DF: So, Val Kilmer. Do tell.
JL: I'll tell you the strangest thing about Val Kilmer: He is so unbelievably nice. He's the nicest guy to work with.
DF: So is his evil hidden?
JL: [laughs] You know, people have heard stories about Val, but everybody on the set, all the other actors and stuff - we all loved him. He was so great. He was a joy to work with, and he kicked ass in his part. It's odd because he's playing Colin's father. When you first think of Val, you think he might be too young to pull that off, but it really fits.
DF: He's got a weight, a presence onscreen.
JL: He's a great actor, hands down. He wasn't in Morocco for three and a half months like the rest of us were, but when he came in and started working, he was great. It was really fun.
DF: And you liked Colin Farrell?
JL: Colin's cool. He's almost like an Irish Brad Pitt. The first time I met Brad, I was, like, wanting him to be my best friend because he was so nice and cool and easygoing and funny. Colin has a lot of those same qualities. But he also works his ass off, too. I never saw that guy forget a line. He plays hard, but he works even harder. He really nailed it with this movie. Overall, making Alexander was a really solid experience. It was an adventure. It wasn't like when we made Panic Room - I actually had some fun this time.
DF: [laughs] Okay, we can turn the tape off now.
JL: No, it's just that usually I don't enjoy acting.
DF: Yeah?
JL: I really don't. I hate acting, to tell you the truth. But there are moments when I've enjoyed it, and I had a really good time on Panic Room because as an actor working with you, you know that no matter how big a fool you make of yourself - like I did in that movie - you're going to be ok because you're in good hands.
DF: You don't know that.
JL: Well, you are because you're working with a master! [both laugh] Oliver is the same way: You know at the end of the day the guy's not going to make a bad movie. The actors are always good, and his movies look incredible. They're always engaging and compelling, so that's a big relief. It let's you relax a little bit.
DF: Because you know that you're part of a bigger thing. His movies are extremely elaborate both emotionally and narratively. I remember going to see JFK on Christmas Day when it came out in 1991 and feeling like I wanted to see it again. It's not often that you feel that way after sitting through a three-hour movie. [laughs]
JL: Yeah, Oliver's got the goods, man.
DF: So, now you're working on this Andrew Niccol movie?
JL: Yeah, it's called Lord of War, with Nic Cage and Ethan Hawke. Nic plays an arms dealer, and I play his brother. It's a really cool script, one where you read it and go, "Wow! I've never seen this world before." It's about these guys who are selling weapons to rebels in war-torn countries, and at the same time they're also selling them to the governments that the rebels are fighting. A lot of the movie takes place in Africa - some of these African countries have just been devastated by war. It's really an independent film. Even though it was huge, Alexander was also an independent film in a way because it wasn't just produced by one studio - although Warner Brothers was part of it.
DF: So you've already done like a $150 million independent film in Alexander, and now you're working on this other big-budget independent movie. But it sounds like they're both kind of out there, so you're not just taking it for the money.
JL: Well, I've never ever made choices based on anything but creative reward and being challenged. You know, I've made some mistakes that I'm not proud of, but for the past five or six years, I haven't been screwing around.
DF: It's funny because whenever you take the money, people want to punish you for it, and then you go, "Oh no! I was trying so hard to be part of that club."
JL: And then you learn that that club is not for you. Sometimes I think that instead of doing three lines in a movie like Fight Club, I could have been off doing some cheesy-ass piece-of-crap movie and getting paid a ton of money and buying my grandma a house or something. But I could never do that. I have to tell you, though, I'm going to become a giant movie star just so you can cast me in your next movie. That's the only reason I'm doing any of this: so you will cast me in a movie again, and then [video director] Chris Cunningham will be able to finance a movie around me, and I'll be able to work with anyone I want.
DF: So, how's your personal life? I'm asking only because I recently saw you on the cover of Out magazine, and I was like "Finally!"
JL: [laughs] The character I play in Alexander, Hephaistion, is gay, and Alexander is sort of an iconic figure to a lot of gay people because there was a lot of speculation that he was a homosexual. Society was very different at that time: If you felt like getting it on with a guy, it was all good as long as you produced an heir and had a family at the end of the day. Those were the responsible, manly things to do.
DF: It was a freer time.
JL: The golden days.
DF: So, when you're done with Lord of War, you're going to finish your record. Then you're going to give movies a rest?
JL: I don't know, man. There's another film I'm doing after this called Awake.
DF: Will you be shooting that in Los Angeles?
JL: No, New York.
DF: But you're still living in L.A., right?
JL: You know, I'm there so seldom. I was on the road for a long time and living out of a bus. Then I was gone for six months doing Alexander and off for three months working on Lord of War.
DF: Did you like being on the road?
JL: Yeah, I love traveling. I also love the process of making movies more than the actual acting, which I've told you I don't enjoy so much. I had a good time with you working on Panic Room, but it was a different scenario.
DF: Well, I think that's probably because you were working in this extremely rigorous context. I mean, shooting for 90 days in the same friggin' house - you really have to be aware that you're not doing something that's completely different from what you set out to do.
JL: I think it's about the quality of the people you're working with, too.
DF: Well, shucks, man. Right back at you. [laughs] But I do want to see you again when you have the time.
JL: I really don't. I'm completely booked.
DF: Ouch, man.
JL: Yeah. [laughs] And frankly, I think we've had enough of each other.
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