Skip to Content

As you might have heard, Jared Leto is playing the Joker in the upcoming DC villain orgy that is Suicide Squad.

It’s the most unexpected casting news since…well, since Heath Ledger played the Joker, and fans are dying to know what direction Leto will take with the role.

Leto chopped off his hair and dyed it blonde so we know that he won’t be going the scraggly locks root like Ledger. We also know Leto is planning to"gain a lot of weight" for the role, so apparently taking a more Rob Kardashian approach to the character.

Unconventional. We like it. Anyway, one of the most important things about the Joker is the voice.

Ledger went with a high-pitched cackle that sounds like it was ripped from your most terrifying clown-based nightmare (the worst kind of nightmare). Jack Nicholson went with his natural voice, which is fine because he’s basically been playing a psychotic ringmaster his entire life.

Leto seems to be taking the character to weird new places, and he may have let his beta-phase Joker voice slip out during his stage banter at last night’s 30 Seconds to Mars concert:

The Hollywood Gossip Logo

Yup, it sounds like he’s going textbook deep, gravelly villain voice, which we’re cool with.

With his slight frame and male model looks, the expectation with Leto was that he would play the Joker as a sort of preening eccentric, and while that probably would’ve worked just fine, we’re excited to see his brawny, beefed-up take on the comic world’s most famous villain.

That might be what it takes for him to really inhabit the character and make us forget that we’re just watching tree-hugger Jared Leto in clown makeup.