Jared Leto Went So Method as The Joker, Will Smith Says ‘I’ve Never Actually Met Jared Leto’

Jared Leto could probably best be described as a little intense. And this was before he signed on to play The Joker in Suicide Squad. Rumors that Leto never broke character have been confirmed by co-star Will Smith who said that despite working with the Oscar-winning actor for six months, he still has never actually met the man himself.

Smith was a guest on Apple’s Beats 1 radio station yesterday and host Zane Lowe had to ask Smith a little about some of his upcoming films. Here’s what Big Willy had to say about Suicide Squad and The Joker:

[Suicide Squad] is insane. I’ve never actually met Jared Leto. We worked together for 6 months and we’ve never exchanged a word outside of ‘Action!’ and ‘Cut!’ We’ve never said ‘Hello’ or ‘Good day.’ I’ve only ever spoken to him with me as Deadshot and him as The Joker. I literally have not met him yet. So, the first time I see him will be ‘Hey, Jared. What’s up?’ Not a single word exchanged off-camera. He was all in on the Joker.

To which Lowe, who says he knows Leto, responded, “Probably a good thing. He’s a dick.”

This is not the first time we’ve heard about Leto going “all-in” on The Joker on set. Jai Courtney also said, “I haven’t seen him, since we started working, out-of-character, let’s put it that way.” He sent co-star Margot Robbie a box with a dead rat in it. He sent bullets to Will Smith. These are things that would get normal people arrested, but alas, Jared Leto is not normal.

At the risk of being cynical, we’ve heard so much buzz about Leto’s hyper-focused Joker performance that we have to assume this is part of the early word-of-mouth campaign for the film. “Have you heard how crazy Jared Leto is?!?!” Living up to Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance was always going to be difficult so Warner Bros. is going to have to get creative to get audiences interested in some of the, uh, creative decisions Leto is making with the role.

Whether some or all of this is calculated to increase your interest in Suicide Squad seems almost irrelevant though, as Leto might actually have gone a little crazy on set. And, with future sequels in the works (including Ben Affleck’s standalone Batman movie), can Leto actually keep this level of intensity up?

Suicide Squad opens in theaters on August 5, 2016.