Jared Leto’s commitment to method acting has wreaked havoc on another movie set. In an interview with Uproxx, Morbius director Daniel Espinosa confirmed the actor was so determined to stay in character that he used his crutches to go to the bathroom, slowing down production so much that the crew instead opted to push him to the bathroom in a wheelchair.
Leto’s character, known as the Living Vampire, suffers from a rare blood disease that affects his movement. In the interview, a tight-lipped Espinosa — who does his best to keep his head held high despite the film’s terrible reviews — defended Leto’s decision to use the crutches on set, arguing that it helped the actor really understand the pain his character lives with.
“I think that what Jared thinks, what Jared believes, is that somehow the pain of those movements, even when he was playing normal Michael Morbius, he needed, because he’s been having this pain his whole life,” Espinosa said. “Even though, as he’s alive and strong, it has to be a difference. Hey, man, it’s people’s processes. All of the actors believe in processes. And you, as director, you support whatever makes it as good as you can be.”
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Uproxx writer Mike Ryan tried hard to give Espinosa a platform to explain where Morbius went wrong, but the director stayed mum — on both the film’s incoherent storyline and its star’s antics. Ryan acknowledged how frustrating it likely was to deal with Leto slowing down production by taking lengthy bathroom breaks, but Espinosa chalked it up to an actor’s quirks.
“It’s more that I think the directors that don’t like actors get really frustrated about that. I think it’s really mysterious, what they do,” Espinosa said. “Almost all actors, in general, have their own reputation of being an interesting person how he works with their characters. I think that all of them have these traits.”
He continued, “If you want a completely normal person that does only things that you understand, then you’re in the wrong business. Because what’s different is what makes them tick. It’s very hard to be able to say, ‘I can take this part away and I will still get the same stuff from him.’ I don’t do that. I’m more to see like, ‘Hey, if you’re doing this, we have to do this.’” What a trooper.
Revisit our review of Morbius here. Recently, Kyle Meredith caught up with Leto — who recently wondered if movie theaters would exist without Marvel — to discuss his other new project, the miniseries WeCrashed.