How transformation king Jared Leto disappeared into his dark side to play a vampire in Morbius

When Morbius star Jared Leto’s transforms into a character – or three, in this case – it’s not just in front of the cameras, say his co-stars.

There are few actors who disappear into their roles quite like Jared Leto does.

In the past six months alone he’s appeared on our screens as a pudgy, oddball Italian fashion designer in House Of Gucci and a driven, charismatic Israeli entrepreneur in WeCrashed, which debuted on Apple TV+ last week.

And having already given a freaky and frankly disturbing rendering of The Joker in Justice League, the Oscar-winning American actor returns to the superhero movie world next week in Morbius.

Leto plays three versions of the title role: Michael Morbius is a brilliant scientist whose desperate search for a cure to the rare disease that is slowly killing him eventually turns him into a “living vampire” whose heightened powers come with the price of an insatiable thirst for blood.

“I love a transformation,” says Leto over Zoom call from Los Angeles. “I love the challenge, I love physical work – I love everything about it.

“It’s really difficult but I think in that difficulty you find a lot. You find out a lot about yourself and about the character.

“And this role was kind of built for me, to have these three unique versions of the same character. You find Dr Michael Morbius when he is sick and frail and fragile and almost dying while searching for a cure for this really rare disease.

Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius in Morbius.

“Then there’s the healthy, strong Michael Morbius and then ultimately a powerful, monstrous version. So I enjoyed that.

“I think it’s a little bit different than what we have seen in the past with some of these films and lives a little on the darker side of the universe. I like that.”

The physical transformation between the frail, sickly Morbius and the buff, super-powered version is startling but it’s nothing new to Leto.

For his role as a heroin addict in the 2000 psychological drama Requiem For a Dream, Leto famously spent time living on the streets of New York and lost 13kg while abstaining from both sex and sugar.

Seven years later, he gained 30kg to play John Lennon’s killer Mark Chapman in Chapter 27, developing gout in the process and requiring him to sometimes use a wheelchair to deal with the sudden stress on his body.

While his Morbius preparation wasn’t quite as extreme, Leto says he started by burying himself in the rich source material of a comic book character that first appeared in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man in 1971, but is making his big screen debut as part of Sony’s so-called Spider-Man universe, which also features Tom Holland’s webslinger and Tom Hardy’s Venom.

He also quizzed as many boffins as he could find in the search for scientific authenticity and talked with patients the physical effects of their conditions, including the limp he uses in the film.

A totally transformed Jared Leto as the monstrous vampire in Morbius.

“I talked with doctors and scientists about some of the medical aspects of the story and the character so you learn how to move around a laboratory and what the equipment is for and learn about the terminology and the vocabulary,” he says.

“You just dive in as deep as you can, you ask as many questions – who, what, why, when, where, how and then you let your imagination take over.

“This is the first time this character has been on screen so it’s quite an honour to be asked to share Morbius with the world for the first time.”

Leto’s dedication to his craft and his all-consuming “method” approach (he prefers the term “immersive work”) to acting also means that he never breaks character on set for the duration of the shoot.

Doctor Who actor Matt Smith, who plays Morbius’ childhood-friend-turned-nemesis, Milo, spent months with Leto filming the spectacular fight sequences and dramatic scenes between the two but he says “I couldn’t profess to have met the real Jared”.

“I only really know Jared as Michael Morbius because that was my interactions with him,” Smith says.

“I didn’t meet him until the first day we were shooting on set – and he was pretty ‘method’ on this actually. I enjoyed the creative experience because it’s an interesting tone and quite consistent and quite serious and I was up for the challenge.”

Similarly Puerto Rican actor Adria Arjona, who plays fellow scientist and love interest Martine, spent time with Leto before filming started and again while promoting the movie at the world premiere in Mexico this month – but during the shoot itself it was only Michael Morbius.

Adria Arjona says she only knew Jared Leto as his character while they were filming Morbius.

“The difference was shocking at first,” she says. “And then I saw him months after we wrapped the movie and I was like, ‘Oh, hey Jared, how have you been? I haven’t seen you in almost a year even though we spent three months together’.

“Working with him was super interesting – I had never worked with someone who works in the way that he does and I think he might be one of the only people who works that way … being able to watch it in real life was really something else. It almost felt like I was going to the theatre instead of going to work.”

Leto was already attached to Morbius when director Daniel Espinosa came on board and the pair were able to talk at length about their favourite vampire movies – ‘80s classics The Hunger and The Lost Boys as well as Korean cult hit Thirst – before his leading man disappeared before his eyes.

“It’s quite incredible,” he says. “But it’s not only Jared who does that. I worked with Denzel Washington on the first movie I did in America and he, in a similar way, becomes the character and inhabits the character throughout the shooting.

“I think it’s because they respect how difficult it is to really embody someone and they don’t want to let it go because if they don’t let it go then they become the person.”

Jared Leto as Israeli entrepreneur Adam Neumann and Anne Hathaway as his wife Rebekah in WeCrashed. Picture: AppleTV+

Espinosa was also in good company – show-runner Drew Crevello had a similar experience on WeCrashed, in which Leto used prosthetics and make-up to transform into real life businessman Adam Neumann, who amassed, then lost, billions through his shared workspace company WeWork.

He says that in every conversation he had with Leto – on weekends and evenings, in emails and in text messages – he would refer to him as Adam.

“It’s really a level of commitment and degree of immersion I’ve never seen before,” Crevello says.

Leto says that while he related to Michael Morbius’ work ethic and desire to serve the common good by curing disease, he does admit that his all-consuming approach just might go over the top sometimes.

“I related to his desire to be of service and to help others,” Leto says. “I related to his loyalty and his motivation to work – he’s a really hard worker and I love my work. Those are some of the things I related to and maybe sometimes also how he doesn’t have so much balance in his life – I can certainly relate to that. You learn a lot from every character you take on and every film you do.”

Morbius opens in cinemas on March 31.

Originally published as How transformation king Jared Leto disappeared into his dark side to play a vampire in Morbius