Jared Leto's Joker Is the Stuff of Nightmares

David Ayer tweets photo of 'Suicide Squad' star
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 25, 2015 1:42 PM CDT
Jared Leto's Joker Is the Stuff of Nightmares
Jared Leto as Joker.   (David Ayer / Twitter)

Marking an anniversary by sharing a photo on Twitter is a pretty routine thing to do, but Suicide Squad director David Ayer did just that in a pretty atypical way yesterday. He marked the Joker's April 25, 1940, comic book debut by tweeting the first image released of Jared Leto as Joker, the role he's playing in the film. It's a Joker complete with green hair, crimson lips, nasty teeth, and a tattoo-heavy body. Among the ink: "HA" repeated over and over, and a cursive "Damaged" on the forehead. Rolling Stone reports the look was inspired by Batman: The Killing Joke, and points out that it's not the first time Ayer has referenced Alan Moore's graphic novel.

That leads the magazine to speculate that Leto's turn as the Joker in the film—due Aug. 5, 2016—will hew closer to Moore's Joker, a bust-of-a-stand-up comic who is disfigured and goes crazy in the span of a single day. USA Today also calls out a harlequin skull tattoo on Leto's chest, which it sees as "most likely an ode to his Suicide Squad girlfriend Harley Quinn." She's played by Margot Robbie. The rest of the big-name cast includes Will Smith as Deadshot, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Cara Delevingne as Enchantress, and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flagg. What they'll be doing, per the IMDB description: "A secret government agency recruits imprisoned supervillains to execute dangerous black ops missions in exchange for clemency." (More Jared Leto stories.)

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