David Ayer: Jared Leto Riled Up the ‘Suicide Squad’ Cast

In bringing Suicide Squad to the silver screen, director David Ayer had a cast who really committed themselves to their roles as comic book villains. Will Smith trained with Navy SEALs to play Deadshot and Jay Hernandez shaved off his eyebrows for his role as Diablo.

“Everybody went all in,” Ayer said in an interview with BackstageOL’s Dave Morales. “It was a total commitment, and through that commitment, they came together. It’s almost like being in the military…it’s like boot camp kind of bonds everybody and unites everybody.”

There were even reports that Jared Leto sent some interesting gifts of bullets and rats to his castmates to fully embrace his character of the Joker.

“Yeah, I guess [Leto] mailed thousands of rats,” Ayer joked.

“Things get blown out a little bit, but it’s also part of being the Joker,” Ayer stated. “Look, the Joker’s unpredictable, the Joker’s wild.”

“[Leto] trained separately from the cast, rehearsed separately from the cast, and so, once we’re about to shoot, he sent them all these sort of gifts and sent them a video message from the Joker as the Joker, and we played it for everybody,” Ayer revealed. “And it really got them kind of riled up and kind of helped with the spirit of what we were doing.”

Watch our interview with Ayer below: