Jared Leto Went to Wild Lengths on ‘Morbius’ to Stay in Character

You can say Morbius is a bad movie. You can say it’s one of the worst films featuring a Marvel character. You can claim it has the worst post-credits scene in the history of cinema. But you can’t say that Jared Leto wasn’t committed to his role.

In the film, Leto’s Dr. Michael Morbius suffers from a rare blood disorder that renders him so weak he needs crutches to get around. And Leto got so deep into character as Morbius that he supposedly used the crutches all the time on set, whether or not the cameras were rolling. In fact, Morbius director Daniel Espinosa revealed in an interview with Uproxx that the crutches were actually slowly the production down.

Asked to confirm a rumor that “Jared Leto was so committed to playing Michael Morbius that even when he had to go to the bathroom, he would use his crutches and slowly limp to get to the bathroom,” Espinosa said it was true. Asked to also confirm that Leto using crutches to get to the bathroom was taking so long and slowing down the film so much “that a deal was made with him to get him a wheelchair so someone could wheel him there quicker” he said that was also true.

Talk about Method acting. Here was Espinosa’s explanation of Leto’s approach:

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.

Now that is some true dedication to the craft of acting. It’s just too bad the end result was, y’know, Morbius, and not a legitimately interesting movie. Regardless, Morbius is in theaters now.