I’m not quite ready to eat my words, but Jared Leto looks like he might be willing to. Along with anything else on my plate. The hunk has gained a couple of pounds, it would seem, for his role as John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman in Chapter 27.
A month or so ago I raged in a white hot fury about casting Leto, one of these unnatural pretty boys who make me believe Nazi experimentation continues in the jungles of Argentina (or that he’s Brad and Angelina’s baby sent back from the future), as the dumpy, ugly Chapman, who gunned Lennon down 25 years ago in front of the Dakota in Manhattan. Seeing these photos of Leto in costume (complete with a copy of Catcher in the Rye, a book that is the key to many weird and entertaining conspiracy theories) makes me realize two things: they’re making Chapman “Hollywood ugly,” which is the best we could hope for; and Leto is chowing down at Dominos in hopes of getting taken more seriously. The guy’s been looking for credibility for some time, and getting ugly for a role is the ultimate way to find it if you’re not capable of actually earning it. And if playing a degenerate junkie didn’t get you there first.
Actually, Leto looks like he would make an excellent Fat Elvis. For the rest of the pictures, click here.