Jared Leto: with his latest role as the reputed lover of Alexander The Great in Oliver Stone's new movie on the infamous conqueror, the once ambivalent teen heartthrob, born travel rat, budding rock star, and reluctant thespian is no longer running away from audience's expectations—he's facing them head-on

Interview, Dec, 2004 by David Fincher

His handsomely brooding face may have taken center stage when he first emerged as the mysterious Jordan Catalano, the grungy object of Claire Danes's wish-fulfillment fantasies, on the mid-1990s cult TV show My So-Called Life, but the years--at least onscreen--have not been kind to Jared Leto. He was pummeled by Edward Norton's anticonsumerist everyman in David Fincher's Fight Club (1999); Christian Bale, as Medecade mass murderer Patrick Bateman, hacked him up with an axe in Mary Harron's American Psycho (2000); a nasty abscess borne from an out-of-control heroin addiction caused him to lose an arm in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000); and he was charred in a backdraft fire in 2002's Panic Room, again under Fincher's direction.

But while calamities tend to befall Leto in his movie life, the trajectory of roles he has taken are all part of the larger puzzle that is the actor himself. Born on a commune, he grew up bouncing around with his photographer mother from Alaska to Florida to Louisiana and Wyoming, followed by stints in Haiti and Brazil, before landing in New York as a teenager.

In Alexander, Oliver Stone's controversial new epic about famed conqueror Alexander the Great, Leto plays Hephaistion, Alexander's close friend and lover, joining a cast of Hollywood heavyweights that includes Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Val Kilmer, and Colin Farrell in the title role. Fincher caught up with the 30-year-old actor in South Africa, where he was completing work on Andrew Niccol's upcoming gun-running thriller, Lord of War, and preparing to hit the road with his rock band, 30 Seconds to Mars.

DAVID FINCHER: So, dude, tell me about your pursuit of rock stardom. It just wasn't debauched enough, so now you're back to acting?

JARED LETO: Why? Are you disappointed that I'm making movies again?

DF: No, I'm just curious.

JL: Well, I took a lot of time off--I think I made three movies in five years--so now I'm just going through a phase where I'm working more. But I'm still doing the music thing. I just finished about 80 percent of our second record [the follow-up to the group's 2002 self-titled debut]. It comes out in March on Virgin Records.

DF: Are you going to get the support this time--

JL: That we so badly deserve? With the first record, we had a record company that was falling apart, and as everybody knows, the industry is kind of in its version of the Great Depression right now. We were casualties of all that. But, you know, we did sell more than 100,000 records and toured everywhere, playing more than 350 shows, and we had an incredible time doing it. So, in those terms, it was all a success. What are you up to, by the way?

DF: I'm in the first trimester of my gestation on the next film. I've been trying to put together this Benjamin Button movie. [bird calls in background] What is that?

JL: Those are some really weird African birds.

DF: C'mon, Jared, are you allowed to keep sheep in your house?

JL: Well, it's a secret, so don't tell anybody. [laughs] Those fucking birds wake me up every morning. So, you're going to make a movie called Benjamin Button? With a title like that, I can't tell if it's about a stuffed animal or a pedophile.

DF: Well, it's both. [laughs] No, it's based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story ["The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"], and we've been working on it for about five months, trying to get the budget down to something that two studios can swallow.

JL: I can't believe that I actually made another movie after Panic Room before you did.

DF: And you made a record, and went on tour, and had a life. But I also went to a premiere and did a DVD commentary, if that counts.

JL: I didn't even get to the premiere of Panic Room. I'm such an asshole.

DF: Well, that's part of your mystique.

JL: It's not even mystique! I was probably in Grand Rapids, Michigan, playing with the band at a bowling alley. You know, that's my exciting life.

DF: So, tell me about Alexander. I have friends who worked on the movie who are extremely high on it, and they're not drug-addled and deluded. How did you get roped into this thing?

JL: Well, I met with Oliver Stone, and then had a reading, which was ... uh ... interesting.

DF: Oh, do tell.

JL: At one point during the audition, the casting director, Billy Hopkins, had his head in my lap. I was whispering sweet nothings to him, so it was kind of ridiculous in a way. It also sort of felt like we had a moment together--and we've been dating ever since. [laughs] But it was good because I got the part. The script was unbelievable. Oliver, man--the guy is an incredible writer. There's no doubt about that. He was one of my favorite directors growing up, and I would have died to do anything with him. Going in and meeting with Oliver, talking about this project, I felt like I did when I met you, when you were casting that little role that I did in Fight Club.

DF: But you didn't have to travel around the world for that.

JL: I just had to show up with white eyebrows and say about three lines in the whole movie.