Morbius: Jared Leto used a wheelchair to go to the bathroom

Morbius: the worst Marvel movie?

Released on March 30, Morbius received overwhelmingly negative reviews from the press and spectators. Directed by Daniel Espinosa, the work counts a score of 16% on Rotten Tomatoes and 2.3/5 on DashFUN. Nothing to brag about…

Worn by Jared Leto, the feature film tells the story of Michael Morbius, a scientist suffering from an extremely rare and fatal blood disease. To save himself, the doctor couples his DNA with that of the bats. If he’s out of trouble, he’s a victim of very virulent side effects that turn him into a vampire. Also worn by Matt Smith and Tyrese Gibson, Morbius made a good start at the box office with already more than 83 million dollars collected worldwide in less than a week of operation.

Jared Leto: from crutches to a wheelchair

Jared Leto is famous for approaching his roles extravagantly and very invested. He is famous for getting to the bottom of his roles, to be closer to his characters. For example, in blade runner 2049, he decided to go truly blind while filming the film to step into the shoes of his character: Niander Wallace. In Suicide Squad, he offered a rat to Margot Robbie to be closer to her Joker. In Chapter 27, the actor gained 60 pounds to step into the role of John Lennon’s assassin. We pass and the best. Jared Leto is therefore a chameleon actor who loves to push his limits to offer the best possible interpretation. And Morbius is no exception to the rule.

Indeed, throughout the first part of Morbius, Jared Leto portrays a frail and fragile character, who has difficulty getting around because of his incurable illness. And since her character walks around with crutches on-screen, Jared Leto did the same throughout filming. Throughout the part where he plays the feverish Michael Morbius, Jared Leto kept his character’s crutches between scenes. However, to save time, director Daniel Espinosa demanded that Jared Leto uses a wheelchair when he needed to go to the bathroom or move away from the board. Indeed, his bathroom breaks were much too long when Leto was using the crutches. Daniel Espinosa has therefore found this compromise of the wheelchair.

A particular acting process

The filmmaker went on to defend Jared Leto’s approach and his process for entering his roles. He notably declared at the microphone of Uproxx that:

I think what Jared is thinking, what Jared believes is that somehow he required the pain of those moves, even when he was playing the “normal” Michael Morbius, because his character had that pain all his life. Everyone has their process. (…) Almost all the actors, in general, have their own reputation on the way of working their characters. If you want a completely normal person who only does things you understand, then you’ve come to the wrong place. Because what’s different is what drives them. It’s very difficult to be able to say, “I can prevent this approach and I will always get the same from him.” I do not do it.

The co-star of Morbius, Adria Arjona, also returned to the very particular approach of Jared Leto at the microphone of variety. She was particularly quite impressed by her colleague’s commitment, but she was also very worried about her way of contorting herself in all directions even outside the sockets:

I remember being scared for this guy’s spine. There should have been a physiotherapist on call.