SUICIDE SQUAD Producer Talks Jared Leto’s Joker, PG-13 Rating and More

Collider recently had an interview with producer Charles Roven discussing Batman v Superman. Now the conversation has to the next DC film, Suicide Squad. We learn what rating the film will be and more details about Jared Leto’s transformation into The Joker. Check out what Charles Roven had to say down below!

In case you didn’t know, Jared Leto is a huge method actor in every role he plays, and the Joker is no exception. Charles Roven gives us an idea of what the cast and crew had to deal with on set: “Look, you know, it was different, it was fun. The group first wasn’t sure because the AD’s had to call him ‘Mr. J’ to get him to come to the set [laughs]. And he did in many ways isolate himself from the rest of the group, but that’s really what his character was, the purpose of his character in many ways, other than when he was with Harley or trying to get Harley. It was very entertaining, it was fuel for a lot of good sport and a lot of laughs, and his isolation bonded the squad, and we wanted the squad bonded.”

The most surprising thing from all of this is that Warner Brothers never planned a Suicide Squad film. It was director’s David Ayer’s pitch that got the film green lit. Roven explains: “He had a close relationship with [Warner Bros. executive] Greg Silverman and Greg said, ‘He’s got an idea on Suicide Squad, he wants to come in and pitch it.’ Having a guy like that who’s been able to—all of his films have had a certain level of groundedness to them, really feeling very richly real. And so having that sensibility, which is along the lines of what we were talking about earlier how we like to have things grounded in science or whatever, I was very anxious to hear what his take was gonna be on Suicide Squad and I was very happily surprised, but it was right exactly in the pocket that we were looking for. Honestly that movie was essentially green lit in the pitch meeting.”

It’s unusually that a director gets a “superhero movie” green lit. Most of the time the studio already has the film planned and hires the director for the job. Just another reason Suicide Squad is unique.

The fact that Ayer is writing and directing the film is what brought most of the cast on board the project. Roven explains: “Surprisingly, one of the things that is a natural benefit of having a writer-director is that when you meet with him, if he’s trying to meet with an actor and explain to them what the role’s gonna be, there’s a lot of confidence that the actor has that the man who’s telling him what’s it’s gonna be is gonna deliver because he’s both the writer and the director. So David [Ayer] was very fresh off the heels of a movie that he could show called Fury, which was a fabulous picture, and he was able to talk about these really—as he says ‘it can be fun to be bad’ and ‘just because they’re bad doesn’t mean they’re evil’, and so he was able to convince all of the actors that we went out to that he was gonna be able to make these characters so compelling that they would wanna be played more than once by these actors.”

While there have been rumblings that Suicide Squad will be an R-rated film, Roven confirmed that was not the case, saying: “The intention of the film is definitely to be PG-13… We really want to make these films tonally consistent so that, as I said because this is a shared universe, at least our current thinking—and again, we’re not dealing in absolutes because while this is business it’s also a creative endeavor, so you want to leave yourself open to changing your mind, doing something different, being inspired, that’s the whole process of filmmaking is you have to allow for inspiration as well as having a road map for what you’re gonna do. So our plan right now is to make all these films PG-13. In some cases, you know, right there on the edge of PG-13, but still PG-13.”

Lastly, Roven was asked what he thinks will surprise audiences most about the film, he believes character arcs will definitely surprise: “There’s a lot of characters in Suicide Squad, and I think you’ll be engaged with them. They all have fabulously different arcs, they’re all very individualistic, and I think that also they’re very, very human in their own dysfunctional ways. And I think that the personal individuals stories and how they relate to each other will be surprising.” Sadly, Charles Roven also confirmed that we won’t see anew trailer until the first quarter of 2016.

With a talented cast and director Suicide Squad certainly has a lot going for it, plus it features Batman, so who doesn’t love that? Stay tuned for more Suicide Squad as it comes.