Background

Ethnicity: Jared Leto has Cajun ancestry on his mother’s side.

Јаrеd Јоѕерh Lеtо wаѕ bоrn оn Dесеmbеr 26, 1971, іn Воѕѕіеr Сіtу, Lоuіѕіаnа. Не wаѕ bоrn tо hіѕ fаthеr, Аnthоnу Вrуаnt, аnd hіѕ mоthеr, Соnѕtаnсе Lеtо. Ніѕ раrеntѕ gоt dіvоrсеd whеn hе wаѕ а сhіld аnd grеw uр wіth аn еldеr brоthеr. Не gеtѕ hіѕ lаѕt nаmе frоm hіѕ ѕtер-fаthеr, Саrl Lеtо. Ніѕ bіrth fаthеr соmmіttеd ѕuісіdе whеn Јаrеd wаѕ еіght уеаrѕ оld.

Јаrеd’ѕ mоthеr јоіnеd thе hірріе mоvеmеnt, аnd ѕhе іѕ thе rеаѕоn fоr hіѕ еnсоurаgеmеnt tо dіffеrеnt fоrmѕ оf аrt. Не аlwауѕ lоvеd muѕіс аnd lеаrnеd tо рlау thе ріаnо аt а vеrу еаrlу аgе.

Education

Jared Leto attended Flint Hill School and later went to Emerson Preparatory School from where he graduated in 1989.

He first enrolled at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts only to shift to New York City’s School of Visual Arts after realizing his interest in acting. He studied filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts in New York, but dropped out after three years and made his way to Los Angeles. “I was studying to be a director, I figured that if I got a job as an actor, then that would help me get a job as a director,” he told FilmInk in 2014. “That was my big plan, but then you know what happened."

Career

In 1992, Leto moved to Los Angeles to pursue a musical career, intending to take acting roles on the side. Leto's first appearances on screen were guest appearances on the short-lived television shows Camp Wilder (1992), Almost Home (1993) and Rebel Highway (1994). However, his next role would change everything for Leto. While searching for film roles, he was cast in the show, My So-Called Life (1994) (TV Series 1994-1995). Leto's character was "Jordan Catalano," the handsome, dyslexic slacker, the main love interest of "Angela" (played by Claire Danes). Leto contributed to the soundtrack of the film, and so impressed the producers initially that he was soon a regular on the show until its end.

Elsewhere, Leto began taking film roles. His first theatrically released film was the ensemble piece, How to Make an American Quilt (1995), based on a novel of the same name and starring renowned actresses Winona Ryder, Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Jean Simmons, and Alfre Woodard. The film was a modest success and, while Leto's next film, The Last of the High Kings (1996), was a failure, Leto secured his first leading role in Prefontaine (1997), based on long-distance runner Steven Prefontaine. The film was a financial flop but was praised by critics, notably Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. He also took a supporting role in the action thriller, Switchback (1997), which starred Dennis Quaid, but the film was another failure.

Leto's work was slowly becoming recognized in Hollywood, and he continued to find work in film. In 1998, everything turned for the better on all fronts. This was the year that Leto founded the band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, with his brother, Shannon Leto, as well as Matt Wachter (who later left the group), and after two guitarists joined and quit, Tomo Milicevic was brought in as lead guitarist and keyboardist.

As well as the formation of his now-famous band, Leto's luck in film was suddenly shooting for the better. He was cast as the lead in the horror film, Urban Legend (1998), which told a grisly tale of a murderer who kills his victims in the style of urban legends. The film was a massive success commercially, though critics mostly disliked the film. That same year, Leto also landed a supporting role in the film, The Thin Red Line (1998). Renowned director Terrence Malick's first film in nearly twenty years, the film had dozens of famous actors in the cast, including Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, John Travolta, Nick Nolte, and Elias Koteas, to name a few. The film went through much editing, leaving several actors out of the final version, but Leto luckily remained in the film. The Thin Red Line (1998) was nominated for seven Oscars and was a moderate success at the box office.

Leto's fame had just begun. He had supporting roles in both James Mangold's Girl, Interrupted (1999), and in David Fincher's cult classic, Fight Club (1999), dealing with masculinity, commercialism, fascism, and insomnia. While Edward Norton and Brad Pitt were the lead roles, Leto took a supporting role and dyed his hair blond. The film remains hailed by many, but at the time, Leto was already pushing himself further into controversial films. He played a supporting role of "Paul Allen" in the infamous American Psycho (2000), starring Christian Bale, and he played the lead role in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000), which had Leto take grueling measures to prepare for his role as a heroin addict trying to put his plans to reality and escape the hell he is in. Both films were massive successes, if controversially received.

The 2000s brought up new film opportunities for Leto. He reunited with David Fincher in Panic Room (2002), which was another success for Leto, as well as Oliver Stone's epic passion project, Alexander (2004). The theatrical cut was poorly received domestically (although it recouped its budget through DVD sales and international profit), and though a Final Cut was released that much improved the film in all aspects, it continues to be frowned upon by the majority of filmgoers. Leto rebounded with Lord of War (2005), which starred Nicolas Cage as an arms dealer who ships weapons to war zones, with Leto playing his hapless but more moral-minded brother. The film was an astounding look at the arms industry but was not a big financial success.

Leto's flush of successes suddenly ran dry when he acted in the period piece, Lonely Hearts (2006), which had Leto playing "Ray Fernandez," one of the two infamous "Lonely Hearts Killers" in the 1940s. The film was a financial failure and only received mixed responses. Leto then underwent a massive weight gain to play "Mark David Chapman," infamous murderer of John Lennon, in the movie, Chapter 27 (2007). While Leto did a fantastic job embodying the behavior and speech patterns of Chapman, the film was a complete flop, and was a critical bomb to boot. It was during this period that Leto focused increasingly on his band, turning down such films as Clint Eastwood's World War 2 film, Flags of Our Fathers (2006).

In 2009, however, Leto returned to acting with Mr. Nobody (2009). Leto's role as "Nemo Nobody" required him to play the character as far aged as 118, even as he undergoes a soul-searching as to whether his life turned out the way he wanted it to. The film was mostly funded through Belgian and French financiers and was given a limited release in only certain countries. Critical response, however, has praised the film's artistry and Leto's acting.

He made his directorial debut in 2012 with the documentary film Artifact (2012).

Leto remains the lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and main songwriter for Thirty Seconds to Mars. Their debut album, 30 Seconds to Mars (2002), was released to positive reviews but only to limited success. The band achieved worldwide fame with the release of their second album A Beautiful Lie (2005). Their following releases, This Is War (2009) and Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams (2013), received further critical and commercial success.

After a five years hiatus from filming, Leto returned to act in the drama Dallas Buyers Club (2013), directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and co-starring Matthew McConaughey. Leto portrayed Rayon, a drug-addicted transgender woman with AIDS who befriends McConaughey's character Ron Woodroof. Leto's performance earned him an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor. In order to accurately portray his role, Leto lost 30 pounds, shaved his eyebrows and waxed his entire body. He stated the portrayal was grounded in his meeting transgender people while researching the role. During filming, Leto refused to break character. Dallas Buyers Club received widespread critical acclaim and became a financial success, resulting in various accolades for Leto, who was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role and a variety of film critics' circle awards for the role.

Leto is considered to be a method actor, known for his constant devotion to and research of his roles. He often remains completely in character for the duration of the shooting schedules of his films, even to the point of adversely affecting his health.

In 2010, Jared Leto launched The One and Only Golden Tickets, a full-service company that operates worldwide and manages exclusive services for concerts, festivals, and events. In 2013, the company was renamed Adventures In Wonderland.

In 2011, Jared Leto launched the online platform VyRT. Created as a live video streaming service, it also features social networking and official merchandise. Its idea came from some frustrating experiences Leto faced with Thirty Seconds to Mars in streaming their own live events. In June 2012, VyRT was awarded Best Online Concert Experience at the O Music Awards.

In 2012, Leto became an investor in Surf Air, a California-based air service. He is also a funder for Reddit and Robinhood Markets.

In 2016, he played the Joker in the supervillain film Suicide Squad (2016). He appeared alongside an ensemble cast which included Will Smith and Margot Robbie.

n 2017, he appeared as the lead in the neo-noir science fiction film 2036: Nexus Dawn. He then appeared in Blade Runner 2049 as the main antagonist.

In 2018, 30 Seconds to Mars released their fifth studio album "America." The album promotes and experiments with electronic and art pop, and opened at number two on Billboard 200. That year Jared Leto also appeared in the Netflix original film The Outsider, the Japan-American crime drama, taking place in Japan after World War II. The film didn't get any favorable reviews from critics.

He was also cast to play the titular role of Dr. Michael Morbius in the superhero film Morbius, which is scheduled to be released on March 19, 2021. In 2019, he became part of the crime thriller film The Little Things.

Achievements

• 

  Jared Leto is a popular American actor and musician. The actor is well-known for his versatility; he has played a variety of roles, such as a drug addict, a 118-year-old man, and a mentally unstable killer.
  
  His role as Rayon, a transgender woman, in the biographical drama film Dallas Buyers Club earned him accolades. He was also praised by the critics, and received several awards and nominations.
  
  As a musician, he formed the band 30 Seconds to Mars which went on to release many albums. It sold over 15 million copies of its albums as of 2014.Jared Leto is In 2011, the group set a Guinness World Record for longest concert tour by a rock band by performing 300 shows.
  
  He was named one of the most attractive men alive by different magazines.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Sunset Strip

    ("Sunset Strip" centers around five up-and-coming habitus:...)

    2000
  • Dallas Buyers Club

    (Matthew McConaughey gives the performance of his career i...)

    2013
  • Panic Room

    (When her home is invaded by three armed robbers, a divorc...)

    2002
  • Girl, Interrupted

    (Winona Ryder and Academy Award-winner Angelina Jolie are ...)

    1999
  • Blade Runner 2049

    (A new blade runner unearths a secret that could plunge wh...)

    2017
  • Prefontaine

    (The true-life story of legendary track star Steve Prefont...)

    1997
  • Urban Legend

    (Urban legends, those contemporary macabre myths that have...)

    1998
  • Lord of War

    (Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage thrills in this action-...)

    2005
  • Alexander

    (The epic story of Alexander the Great, the King of Macedo...)

    2004
  • American Psycho

    (A successful young stockbroker finds the only real way to...)

    2000
  • Basil

    (A lonely young aristocrat in turn-of-the-century England ...)

    1998
  • Fight Club

    (Brad Pitt and Edward Norton star in this daring, controve...)

    1999
  • Black & White

    (A shy rookie cop finds himself in a passionate affair wit...)

    1999
  • Lonely Hearts

    (John Travolta, James Gandolfini, Salma Hayek, Jared Leto ...)

    2006
  • The Thin Red Line

    (A portrait of blood brothers in life and death, as they s...)

    1998
  • Sol Goode

    (After a string of bad luck, a charismatic womanizer (Balt...)

    2001
  • Suicide Squad

    (An intelligence officer assembles a team of imprisoned su...)

    2016
  • Phone Booth

    (Stuart Shepard finds himself trapped in a phone booth, pi...)

    2002
  • Requiem for a Dream

    (Requiem for a Dream is a hypnotic tale of four human bein...)

    2000
  • How to Make an American Quilt

    (Bride-to-be Finn Dodd hears tales of romance and sorrow f...)

    1995
  • Chapter 27

    (New York City, 1980: one of the world's most beloved musi...)

    2007
  • Last of the High Kings

    (Frankie has barely made it through his exams. Now, convin...)

    1996
  • Switchback

    (A serial killer is on the loose. And he's kidnapped the s...)

    1997
  • Mr. Nobody

    (Mr. Nobody tells the life story of Nemo Nobody, a 118-yea...)

    2009

• music

  • Highway

    (On their way to the 1994 Kurt Cobain vigil, two 19 year-o...)

    2002
  • 30 Seconds To Mars 2002
  • Beautiful Lie 2005
  • This Is War 2009
  • Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams 2013
  • America 2018

Religion

Leto's religious background is highly contested. He grew up in hippie communes, so some type of general spirituality probably persisted during his childhood. He's been silent on the topic as an adult except to compare his band to religion. Leto’s mother raised him primarily, often with the help of, as Leto describes it, a "hippie commune." He once said:

"Just having the art-communal hippie experience as a child, there wasn’t a clear line that was drawn. We celebrated creative experience and creative expression. We didn’t try and curtail it and stunt any of that kind of growth."

"People form bonds at a church, at a bar, at work. It happens in Scientology, it happens in Catholicism, and it happens with us." - he claimed.

Although he does have his own beliefs, he doesn't necessarily believe in God.

"I don't believe in a God who sits in conscious judgment of the actions of humanity," he told the publication. "I don't want to be dismissive because my real belief is that if that's what you believe and where you find comfort, then that's great, That's actually my belief: People should believe whatever they want to believe. But for me, you know, I don't think there's a bearded dude up there that's like, Oh, you did this and this."

Politics

Leto is an Obama-supporting Democrat. He even held his own star-studded Obama fundraiser, charging between $500 and $2,500 for entrance.

Walk on Water, the track from the America album which was released last summer was accompanied by a video stamped with figures about US migration, prison statistics, footage of North Korean nuclear launches, protests and the President Donald J. Trump. The targets are wide but it's not immediately clear what Leto, his brother Shannon and the rest of the band are asking people to protest about.

"Walk on Water is a political song about standing up and fighting for what you believe in," insists Leto, talking to the BBC between dates of the band's UK tour in March 2018. - "It's about change and it's about the possibilities that we have at our fingertips."

"We made a portrait of a country in what I think is a really important time, a time of great change, of instability and uncertainty, a time where were asking big questions about who are we, what type of country do we want to be and these questions are being asked around the world."

The album is partly a companion piece to a short film, which Leto directed, called A Day in the Life of America which aimed to capture 24 hours of American life on the Fourth of July.

Both projects says Leto, attempt to portray the country warts and all.

"We explore the good, the bad and the ugly, I don't think there's an American alive that sees perfection or sees things in an idealistic way. I think that we are like every nation, a collection of imperfections but also aspirations to kind of follow or reach a bigger ideal or dream."

Views

Jared Leto supports animal rights and lives a vegan lifestyle. He cares a lot about environment. He walks the walk too - from touring with his band in a vegetable oil-fueled bus to convincing fans to donate 71,000 trees to a reforestation initiative in Haiti. Leto also made a music video for his song, “A Beautiful Lie,” to illustrate the effects of climate change by shooting it in the arctic and including factoids onscreen for interested parties to read. He said:

"We all know by now that our planet is in deep trouble. We have abused it horribly and we are paying the price. It’s time to try to do what we can, both as individuals and collectively, to find better and kinder ways to live. It’s not our right; it’s our responsibility. We are all guilty. We can all change."

Jared Leto supports gay marriage. During a gay rights group fundraiser, Leto took the written wording of California’s controversial Prop 8 (the law defining marriage as only between a man and woman) and set it on fire.

Quotations: "I never look at myself as a closet actor wanting to make music or a closet musician wanting to act - I'm very proud to do both and I don't put one above the other, I'm very grateful and excited by both opportunities - it's really a unique opportunity to do both."

"I stayed at a shelter, so nobody handed me anything. I worked for every single thing that I have.”

"Music is subjective to everyone's unique experience."

"When you make music, you're in really direct contact with your fans out there, so you hear all kinds of stories."

"I kinda have the opposite of ADD. I have a hyper-focused disorder, where if there's a given task in front of me I really concentrate on that."

"I think that to explore the uncomfortable and the politically incorrect is the job of the artist."

"It's nice if people ask to use your song. You have to make a decision as an artist how you feel about that."

"It's not like I'm hanging out at shopping malls or going to celebrity golf tournaments. I'm so in my own little world. I got my dog, my music, my brother, a couple of friends."

Membership

Jared Leto is an active supporter and member of various charities and foundations, such as Aid Still Required, Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, Elton John AIDS Foundation, MusiCares, spcaLA, The Art of Elysium, and others.

• 

  Aid Still Required , United States

• 

  Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes , United States

• 

  MusiCares , United States

• 

  Elton John AIDS Foundation

• 

  spcaLA , United States

• 

  The Art of Elysium , United States

Personality

When the 30 Seconds to Mars first started, Jared Leto did not allow his position of Hollywood actor to be used in promotion of the band. Their debut album had been in the works for a couple of years, with Leto writing the majority of the songs.

After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, he released a book of photographs taken during his trip to the Caribbean country in 2011, in a bid to raise funds for the earthquake-ravaged country. He has connected with and helped various organizations since arriving there, including J/P Haitian Relief Organization. Leto spent a year in Haiti during his childhood and returned there in January 2011 to “reconnect” with his former home following the tremor of January 2010.

On September 30, 2014, Jared Leto hosted the event Haiti: The Journey Is the Destination in New York City, benefitting those affected by the 2010 earthquake in the Caribbean country.

In February 2015, Jared Leto was named a global ambassador for World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Bartholomew Cubbins is his pseudonym with which he signs the videos/films he directs (including most of his band 30 Seconds to Mars’s video clips starting with “The Kill.”

Physical Characteristics: Jared Leto is attractive. He is tall (an actor marked once, he is 180 cm, but his fans consider him a little lower - 175 cm). He has extremely blue eyes and an open oval face. His hair is light brown.

Interests

• writing songs, reading, painting, photography

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Stephen Hawking

• Politicians

  Barack Obama

• Writers

  A Novel by Jon Clinch, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and What is the What by Dave Eggers

• Sport & Clubs

  snowboarding, skateboarding, hiking

• Music & Bands

  Nine Inch Nails - Closer

Connections

Jared Leto has never been married and has dated a lot оf women in his life. He once was in a relationship with the actress, Cameron Diaz, for almost four years. Due to their personal differences, they broke up.

Mother:

Constance Leto

colleague:

Christian Bale

Brother:

Shannon Leto

ex-girlfriend:

Cameron Diaz

In August 1999, Jared started dating Cameron Diaz. They continued dating and engaged in 2002. But, the engagement was called off in March 2003 and this relationship also came to an end.

ex-girlfriend:

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson and Jared dated on and off for a year. They were spotted several times in Los Angeles together, but never made a statement about their relationship.

colleague:

Winona Ryder

colleague:

Brad Pitt

colleague:

Edward Norton

colleague:

Helena Bonham Carter

colleague:

Angelina Jolie

colleague:

Jacob Gyllenhaal

colleague:

Kanye West

colleague:

Colin Farrell

colleague:

Margot Robbie

References

• Home | THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS
• JARED LETO - Instagram profile
• JARED LETO - Twitter