Jared Leto's method acting on everything from Suicide Squad TO Soft they generated so much attention that when Jeff Bridges showed up to work on Tron: Areshe wasn't sure what to expect.
“I'd never met him before. I'm like, 'What's it going to be like?' because he was also a producer on the show, a huge fan of the original, worked on it for 10 years. I walked in, and you know how every set has a different feel?” Bridges asked Rob Lowe during an appearance on his podcast series, SiriusXM's Literally! With Rob Lowe. “There was an interesting vibe to it. I said, 'How's Jared? How's he working?' 'He's fine. You know, we call him Ares, you know, so he goes by that name,' and I said, 'Oh, that's interesting.'”
Disney's flagship film: the sequel to the 1982 sci-fi film Tron and the 2010 sequel, Tron: Legacy — Leto plays Ares, a computer program sent from the digital world to the real world on a dangerous mission to introduce humans to artificial intelligence. Bridges has been a part of the entire franchise as video game designer Kevin Flynn. Tron: Aresdirected by Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Joachim Ronning, boasts a cast that also includes Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turner-Smith, Arturo Castro, Cameron Monaghan and Gillian Anderson.
The topic of method acting came up when Lowe detailed how he conducts himself on set and how it’s similar to Bridges’ approach. “You, I know, are like me from the acting school where we just show up and do it. There’s not a lot of artifice around the edges. We’ve done all the work we need to do, we’re doing it in the quiet of our privacy, so I can go and be Rob, and we can talk about the Lakers or whatever, and they can say, ‘five minutes,’ and we show up on set, and we do it, and then when they cut, we’re like, ‘Hey, you know, I went to a great Mexican restaurant last night,’” he explained. “Then, you have Jared Leto, who, you know, when Jared played the Joker, I have a friend who played his best friend. He was Mr. J the whole time.”
Bridges continued the thought by saying that both ways of doing it can “work beautifully,” although when he introduced himself on Tron: Areshe wasn't sure how to play it. “On the show he was called Ares, and at the end I was like, 'Hey Air, what's up, man?'” he explained. “And I was like, 'Is it okay if I call you Air?' And he was like, 'Yeah, sure you can.' Then we broke up, and it was just awesome. I mean, we went wild, you know?”
He nodded to the music in the film, prompting Lowe to confirm that Leto's character is also a rock star. “A big rock star, man,” he confirmed. “I won't tell you because we do a little bit of music in the show, and it's pretty good. He's wonderful in the part, though, and I'm so happy to be a part of it. [of it].”
Playing a rock star isn’t all that difficult for Leto, the longtime frontman of Thirty Seconds to Mars. The band kicked off their Seasons Tour earlier this year on March 14 in Santiago, Chile, at Lollapalooza. The dates will continue through the end of the year before wrapping up in Dubai on December 12. Most recently, they just wrapped up a series of shows in Australia before playing in Singapore this weekend.
Tron: Ares is scheduled for release on October 10, 2025. Bridges joined Leto, Lee, and Peters on stage at D23 last month to tease what’s to come. “Technology and artificial intelligence are so ubiquitous in our lives,” Bridges said during his speech. “What a perfect time to revisit this world. Or, have this world visit us, because that’s what happens in this movie.”
Jeff Bridges, Greta Lee, Evan Peters and Jared Leto will perform at D23 in Anaheim, California on August 9, 2024.
Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney