Jared Leto

Jared Leto Bio

Jared Joseph Leto, born December 26, 1971, is an American actor and musician. Known for his method acting in a variety of roles, he has received numerous accolades over a career spanning three decades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Additionally, he is recognized for his musicianship and eccentric stage persona as frontman of the rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars.

Early Life and Background

Jared Joseph Leto was born on December 26, 1971, in Bossier City, Louisiana, to Constance Leto. His mother has Cajun ancestry, and Leto is his stepfather’s surname. His parents divorced when he was a child, and he and his older brother, Shannon, lived with their mother and their maternal grandparents. After he remarried, his father died by suicide when Jared was eight. Leto moved frequently with his family from Louisiana to different cities around the country, a normal way of life shaped by his grandfather’s service in the Air Force.

Constance joined the hippie movement and encouraged her sons to get involved in the arts. Leto grew up surrounded by artists, musicians, photographers, painters, and people in theater, with no clear line drawn around creative expression. He started playing music with his brother at an early age, and his first musical instrument was a broken-down piano. After dropping out briefly in the tenth grade, Leto decided to return and focus on his education at the private Emerson Preparatory School in Washington, D.C.

He was interested in large-scale visual art and enrolled at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. After developing an interest in filmmaking, he transferred to the School of Visual Arts in New York City. While a student there, he wrote and starred in his own short film, Crying Joy. He also attended the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, now part of George Washington University.

Path to Celebrity

In 1992, Leto moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in directing, intending to take acting roles on the side. He found minor roles on television shows, but his first break came in 1994 when he was cast opposite Claire Danes as Jordan Catalano in the short-lived but well-reviewed ABC teen drama My So-Called Life. The show was praised for its portrayal of adolescence and, despite its cancellation after one season, gained a strong cult following.

The same year, Leto made his television film debut starring alongside Alicia Silverstone in Cool and the Crazy and landed his first film role in the 1995 drama How to Make an American Quilt. He later co-starred with Christina Ricci in The Last of the High Kings (1996) and got a supporting role in Switchback (1997). In 1997, Leto starred in the biopic Prefontaine as Olympic hopeful Steve Prefontaine, training for six weeks and bearing a striking resemblance to the real runner, earning positive reviews that marked his first major critical notice.

Jared Leto Career

Early Career (1992-2000)

After landing the lead role of a British aristocrat in the 1998 drama Basil, Leto starred in the horror film Urban Legend, which was poorly received by most critics but was a financial success. That year, Terrence Malick cast Leto for a supporting role in the war film The Thin Red Line alongside Sean Penn and Adrien Brody. The film garnered mostly positive reviews, was a moderate success, and received multiple Academy Award nominations; Leto shared a Satellite Award with the rest of the cast.

In 1999, Leto played a gay high school teacher in Black and White and had a supporting role in the drama Girl, Interrupted, an adaptation of Susanna Kaysen’s memoir. He then portrayed Angel Face in Fight Club (1999), directed by David Fincher. The same year, he formed the rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars in Los Angeles with his brother Shannon, eventually signing the group to Immortal Records.

Breakthrough (2000-2013)

Leto played heroin addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000), directed by Darren Aronofsky. To prepare, Leto lived on the streets of New York City, refrained from sex for two months, and lost 28 pounds. Critics praised the emotional courage of his portrayal, and Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers highlighted the rare poignancy of his scenes with Ellen Burstyn. The same year, he appeared in American Psycho, playing Paul Allen opposite Patrick Bateman’s rival.

During this period, Leto focused increasingly on his music career, releasing the debut Thirty Seconds to Mars album 30 Seconds to Mars in 2002. He returned to acting with Panic Room (2002), Alexander (2004), Lord of War (2005), Lonely Hearts (2006), Chapter 27 (2007), and Mr. Nobody (2009). For Chapter 27, in which he played John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman, Leto gained 67 pounds, developed gout, and used a wheelchair during production. His Mr. Nobody performance as the last mortal on Earth earned critical praise at the 2009 Venice Film Festival.

After a five-year acting hiatus, Leto returned to film in Dallas Buyers Club (2013), directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Leto portrayed Rayon, a drug-addicted transgender woman with AIDS, losing 30 pounds, shaving his eyebrows, and waxing his entire body to prepare. He refused to break character during filming, and his performance was widely celebrated.

Notable Works and Milestones

His performance as Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club (2013) earned Leto the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. The role cemented his reputation as one of the most committed method actors in Hollywood and remains his most decorated work to date.

Jared Leto Award Nominations

Across his career, Jared Joseph Leto has earned recognition from major industry organizations for performances in Dallas Buyers Club, The Little Things, House of Gucci, and the television series WeCrashed. Notable nominations include Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award bids for Best Supporting Actor for The Little Things, as well as Critics’ Choice Movie Award and Satellite Award nominations for House of Gucci. He has also received MTV Video Music Award nominations for his short films and music videos directed under the pseudonyms Bartholomew Cubbins and Angakok Panipaq.

Jared Leto Awards Won

Jared Joseph Leto has won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Satellite Award, among other honors, for his acting work. He has also earned multiple MTV Video Music Awards and an MTV Europe Music Award for music videos and short films he directed. Leto’s band Thirty Seconds to Mars has set a Guinness World Record for most live shows during a single album cycle, with 300 shows during the Into the Wild era.

Award	Wins	Year
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor	1	2014
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture	1	2014
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role	1	2014
Satellite Award (with ensemble cast, The Thin Red Line)	1	1999

Jared Leto Family

Leto was raised primarily by his mother, Constance, and his maternal grandparents, Ruby and William Lee Metrejon, after his parents divorced. He has one older brother, Shannon Leto, with whom he co-founded Thirty Seconds to Mars in 1998. Leto also has two younger half-brothers from his father’s second marriage.