Jared Leto thought House of Gucci part would be 'worst' role or 'one of the best' he's taken on

13 January 2022

Jared Leto thought taking on the character of Paolo Gucci in 'House of Gucci' would be "the worst thing [he] ever did" or "one of the best".

Jared Leto thought taking on the character of Paolo Gucci in House of Gucci would be 'the worst thing he ever did' or 'one of the best'

The 50-year-old actor admitted it was a career risk taking on the role of family outcast Paolo, but earlier this week he was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role ahead of the 2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards.

He said: "I’m interested in taking big swings and I want to be in that place where absolute total failure is knocking on the door.

"That’s an exciting place to be and I hope to continue to remind myself to be as brave and as bold as I can be.

"I thought for sure that this would either be the worst thing I ever did, or potentially creatively for me as an artist, one of the best.

"There wasn’t any room for anything in the middle and I’m just struck by gratitude because I know that I’m fortunate to be an actor that people can call on to do these kinds of things.”

Leto is grateful to director Sir Ridley Scott for giving him "time and faith" to play the part.

He added to Deadline: "Once he hired me I told him that I was gonna go off the deep end here and he laughed and gave me permission to run the asylum for a bit ... and when we showed up on set Paolo was there. Ridley gave us the time and the faith.

"It was a beautiful thing that he gave us."

In November, Leto joked he "snorted lines of arrabbiata sauce" ahead of starring in 'House of Gucci'.

He said: "I did it all. I was snorting lines of arrabbiata sauce by the middle of this movie. I had olive oil for blood. This was a deep dive I did. If you took a biopsy of my skin, it would come back as parmesan cheese! This is my love letter to Italy.

"There was a lot of work and preparation, and yes, I had an Italian accent, and I enjoyed and embraced that and lived in that space as much as I could, and for as long as I possibly could. I climbed into that creative cave and came out through the bowels and intestines into the oesophagus of the one and only Paolo Gucci."