Jared Leto on Fametracker
Posted: Nov 22nd 2004, 9:32 pm
Jared Leto received the Fame Audit today:
Name Jared Leto
Audit Date November 22, 2004
Age 32
Occupation Actor, reluctant dreamboat
Experience 19 films, one lamented cult TV show
Assessment:
Is it possible to be too pretty? You might think that, on one level, Hollywood is just a big foot race of the gorgeous, with all those impossibly beautiful mugs craned out to kiss the finish line first. After all, when your job consists essentially of having your face projected sixty feet high, it helps if that face is pleasant to gaze upon.
And this year seemed to bear that theory out, with Jude Law, the Human Time Bomb of Unworldly Hotness, exploding finally, his mega-watt hotness vaulting him to his rightful place at the top of the...er, movie-star, light-bulb, time-bomb, pole-vaulting...um, pile. (Sorry, that metaphor totally got away from us.) Law's blindingly beautiful mug, after all, is featured on countless magazine covers and in six movies this fall. But the movies have sputtered, and so the resultant question hasn't been, "Why did it take so long for America to fall for this dreamy Adonis?" but, rather, "Is Jude Law too pretty to be a leading man?" For counsel on the matter, he might want to consult that other angel-faced, wheel-spinning semi-star: Jared Leto.
Leto arrives on screens this week in Alexander, Oliver Stone's terrible-looking film with the beautiful-looking cast. The film stars Colin Farrell, a pretty boy whose angelic countenance is studiously tempered by the Guinness on his breath. Over there, with the fake scars on his face, is Val Kilmer, another one-time dreamboat with real acting chops, who's also waged a tortured personal battle with his own good looks until time, the (apparent) surgeon's knife and, in this movie, gobs of fake makeup all cloaked his moony mug.
And there, lurking in the background, is the tastily named Hephaestion, played by Jared Leto. He, of course, came to everyone's attention as the swoon-inducing Jordan on My So-Called Life. He has the kind of face that causes preteen girls to rip the cover from Teen Beat immediately and tape it to their wall, right over a yellowing Kirk Cameron.
So if ever a man seemed poised for stardom, this was him. The distinctive name. The acting skills. The...sudden moustache, which he grew for his leading role in Prefontaine.
Yes, Prefontaine, which was, by all accounts, a very good film, with a very good performance by Leto as -- wait for it -- a prickly long-distance runner. With a moustache.
Though he made a brief, diversionary stab at teen-beat stardom with Urban Legends, Leto's subsequent career has been made up of roles designed to distract us from -- and in some case, actively mutilate -- his beatific visage. In Fight Club, he actually plays a guy named Angel Face, who then gets that face pounded to pulp. In Panic Room, he's an implausibly beautiful thug who gets badly burned. In Requiem for a Dream, he's a sad junkie who winds up as an amputee -- Leto, it seems, can't stop mashing, frying, or carving up his own person. And his heartfelt performances are always made only slightly less plausible by our suspicion that he could, at any time, escape his dead-end life by signing on as a model for Abercrombie & Fitch.
Acting-wise, Leto's doing a lot of interesting things. Fame-wise, he's spinning his wheels, now best known as The Guy Who Dated Cameron Diaz Right Before Justin Timberlake Did. Meanwhile, other pretty boys like Paul Walker have embraced their genetic good fortune, riding it, unquestioning, to glory.
You'd never think that in Hollywood, of all places, excessive beauty could actually turn out to be a liability. But Leto's battled his own beauty at every turn. Which is too bad, because while he's busy burning, mutilating, or otherwise defiling the temple of his hotness, Paul Walker's scooping up a lot of roles, and that guy can't act worth a lick.
Assets:
• Way too pretty
• He can act! Even with a moustache! Especially with a moustache!
• You have to know that great glories have been laid out at his feet, and he chose instead to sign with Darren Aronofsky to play a sweaty junkie
Liabilities:
• Way too pretty
• Though he's never starred in a WB show, seems like he should have starred in a WB show
• Unfortunately, Requiem for a Dream blew. Yes, it did.
Fame Barometer
Current approximate level of fame: Stuart Townsend
Deserved approximate level of fame: Adrien Brody
