Jared Leto’s Joker totally blew away the “Suicide Squad” cast

It’s no secret that Jared Leto has been really, really into his part as Joker in the upcoming Suicide Squad — after all, he *did* give a dead pig as a gift — but it turns out all of his creepy antics are paying off. According to the film’s director, David Ayer, Jared’s performance is “world-stopping.”

Speaking to Total Film (via DCVertigoDaily), David explained that the entire crew stopped everything they were doing whenever Jared would walk on set:

This chilling effect doesn’t come without work. TBH, his Joker has been freaking us out (in an awesome way) for almost a year now, but we think it’s been freaking out the cast more, especially considering he’s a serious method actor.

“He did some bad things, Jared Leto did,” co-star Viola Davis told Vanity Fair back in February. “He gave some really horrific gifts. He had a henchman who would come into the rehearsal room, and the henchman came in with a dead pig and plopped it on the table, and then he walked out. And that was our introduction into Jared Leto.”

In fact, Jared even sent each individual cast member creepy gifts. “I’m terrified as a person thinking, ‘Is he crazy?’ But the second part was, ‘Oh shit, I gotta have my stuff together. You talk about commitment,’” Viola recalled. “And then he sends Margot Robbie a black rat. It was still alive, in a box. She screamed. . . And then she kept it!”

Talk about commitment! If he stopped the crew dead in their tracks, we can’t imagine how awesomely creeped out we’ll be when we see Suicide Squad in theaters on August 5th.