Jared Leto extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Jared Leto
Leto in 2009
Born	Jared Joseph Leto December 26, 1971 (1971-12-26) (age 38) Bossier City, Louisiana, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, musician, singer-songwriter, guitarist, bassist, lyricist, composer, film director, music producer
Years active	1994–present

Jared Joseph Leto (born December 26, 1971) is an American actor and musician. He has appeared in films such as Fight Club, Girl, Interrupted, Panic Room, American Psycho, Requiem for a Dream, Lord of War, and Chapter 27. He is lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and main-songwriter for the American rock band 30 Seconds to Mars.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 Film 2.2 Music 3 Awards 4 Filmography 5 Discography 6 References 7 External links

Early life

Leto was born in Bossier City, Louisiana. During his childhood, Leto and his family—his mother, Constance, and his older brother Shannon Leto—moved frequently, living in Louisiana, Wyoming, Colorado, Virginia, and even Haiti.^{1dead link2dead link}

After dropping out briefly in the 10th grade, Jared decided to return and focus on his education at Flint Hill School in Oakton, Virginia. He graduated from the prep schoolEmerson Preparatory School, in Washington, DC in 1989.³ When he finished school, Leto enrolled at Philadelphia's University of the Arts to pursue his interests in painting. However, he then transferred to the private-held, School of Visual Arts in New York City after developing an interest in acting.⁴

Career

Film

In 1992, Leto moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music, but also accepted some part-time acting roles. Two years later, he landed a role in the TV show My So-Called Life in which he played Jordan Catalano, opposite Claire Danes. After the show ended in 1995, Leto acted in several films such as How to Make an American Quilt, Girl, Interrupted, Urban Legend, The Thin Red Line, Prefontaine and Fight Club.

However, it was his portrayal of heroin addict Harry Goldfarb in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream in the year 2000, that garnered him more critical praise. The same year he portrayed a misfortuned yuppie colleague of Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman, in Mary Harron's American Psycho. After that, he returned with David Fincher for Panic Room, then teamed up with Jake Gyllenhaal in Highway in 2002, then acted opposite Colin Farrell in Oliver Stone's Alexander, and later with Nicolas Cage in Lord of War.

Leto is a vegetarian⁵ and especially mentions this in interviews where he talked about his increase of weight for the film Chapter 27 (starring alongside Lindsay Lohan) in which he plays John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman. He gained more than 60 pounds for this role.

He is set to star in the film Mr. Nobody playing the role of the eponymous Nemo Nobody. The film is set to be released in 2010.

Music

Aside from his film career, Jared Leto is the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and sole songwriter of the band 30 Seconds to Mars. He started the band in 1998 with his brother, Shannon Leto, who is the band's drummer. The band has released three full-length albums: the eponymous debut 30 Seconds to Mars, 2005's A Beautiful Lie and 2009's This Is War. They began opening for other bands and started their first headlining tour, Forever Night Never Day, in March 2006. In May 2007, the band started touring Europe. In August 2008, Virgin Records filed a $30 million lawsuit against Jared and 30 Seconds to Mars, claiming the band refused to deliver three albums as required by its contract. According to the lawsuit, the band "repudiated" a 1999 contract in July.⁶ In late April 2009 the lawsuit with EMI was annulled and 30 Seconds To Mars decided to re-sign with Virgin Records. Their third album This Is War was released on December 8, 2009, while the first single, "Kings and Queens" premiered Tuesday, October 6, 2009. And 'This is War' as the second single of the album.

Leto directed the videos for the songs "The Kill", "From Yesterday" and "Kings and Queens" under the alias of Bartholomew Cubbins , and "A Beautiful Lie" under the alias of Angakok Panipaq.⁷

For most shows, Leto uses either one of two custom-made Steve McSwain guitars, a white one called "Pythagoras" or a black one called "Artemis". The guitars: one a baritone and the other with a 25 1/2" scale length, have the image of a gryphon which he drew for McSwain. Occasionally he plays a white Gibson SG 61' Reissue as seen in the video for "A Beautiful Lie". Jared also plays a Gibson Maestro acoustic guitar for acoustic performances. Jared uses Mesa/Boogie amps, more specifically the Triple Rectifier model and matches them with Mesa/Boogie speaker cabinets as well.

Leto has cited how the De Havilland Law from decades ago was instrumental in resolving the band’s contract issues and how Olivia de Havilland, the Gone With the Wind actress, helped in a roundabout way. ⁸

Recently, the band collaborated with rapper Kanye West on the song Hurricane from their latest album This Is War.

Awards

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

• Leto got the award for "Prince of Darkness" at the Fuse Fangoria Chainsaw Awards. (Aired October 28, 2006).
• Leto received an award for Breakthrough Crossover Artist given at the 6th Annual Hollywood Life Awards held in December 2006.

Filmography

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

Year	Movie	Character	Notes
1992	Camp Wilder	Dexter	TV Show 2 episodes
1993	The Torkelsons/Almost Home	Rick Aiken	TV Show 1 episode
1994	My So-Called Life	Jordan Catalano	TV show Brother Shannon Leto also has a minor role in some episodes
	Cool and the Crazy	Michael
1995	How to Make an American Quilt	Beck
1996	The Last of the High Kings (Summer Fling)	Frankie Griffin	Learned to speak with Irish accent
1997	Prefontaine	Steve Prefontaine	Brother Shannon Leto has a role in this movie as well
	Switchback	Lane Dixon
1998	Basil	Basil	Learned to speak with British accent
	Urban Legend	Paul Gardener
	The Thin Red Line	Second Lieutenant Whyte
1999	Black and White	Casey
	Fight Club	Angelface
	Girl, Interrupted	Tobias "Toby" Jacobs
2000	American Psycho	Paul Allen
	Sunset Strip	Glen Walker
	Requiem for a Dream	Harry Goldfarb	Lost 28 pounds for this role.
2001	Sol Goode	Wannabe Rockstar	Uncredited along with Brother Shannon Leto, also Uncredited
2002	Panic Room	Junior
	Highway	Jack Hayes	Brother Shannon Leto has a role in this movie as well
2003	Phone Booth	Actor	uncredited cameo
2004	Alexander	Hephaestion
2005	Lord of War	Vitaly Orlov	Learned Russian for this role.
2006	Lonely Hearts	Raymond Fernandez
2007	Chapter 27	Mark David Chapman	Gained 67 pounds for this role
2010	Mr. Nobody	Nemo Nobody

Discography

• 2002 - 30 Seconds to Mars
• 2005 - A Beautiful Lie
• 2009 - This Is War

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jared Leto

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jared Leto

• Jared Leto at the Internet Movie Database
• 30 Seconds to Mars official website

v • d • e 30 Seconds to Mars Jared Leto · Shannon Leto · Tomo Miličević Matt Wachter · Solon Bixler · Kevin Drake Studio albums 30 Seconds to Mars · A Beautiful Lie · This Is War EPs Acoustic Live Radio Show · AOL Sessions Undercover · A Beautiful Lie · To the Edge of the Earth Singles "Capricorn (A Brand New Name)" · "Edge of the Earth" · "Attack" · "The Kill" · "From Yesterday" · "A Beautiful Lie" · "Kings and Queens" Video albums A Beautiful Lie - Deluxe Edition · To the Edge of the Earth Related Lists Awards and nominations · Discography · List of songs Groups Angels & Airwaves · Great Northern Labels Immortal Records · Virgin Records · EMI