Jared Leto has revealed how he crafted the accent he used in his divisive portrayal of Paolo Gucci in Ridley Scott's House of Gucci. The actor is known for his method of acting; however, many feel he may have gone too far for this film.

Leto has experience with diving deep into a character off-screen. For example, he gained 67 pounds to play Mark David Chapman in Chapter 27, and he notoriously got into his role as the Joker in Suicide Squad by sending his co-stars bizarre presents. In House of Gucci, Leto is unrecognizable as he is enshrouded with makeup and prosthetics. However, what caught everyone's attention was his over-the-top Italian accent.

In an interview with The Wrap, Leto discussed how he learned this Italian accent, explaining that a large part of perfecting an accent is by studying how they pronounce words differently. Leto compared this process to his upcoming role as Adam Neumann in WeCrashed, in which he had to learn an Israeli accent. However, Leto had more footage to work from for that character versus the amount of footage available for Paolo Gucci.

"An accent is just a series of mistakes. You learn how to say a word, and maybe you don’t say it ‘correctly,’ whatever that means, but it’s just a series of habits. It’s the way your mouth makes shapes. Everyone learns theirs differently... The good thing about Adam is there was a lot of material out there, so he had hours and hours and hours of footage. [It was] kind of the opposite with Paolo Gucci, I had about a minute and a half of his voice in an interview. So in this case it was a blessing, it was beautiful just to be buried in the interviews."

Viewers Continue to be Divided on Leto's Performance

House of Gucci tells the true story about the fight for control of the Gucci business between Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) and Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver). Paolo and his father Aldo Gucci (Al Pacino), are two members of the Gucci family who get caught in the fire of this toxic marriage. While the real-life Paolo did make some contributions to the company, including the double-g logo, Paolo in the film is portrayed as a tragic and sympathetic character whose designs and ideas were never embraced by the family.

In addition to the mixed reactions towards Leto's performance, the response towards the film itself has been mixed as well. However, despite the divided reaction, House of Gucci performed well at the box office, grossing over $151 million to become 2021's highest-grossing adult drama. The film is also still in the awards conversation, especially with Lady Gaga's performance in the lead role.

Leto's next performance will be in Sony's Morbius, where he will most likely not have an Italian accent, even if it would make the movie so much more entertaining.