Jared Leto Responds To Criticism Of House Of Gucci Performance

Jared Leto has responded to criticisms about his portrayal of businessman and designer Paolo Gucci in Ridley Scott’s biographical drama, House of Gucci. Leto stars in the film alongside Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, and Al Pacino. Scott based his film on Sarah Gay Forden’s 2001 book, “The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed.”

Playing the one-time chief designer and vice president of the Gucci fashion house, Leto’s Paolo is portrayed as a seemingly unintelligent and talentless member of the family who owned the titular fashion house. Holding 25% of the companies shares, Paolo is targeted by Patrizia Reggiani (Gaga), getting tricked into getting his father Aldo (Pacino) arrested for tax evasion when she offers to let him design his own line of clothing. When Patrizia turns on him, Paolo cuts ties, ultimately finding himself in poverty until he passes away. Upon the film’s release, Leto’s portrayal was critiqued as over-the-top amongst other tonal inconsistencies, and in a recent interview, the star responded when talking about his time working on the film.

Speaking to Screendaily, Leto opened up about his time playing Paolo, discussing his acting methodology before reacting to the critical response to his portrayal. Though he admits he hadn’t read the criticism himself as he avoids reviews, Leto stated he tried his best and is ultimately fine with any criticisms people have. Leto continued, stating he had fun portraying Paolo and investing himself in the role. Despite stating that he wasn’t bothered by criticism, Leto did briefly defend his role, explaining that in his perspective, he’d feel like he’d fail if he hadn’t bothered people, and it was good that people were bothered. Check out Leto’s full response below:

“I can imagine [the reaction] because it’s a big swing. I don’t look at reviews, I don’t look at critics or read comments, but I tried my very best. Paolo is the best I can do. If you don’t like the work, that’s okay.

I had a blast playing it, I dug in as deep as I could. It’s also that thing of if you’re not pissing people off then you’re doing something wrong. As an actor, if you want to put a dent in things you got to break things a bit, and not everyone’s going to understand that. So if that’s happening, then great.”

Upon Leto facing criticism for his portrayal of Paolo, Scott defended Leto’s performance of the family member. In an interview following the film’s release, Scott justified Leto’s performance by stating that due to a lack of information on the real-life individual, he and Leto made assumptions about Paolo based on photographs. Stating that they felt Paolo was a flamboyant individual, Scott did say that he did aim not to let Leto’s performance become more over-the-top. It wasn’t just critics who found issues with Scott’s work, as the real-life Gucci family released a statement condemning the movie as being far from accurate. The family stated that they weren’t consulted when working on the film and took issue with Patrizia’s sympathetic portrayal. Scott responded to the family’s reaction, calling their critique’s insulting and that the family should be lucky for their portrayals.

With numerous critiques over tonal issues and portrayals of real-life events and figures, House of Guccihas become one of the more contentious contenders in the awards season. While Leto isn’t unfamiliar with criticisms over his portrayals and methodology, his portrayal is only one part of the film’s critiques, where multiple stars have faced similar criticism. While Leto mostly responded to criticism in a calmer manner than Scott’s, it does raise the question of how much care should be taken when portraying real-life figures and events.

Source: Screendaily

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