Jared Leto is opening up about the silent meditation retreat from which he emerged last March, just as the coronavirus pandemic began.
The 49-year-old actor, who was recently nominated for a Golden Globe for his role alongside Denzel Washington and Rami Malek in the police thriller The little things, sat down for a virtual interview with Sunday TODAYWillie Geist talks about the shock of returning to a changed world after being imprisoned for 12 days in the California desert.
“It was a once in a lifetime experience. They brought us into the big meditation room on the last day and said, ‘Hey, by the way, this has happened.’ We didn’t have access to the news, ”said Leto to Geist.
Concerned about the pandemic, Leto thought about going home.
“I was the only person who went to the teacher there and said, ‘Hey, do you think we should go home now?’ They said, ‘Well, it’s your decision whether you want to finish or not.’ You don’t want to be the guy who jumps early, ”he shared.
When he returned home, Leto’s phone exploded with messages from family and friends. He soon adopted social media to share his perspective, as Yahoo Entertainment previously reported.
“We were totally isolated. No phone, no communication, etc. We had no idea what was going on outside the facility, ”he wrote at the time.
Almost a year later, the Oscar winner was able to appreciate all the time he spent at home.
“This was, on the whole, a very pleasant change. I don’t think I have stayed in a place like this since I was a child, and even so, we changed a lot, ”he told Geist.
He even channeled the extra time for his music, sharing that he wrote a variety of new songs during the quarantine period.
“I had the opportunity to be really productive with the music and wrote about 100 songs,” said Leto, who performs with his brother Shannon in the band Thirty Seconds to Mars. “I hope the world will return to a place where we can tour again and give people a little break from the madness.”
Leto also talked about the six-year break he took from the film market to focus on music with the band. At the time, he knew that the movement raised eyebrows.
“Yes, it is probably a very strange decision. I turned down a Clint Eastwood movie to make $ 250 a night on tour, and I think that’s when Hollywood found out ‘) h, this guy lost his head,’ ”he shared.
It was the role of Rayon, a transgender woman with AIDS, in the acclaimed 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club this put Leto back in front of the camera. He ended up winning an Oscar for the role alongside Matthew McConaughey.
“I never, ever thought I would win an Oscar, or any award, really,” Leto told Geist. “What was really great was being able to go up on stage and get that light and illuminate some other things that were significant, or some things that were on my mind.”
As for the Oscar statue that Leto marked in 2014, it has since disappeared. In an appearance in The Late Late Show with James Corden last month, he revealed that he had been missing for years before he even realized it.
“You know, I found out he’s been missing for about three years and I didn’t know that,” said Leto, previously reported by Yahoo Entertainment. “I don’t think anyone wanted to tell me. But I had moved out of LA and when we moved, somehow, it just magically disappeared. “
He shared that he assumes that someone else intentionally has it in his possession, since “it is not the kind of thing that someone accidentally throws in the trash”.
But for Geist, Leto says he just hopes that whoever has his golden statue realizes its value.
“I just hope that whoever owns it will appreciate it,” Leto told Geist. “And maybe they can light something they like.”
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