Suicide Squad: Jared Leto promises his Joker is so chilling he will be 'locked away in a box'

Leto's performance as the iconic villain will inevitably be compared to Heath Ledger's Oscar-winning turn in The Dark Knight when it hits cinemas next year

Jared Leto plays The Joker in Suicide Squad (Warner Bros / YouTube)

Jared Leto's Joker was always going to be terrifying. From the moment for the Oscar-winning actor sent his Suicide Squad co-stars gifts of a live rat, bullets and a dead pig, it was clear that he was taking the iconic role just as seriously as the likes of Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger before him.

Leto finished filming the supervillain movie last month and dropped hints about what fans can expect while appearing at Dubai Music Week with his rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars. "You're really brave," he said to a Q&A attendee in a Batman shirt, before cackling manically to debut his Joker laugh.

"I can't wait for you to see this - they're going to lock me away in a box after this movie comes out."

Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight and Jared Leto in Suicide Squad

Director David Ayers has kept Leto's Joker tightly under wraps so far, with fans seeing only brief glimpses of his performance in the first Suicide Squad trailer and a striking photo shared on Twitter.

Leto stars alongside Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Will Smith as Deadshot, Cara Delevingne as Enchantress and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. Robbie promised last month that Leto will be "cool and confronting" in the film, while her own character, the Joker's on-off lover, is "absolutely nuts".

The movie's storyline follows a group of villains who take on dangerous black op missions for the government on the proviso that their sentences be reduced.

Suicide Squad reaches UK cinemas on 5 August 2016 after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice arrives on 25 March.