By now, you’ve seen the photo, the one that ostensibly captures Jared Leto right when he saw that green Gucci suit on the runway. His face is one of pure joy, as if the Charlie who found Willy Wonka’s golden ticket had a baby with the kid from Blank Check, and that child is now five and was just told that he gets to wear his new shoes out of the store. It’s that face. It’s the divine light in Jared Leto recognizing the divine light in a double-breasted elfin jacket. Here, have another look:

Later, he wore the suit—pink trousers and all—to the London premiere of Suicide Squad, as if affirming it’s possible to hold onto a feeling of love at first sight.

Except that’s not what happened at all. “The thing about the photo is—I’m going to be honest with you—I was actually making a face at someone across the runway,” Leto told VF.com on a phone call early Thursday morning. To cushion the blow, he conceded, “I have that feeling with most things [Gucci] makes because they make such beautiful things. But I was actually goofing off with a friend, and you can’t actually tell from the picture.

“Sorry to ruin your meme,” he said. “Perception versus reality.”

“Maybe I’ll just go on believing that it was a moment of joy,” I said, laughing the pain away.

“Or you could tell the real story,” he suggests. “That would be interesting.”

Interesting and heartrending. You get to decide on this unassuming Thursday morning, the day before Suicide Squad hits theaters: live in the real world or the delightfully meme-able fantasy.

The real story is something Leto has been thinking about lately. He’s been slowly rolling out a five-part docu-series, Great Wide Open, on YouTube. It’s a passion project sponsored by America, née Budweiser, that’s a love letter to national parks and the people who use them (respectfully) as personal jungle gyms.

The Leto in these shorts seems diametrically opposed to his rat-infused method-acting persona—or at least, these two Letos are on opposite sides of the X-treme spectrum. “There was a lot that was pretty harrowing,” he explained. “It was not like a narrative film where you’re tied into safety after safety after safety. This was real climbing, real situations in the wild. We were on the edge many times, as you often are when you go on these adventures. When you’re that close to the edge, you also feel alive.”

Leto said he hopes the audience will take from it an appreciation that someone had the foresight to protect the parks from “mini-malls and highways,” and that it’ll serve as inspiration to go visit them sometime. If nothing else, the mountainous landscapes and the stories of real-life daredevils might be the ideal come down for the Squad-addled brain or recently-broken-by-Leto-himself heart.