JARED LETO: Yeah. I’m in Portugal now.

FRANCO: The Franco part of my family is from Portugal but I’ve never been there. Is it nice?

LETO: It’s a great place. It was kind of one of the early places in Europe that we actually had really big success in with Thirty Seconds to Mars, so it’s been a really special place for us.

FRANCO: Why do you think the band caught on there so early?

LETO: I don’t know. It was just one of those things that happened. But it’s nice that it happened in such a unique place. It happened in Portugal and the U.K., and then things grew from there for us in Europe. I love it here, though, man. You can take a drive and be in a totally different country, and there are so many things here that I never imagined I would see as a kid, so it just kind of blows my mind. We’re actually staying in a fortress that has been turned into a hotel overlooking the ocean. It’s just nuts.

FRANCO: It’s interesting that it doesn’t matter that you sing in English—that you can still go to places where English isn’t the first language and perform, and people will still get something from it. The fact that you’re singing in a language that they might not understand just doesn’t matter.

LETO: Yeah. With music, it doesn’t really seem to matter at all. You can play in China or Africa or the Middle East or Texas and still communicate. It’s one of those things that I love about music. I guess that visual art is sort of similar in it’s ability to communicate beyond language.

FRANCO: The first time I met you was probably about a year ago at Terry Richardson’s show at OHWOW in L.A.

LETO: Yup.

FRANCO: And I can’t remember how it came up because there were tons of people there, but I remember you saying to me in passing, “I’m doing music now. I’m not really acting.” And I said, “Why? Why would you stop?” And you said, “I didn’t really like acting that much, and I felt like I wasn’t that great of an actor.” Now, of course, you’ve come back to acting in such a strong way with your performance in Dallas Buyers Club. But what was going on around the time we met at that party? And what happened subsequently that made you want to do Dallas Buyers Club?

LETO: When I saw you back then, I hadn’t made a film in more than a few years. I think, all told, it was almost five years between films, and during that period, I had a lot of time to think about things. I was incredibly busy with Thirty Seconds to Mars. We’d had more success with the band than I’d ever dreamed was possible—we were playing arenas all over the world. It was an incredibly exciting time for the music—and still is. I mean, I’m in an arena in Portugal right now, about to play for 19,000 people. That’s not supposed to happen for a couple of kids from Louisiana on food stamps. So we were pursuing things with the band for many years, and I think, in the downtime away from movies, I did start to question what I had to offer as an actor. I don’t think that I considered myself to be a very good actor or to have much to offer during that time. But the five years away from film made me not only a better person, but a better actor. It gave me more confidence. I also think that art is really predicated upon the experiences that you’ve had in your life. You only have to share what you’ve consumed. We’ve certainly experienced quite a bit over the past five or six years, and I poured all of that into Dallas Buyers Club.