It’s official: We’re creeped out. Jared Leto, who stars as the Joker in the upcoming Suicide Squad, gave fans an advance look at his creepy take on the iconic comic-book villain on Friday, April 1.

“Exclusive! Meet the bearded JOKER #JokerWasHere,” the Oscar-winning actor captioned a video on Twitter of his disturbing character, which was amplified by the Suicide Squad filter.

In the eight-second clip, the 44-year-old star glares intently at the viewer with his piercing blue eyes as he snarls and grunts like an animal.

Though he sports a beard in the video and calls it out with his caption, it’s not certain whether the facial hair will appear in the film. Previous images of the actor in character have all shown a clean-shaven face, including the character’s unveiling on the cover of Empire magazine last October.

Suicide Squad director David Ayer has said that the 30 Seconds to Mars frontman’s version of Batman’s nemesis is a scary one (“the hairs stand up on the back of your neck,” he told USA Today in January), but the actor has big shoes to fill. Jack Nicholson’s take on the bad guy in 1989’s Batman is considered to have overshadowed the Caped Crusader himself. And Heath Ledger won an Oscar posthumously for his version of the DC Comics baddie in 2008’s The Dark Knight.



“The work that’s been done on this character by so many people before me has been so impactful, so incredible, so much fun, so profound, so risky, that it’s a very special thing to be asked to take on that responsibility,” Leto told Entertainment Weekly last month.

Suicide Squad also stars Ben Affleck as Batman, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Will Smith as Deadshot. The film opens August 5.