Jared Leto to play Hugh Hefner in biopic from Brett Ratner

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Jared Leto will be seen this weekend in the sci-fi flick BLADE RUNNER 2049, but for his newest role, he will have to jump into the past – and into a comfy smoking jacket – to play the one and only Hugh Hefner. It was just announced that Leto will play the Playboy founder and all-around playboy in a biopic from Brett Ratner.

The scoop comes from THR who spoke with Ratner about the casting of Leto, and how the actor asked him to give him the role when Ratner secured the film rights to Hefner’s life:

Jared is an old friend. When he heard I got the rights to Hef's story, he told me, 'I want to play him. I want to understand him.' And I really believe Jared can do it. He's one of the great actors of today.

Ratner has been wanting to do a movie on Hef’s life since 2007, with Robert Downey Jr. attached to play the icon at one point. The movie was set to be made at Universal, but the rights then shifted to Warner Bros., before finally being nabbed by Ratner’s RatPac Entertainment. Ratner says he wants to do the movie as an “event film,” and though Hefner recently passed at the age of 91, Ratner is confident he has the tools to get the job done. "There's enough footage on Hef out there that Jared will be able to get as much information as he wants," he says.

Leto has been getting a bad go of it recently for his work as the Joker in SUICIDE SQUAD, but the man really is a talented performer. He was awe-inspiring in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB and certainly earned his Oscar, and has done a fine job in other smaller films as well. I would rather see RDJ play Hefner, but Leto could do an interesting job with the part. As for Ratner, the movie will indeed be entertaining with him at the helm, but hopefully, the filmmaker will show a deeper side this time around and offer a complex look at the icon's life.  But he seems like a director who won't skimp on the gratuitous nudity in a movie like this, so, that will be neat.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 arrives October 6.