Jai Courtney self-harmed for Suicide Squad

Australian actor Jai Courtney burned himself with cigarettes and got high on mushrooms as he researched his supervillain role in Suicide Squad.
The Terminator Genisys star portrays Captain Boomerang in the big screen adaptation of the popular DC Comics story, alongside a cast which includes Jared Leto as The Joker, Will Smith as Deadshot, and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.
Jared previously hit headlines as his co-stars detailed the extremes he went to to get into the mindset of his twisted character, and he wasn’t the only one who took things further than normal in preparation for the project.
In an interview with Empire magazine, Jai remembers having an odd Skype conversation with director David Ayer, commenting, “That night I happened to eat some mushrooms and I did self-inflict some burns.”
He did not elaborate on the bizarre behaviour, but Ayer did his best to push his stars to their limits to get the best out of their performances. According to Empire, Joel Kinnaman, who plays Rick Flag, was made to watch “horrific” classified military videos, while Lost actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who portrays Killer Croc, had to listen to tape recordings from Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa, who murdered and ate the remains of Dutch woman Renee Hartevelt in 1981, reports Yahoo! Movies.
Meanwhile, Jai admits the End of Watch filmmaker was extremely hands on when it came to creating his crazed, shorn look in the movie.
“I turned up to discuss my look, expecting we’d have a long discussion and slowly he’d refine it,” the 30-year-old recalled. “David just walked right in, picked up some clippers and started shearing chunks of hair off my head. Eventually he said, ‘You look like bad news!’ Then he left.”
Jai never complained about Ayer’s non-traditional approach to filmmaking – because working with the director was the main reason he signed up for Suicide Squad in the first place.
The actor confesses he had never heard of the comic books before he was sent the script, and he was hesitant to sign on.
“To be honest, when I heard about this guy called Captain Boomerang, I was a little apprehensive,” he told U.S. morning show Live! with Kelly. “I was like, ‘Hmm, not sure about that’. But it was really working with David Ayer… who was the most attractive part for me, and then when I got into it and saw what it was we were working with, and how cool this world was, it was really exciting.”