Jared Leto, a self-described “food
stamp poor” kid from Louisiana, had been in Los Angeles only two years when he
got his breakout role on My So-Called Life. He followed that with a series of film roles that required
transformation and total immersion. But no role has been as immersive as that
of Rayon, a transgender woman in 1980s Texas whose relationship with the
once-transphobic main character, Ron Woodroof, is essentially the heart of Dallas Buyers Club. For the role, Leto dropped to 116
pounds, almost skeletal proportions, to play a woman whose body is under siege
not just from AIDS but also from drug addiction.
For HIV Plus magazine’s January-February2014 cover story, editor in chief Diane Anderson-Minshall met with the actor
turned rock star (his band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, has sold more than 5
million albums so far) to talk about the Dallas
Buyers Club, watching his roommate die of AIDS, and the reaction Dallas
Buyers Club is getting in theaters.
