Now you see them ... (WireImage)
... Now you don't! (INFDaily.com)At the Gotham Awards in New York City on Monday night, Jared Leto hit the red carpet, struck a pose … and then removed his glasses to unveil a hair-raising new look: He waxed off his eyebrows! But don't worry, it's not a hot new trend. The 30 Seconds to Mars rocker underwent the painful transformation for his role as an HIV-positive transvestite in the upcoming movie "The Dallas Buyers Club," which also stars Matthew McConaughey, who has plummeted down to 143 pounds to play another HIV-positive character in the flick.
On the set as Rayon. (PacificCoastNews.com)Leto, 40, has documented his transformation process for his nearly 1 million Twitter followers and the images are not for the faint of heart. In a series of photographs posted on November 14, he gave fans an up close and really personal look at how he prepped for the role of Rayon just before he began shooting in New Orleans. In one picture, Leto's right armpit is completely red after all the hair was waxed off, while in another an esthetician is seen plucking his eyebrows. But another shot he posted on Instagram is so gross, it should come with a warning: clumps of wax with Leto's eyebrows still perfectly intact. "Ladies, I feel your pain," he wrote. "What I have learned today: Beauty is pain. Wax on wax off."
This isn't the first time Leto, who got his start playing Claire Danes' character's boyfriend on the mid-90s short-lived hit "My So-Called Life," has suffered for his art. For the 2007 movie "Chapter 27," the actor gained 60 pounds to play John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman. Because of the trauma of "force-feeding" himself, Leto got gout in one of his feet towards the end of filming. "I couldn't walk for long distances," he revealed in 2008 to the New York Daily News. "I had a wheelchair because it was so painful. My body was in shock from the amount of weight I gained."
And taking off all those pounds wasn't any easier. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," Leto added. "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems."
Hopefully growing back his eyebrows will be easier!
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