On the 17th death anniversary of beloved and troubled Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, 30 Seconds to Mars singer and then future Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto posted a video of him playing Kurt in what he claims to be a tribute video to one of his greatest influences.
In the elaborate video, Leto looked and sound so similar to Cobain it was uncanny and bordering on eerie.
Leto’s effort on making sure he looked exactly like Cobain with his messy dirty blonde hair and his baggy outfit, similar to what the Nirvana singer looked like when he filmed the now-iconic MTV Unplugged performance, is very much noted. Leto even got the vocal inflections and the left-handed guitar playing down to a tee. Though in his video description, Leto did explain that he did not do this video for an audition to play the late grunge icon for a film, it did foreshadow his great acting abilities that would soon lead him to win an Academy Award for the film Dallas Buyers Club.
Leto’s music with his band Thirty Seconds to Mars has very explicit Nirvana influences. Cobain serves as an inspiration for Leto and that was the reason why he created this video, as an “exercise in exploration”.
Well, if there is a Kurt Cobain biopic to be made in the future, Leto is one contender for the role because as we’ve seen, he can easily pull off Kurt and might even be really good at it. Maybe too good even.
Watch Leto’s eerie tribute below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Kf4zBL6V8