While Leto made headlines for starting a cult in Croatia, the actor and musician also has several close collaborators that make up the creative cult of Jared Leto.

In 2019, Jared Leto and his band Thirty Second to Mars started a cult. The band invited fans&mdash;who call themselves the Echelon&mdash;to&nbsp;a retreat in Croatia&nbsp;where Leto, dressed in white robes, hosted hundreds of his devotees for a 3-day music festival complete with yoga and movie screenings. The band tweeted photos of Leto leading hundreds of people&mdash;also dressed in white&mdash;captioned, &ldquo;Yes, this is a cult #MarsIsland.&rdquo;&nbsp;
It wasn&rsquo;t the first time Thirty Seconds to Mars embraced the phrase&ndash;it's appeared on the band's merch and in their music videos. Playing on journalists telling them that they have a &ldquo;cult following,&rdquo; Leto and the band decided to give it a more literal definition. The Mars Island retreat is anticipated to return to Croatia in 2022. But beyond the adoring fans who will pay money to be isolated on an island with Leto and indoctrinated into his cult, the actor and musician has forged relationships with a number of close collaborators. Through his unconventional methods and distinct <a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/fashion/gallery/jared-leto-style">style</a>, Leto has made clear that his music, films, and fashion are more than a part of his celebrity, they&rsquo;re artistic statements. His &ldquo;real&rdquo; cult aside, L&rsquo;OFFICIEL takes a look at the people who have helped fashion the&nbsp;cult of Jared Leto.

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Jared and his older brother Shannon started Thirty&nbsp;Seconds to Mars together in 1998. Though the alternative rock band has undergone various lineup changes in its over two decades of existence, the two brothers have remained frontmen. Together, they&rsquo;ve released five studio albums and even embarked on a two-year-long tour that broke the Guinness World Record for Most Shows Played During an Album Cycle.

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Both the poster and tight&nbsp;shots in Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky, made sure that Leto&rsquo;s ice blue eyes would become a part of modern pop culture canon. To prepare to play Harry, a young man struggling with addiction, Leto lost 25 pounds. &ldquo;It was miserable,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was a painful, dark place, but it was rewarding&hellip;I had hallucinations. I&rsquo;d look up at the sky, and I&rsquo;d get a feeling of complete serenity.&rdquo; This intense attitude led to a harrowing performance as Leto, who's known for his method acting, channelled his character&rsquo;s pain and isolation. The psychological thriller spoke to many, and cemented Aronofsky as a master of suspense. To celebrate the film&rsquo;s 20th anniversary, Leto is helping sell a T-shirt to fund aid to musicians suffering from addiction.&nbsp;

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For Fear of God&rsquo;s Collection 6, the streetwear label released a fashion film starring the Academy Award-winner. Directed by Lane Stewart and written by designer Jerry Lorenzo, the film features&nbsp;Leto and model Maggie Maurer in a variety of looks and, to the excitement of the label&rsquo;s fans, offered a first glimpse at a Nike sneaker collaboration. Leto is not the only celebrity Fear of God devotee, as the label counts Kanye West, a fellow Leto collaborator, as a fan.

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Together, Leto and Emma Ludbrook&nbsp;co-produced the Leto-directed Artifact (2012), a documentary about Thirty&nbsp;Seconds to Mars&rsquo; legal battle with EMI, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. They also co-produced Into the Wild (2014), a TV series about the band&rsquo;s record-breaking three-time-consecutive world tour. Ludbrook works for Leto&rsquo;s production company, Paradox, and&nbsp;Leto even officiated Ludbrook&rsquo;s wedding.

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In 2009, the two musicians collaborated on the song &ldquo;Hurricane&rdquo; which was released on This Is War, Thirty Seconds to Mars&rsquo; third album. For Leto, working with West was incredible. &ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s a really kind person, and really creative and a fellow work fiend like myself,&rdquo; he told Rolling Stone.

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Perhaps Leto&rsquo;s most famous collaborations are with Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele. He famously wore Gucci while&nbsp;carrying a replica&nbsp;of his own head at the 2019 Met Gala, and has been the face of Gucci Guilty fragrances. Michele also designed brightly-colored looks for Leto&rsquo;s Monolith tour.

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David Fincher directed Leto in 1999's&nbsp;Fight Club and the 2002 thriller&nbsp;Panic Room.&nbsp;For both films, Leto transformed his look, dying his hair and eyebrows blonde for the former, and getting cornrows for the latter. The respective roles also required a bit of pain on the part of Leto's characters, but the actor was up for the challenge. "He&rsquo;s a great person to work with, so knowledgeable about what he&rsquo;s doing every second of a day, that it&rsquo;s a pleasure to be in his world," Leto said of working with Fincher.

Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell

&nbsp;

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The rock climbers appeared in&nbsp;Great Wide Open&nbsp;(2016), a documentary series that Leto directed. Made in partnership with Budweiser, the five-episode series featured not just Caldwell and Honnold, but also ecologist Jason Baldes, painter Bob Coronato, and expedition climber Renan Ozturk. The adventurers joined Leto as he explored America&rsquo;s National Parks, traveling to Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons.&nbsp;

Brian Roettinger and Willo Perron

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When designer Brian Roettinger and director Willo Perron worked together on the album art for Jay-Z&rsquo;s Magna Carta (2011), something of a mythic design partnership was born. The two have&nbsp;been working together ever since, and now, as co-creative directors at Willo Perron and Associates, have made some of the most recognizable album covers in recent history. WPA&rsquo;s work on St. Vincent&rsquo;s&nbsp;Masseducation&nbsp;won a Grammy, and they&rsquo;ve recently worked on tour and catwalk visuals for Drake, Fenty, Tame Impala, and Alexander Wang. Leto, who himself founded creative hub The Hive in LA, tapped the interdisciplinary duo to design the cover art for Thirty&nbsp;Seconds to Mars&rsquo; album&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/AMERICA-THIRTY-SECONDS-MARS/dp/B0794QVXVX">America</a>. Ten&nbsp;different options displayed different minimalist lists,&nbsp;each with a different message. One cover showed the five most valuable trademarks as reported by Forbes, another the seven most dangerous sports as reported by Livescience.

The Cult of Jared Leto

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