More than a year ago, at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, I sat down with actor Jared Leto on the morning after "Chapter 27," the film in which he plays Mark David Chapman, had premiered to a decidedly mixed reception. (He told me I was the first person to interview him who had actually seen the film.) Leto may always be known to a certain demographic as Jordan Catalano from the cult TV series "My So-Called Life," but in the decade-plus since then he's become an interesting and wide-ranging character actor, appearing in such films as "Fight Club," "Girl, Interrupted," "Requiem for a Dream" and "Alexander."

He has nothing on his résumé that's quite like "Chapter 27," though; for better or worse, hardly anyone does. To play the bewildered drifter who shot and killed John Lennon outside Lennon's New York apartment building in December 1980, Leto put on more than 60 pounds, a decision that has caused the actor lingering health problems long after losing the weight. But the transformation is much more than physical. Leto also immersed himself in Chapman's demented worldview, studying interviews with the imprisoned assassin and committing to memory long snatches of J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye," the novel that obsessed Chapman. The title of writer-director J.P. Schaefer's film, in fact, is an oblique reference to Salinger's book, which has 26 chapters.

Listen to a podcast of this interview here.

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