Jared Leto covers the Summer 2013 issue of Candy magazine to promote his role in Dallas Buyers Club, which is the movie where he lost 30 pounds to play a transexual with HIV. In the movie, Jared doesn’t make for a very pretty woman, but on this cover? Well, I guess “pretty” isn’t the right word, is it? More like quirky to the max. Like, Jared looks like he’d be at home in that Party Monster (2003) movie that starred Macaulay Culkin and Chloe Sevigny.

Candy magazine has rapidly developed a history for great covers and even made douchey James Franco look appealing, but no other cover from the magazine compares to Tilda Swinton’s gender-bending turn from last year. Jared doesn’t fare quite as well, in part because he was photographed by Terry Richardson in his trademark “against a white wall with harsh lighting” style. But I can get down with the fluffy pink wig even if there’s a blow-up doll motif at work here. Do you think Jared looks hot here, or just overdone and gross?

I tried but failed to dig up more photos from this shoot, so we’ll have to make do with some photos of Jared hamming it up for Terry from the latter’s blog. I’ll never know why any celebrities hang with this guy.

And just for good measure, here’s some pictures of Jared with the rest of Thirty Seconds to Mars earlier this month. They performed an acoustic set atop the roof of The 02 in London. Jared as rock star is always hilarious — to me, he’ll always be Jordan Catalano.

Photos courtesy of Candy magazine, Terry’s Diary, and WENN