“Hey, do you think we should go home now?”

Jared Leto talks about the silent meditation retreat he emerged from last March as the coronavirus pandemic strikes.

The actor, 49, who recently won a Golden Globe nomination for his role opposite Denzel Washington and Rami Malek in the crime thriller The small things, sat down for a virtual interview with Sunday TODAYWillie Geist, to discuss the shock of returning to a changed world after being locked up for 12 days in the California desert.

“It was a once in a lifetime experience. They took us to the big meditation hall on the last day and said, “Hey, by the way, that happened. We had no access to information, ”Leto told Geist.

For the sake of a pandemic, Leto considered returning home.

“I was the only person who went to the teacher there and said, ‘Hey, do you think we should go home now? They were like, ‘Well, it’s your decision whether you want to finish or not. “You don’t want to be the guy who bounces early,” he shared.

When he got home, Leto’s phone exploded with messages from family and friends. He quickly took to social media to share his perspective, as Yahoo Entertainment previously reported.

“We were totally isolated. No phone, no communication, etc. We had no idea what was going on outside the facility, ”he wrote at the time.

Almost a year later, the Oscar winner has managed to find value in all the time spent at home.

“It was, all in all, a pretty nice change. I don’t think I’ve been in a place like this since I was little, and even then we’ve moved around a lot, ”he told Geist.

He even channeled the extra time into his music, sharing that he wrote a variety of new songs during the quarantine period.

“I had the opportunity to be really productive with the music and wrote maybe 100 songs,” said Leto, who plays with his brother Shannon in the band Thirty Seconds to Mars. “I hope the world will come back to a place where we can turn again and give people a little break from the madness.”

The story continues

Leto also referred to the six-year hiatus he took from the movies to focus on music with the band. At the time, he knew the movement had raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, that’s probably a pretty weird decision. I turned down a Clint Eastwood movie to make $ 250 a night on tour, and I think that’s when Hollywood knew ‘) h, this guy lost his mind’, a- he explained.

It was the role of Rayon, a transgender woman with AIDS, in the acclaimed 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club who brought Leto back to the camera. He ended up winning an Oscar for the role opposite Matthew McConaughey.

“I never, ever, ever thought I would win an Oscar, nor any prize really,” Leto told Geist. “What was really great was being able to come up on stage and take that light and send it back to other things that were meaningful, or certain things that were on my mind.

As for this statue of Oscar Leto which was taken down in 2014, it has since disappeared. In an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden last month, he revealed he had been missing for years before he even noticed it.

“You know, I found out he was missing for, about three years, and I didn’t know it,” Leto said, Yahoo Entertainment previously reported. “I don’t think anyone wanted to tell me. But I had moved to Los Angeles and when we moved it just magically disappeared.

He shared that he assumes someone else knowingly had it in their possession because “it’s not the kind of thing someone accidentally throws in the trash.”

But for Geist, Leto says he just hopes whoever has his golden statue realizes its worth.

“I just hope whoever appreciates it,” Leto told Geist. “And maybe they can shine that light on something they love.”

For the latest news and updates on the coronavirus, follow to https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus. According to experts, people over 60 and those with compromised immune systems continue to be at greatest risk. If you have any questions, please consult the CDC‘the sand WHO resource guides.

Learn more about Yahoo Entertainment: