Interview: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Talks ’50/50,’ hitRECord and ‘Looper’

On August 23, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was in Seattle promoting his upcoming film 50/50 in which he plays Adam, a young man who learns he has cancer. The film follows Adam’s story upon learning the news and details his relationships with his friends, family and other cancer patients and it does so with a sense of humor as if to take the piss out of the situation. 50/50, however, is not just another Hollywood dramedy. Not only is it excellent, it’s also based on the true story of Will Reiser, who adapted the screenplay based on his life story.

If you ask me, Gordon-Levitt’s performance is worthy of an Oscar nomination. Whether he’ll get one or not is still yet to be determined, but as an actor he is showing serious growth and a continuous ability to tackle new material. And it’s that new material that Gordon-Levitt and I discussed most when I sat down with him as he wasn’t only in town to promote his new movie, but he also had one of his hitRECord performances that night at Seattle’s Neptune Theater.

HitRECord is Gordon-Levitt’s online production company that creates a forum for collaborative community art. I wasn’t able to attend his show that night due to a screening I had to attend, but I was told it was a fantastic night as he opened things up by telling the audience, “Okay, I want to make sure all of your recording devices are…. ON!” What exactly goes on at one of these events? Well, a quick search on YouTube for the Seattle event will turn up videos such as what you see to the right as Joe performs Nirvana’s “Lithium” for a standing room only crowd.

So with the coincidental timing I began my interview wondering, What came first… the chicken or the egg? Surprisingly… the egg… or is it the chicken? Whatever the answer, what follows is my interview with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as we discuss hitRECord, his new film and his upcoming films from The Dark Knight Rises to Looper. I hope you enjoy.

So are you in Seattle to promote 50/50 or are you promoting 50/50 because you’re here for hitRECord tonight?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt [JGL]: I’m here because we’re doing the hitRECord show.

How has hitRECord affected your career and your interaction with the fans?

JGL: What changes is the art that we make on hitRECord. I’ve been proud for a long time of the stuff that we’ve been making, but as more and more people are contributing, the art just keeps getting better. And that’s exciting to me because that’s kind of the point. Making good art.

What is your ambition with hitRECord? Are you thinking movies and perhaps moving toward a directorial career?

JGL: Yeah, ultimately I think we could do some feature films and do bigger and bigger shows and do all sorts of things. Maybe we’ll have a TV show. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have our own venue one day.

HitRECord is one step in taking the relationship between movies, art and the Internet to a whole new level. You’re involved with The Dark Knight Rises and so much of the Pittsburgh shoot was destroyed–

JGL: [Laughing] Oh it wasn’t destroyed–

Well, I think you know what I mean. A lot of it was out there–

JGL: Yeah, I know what you mean. But I don’t think that’s detrimental to the movie. It’s great. It’s lovely that people are talking about it. I think that’s exciting and it’s cool that people are so passionate about it, they love — I love the character, I loved the character of Batman since I was a tiny little kid and probably you have too. It’s part of our culture and so it’s only appropriate that people care a lot about it. [Christopher Nolan] cares a lot about it, and so I think that’s great.

As far as the way the Internet is changing things, I think the way storytelling has always gone, throughout the history of human beings telling stories to each other, it’s for the most part been a communal thing. People would gather around the fire and tell stories. Next week someone would tell a version of the story they heard last week. Same goes with songs or whatever. It’s only recently this notion of intellectual property has come into the fray.

Now we think of it in terms of “Who’s the author?” No one used to think of that, that’s very new. I think it’s sort of dissolving away now. Give it a few more generations where people expect “remix” and we’ll get back to the way things ought to be, which is stories being about people connecting and communicating and understanding each other, caring about each other as opposed to making money.

I’m all for show business, but I don’t know if you know this, and it’s funny coming from this name, but Disney has become such a business. Walt Disney was quoted as saying, “We don’t make movies to make money. We make money to make more movies.” That’s how I feel about the business of show business and I think we’re kind of getting back there.

I don’t know about most people, but I was surprised to learn from that video you released (watch right) that Seth Rogen actually knew Will Reiser, did that help in finding a balance between comedy and drama with the material?

JGL: Absolutely, I felt fine about being funny regarding the subject matter because Will, who’d been through it, and this was a movie inspired by his life, was sitting right there while we were shooting. So it all felt fine and appropriate. It’s rare you get to have such a specific and authentic, so to speak, source of inspiration for your character. The guy that wrote a screenplay inspired by his own experiences and I’m playing that character; it was great that he was there. The screenwriter isn’t always there, but he was.

Have you lost someone to cancer?

JGL: I actually have, yeah, a friend of mine died when I was 18 who had cancer and it seems like most people that I talk to know somebody, a relative, a friend or a friend of a friend and I think it’s a really healthy thing to handle tragedies like that — obviously, not without reverence, but with some humor sometimes. A lot of people, sometimes, feel like they shouldn’t laugh about horrible things and obviously sometimes it’s inappropriate, but sometimes it is appropriate and that’s okay. I think it’s healthy to sometimes loosen up and find it funny.

JGL: The tabloid stuff is kind of a mystery to me, I don’t get it. I don’t pay attention to it; it’s not interesting to me. I don’t get why people pay attention — I guess I do… I get why people pay attention to it, but I recommend people don’t. I really think it’s unhealthy and I do think that when people spend a lot of their time consuming that kind of hostility it comes back on them. People spend their time reading gossip rags and then wonder why their friends are double-crossing them. I think you play out the stories you consume in a lot of ways.

But regardless of that, there definitely was plenty of resistance when I finished “3rd Rock from the Sun” and I wanted to do movies. A lot of people wouldn’t hire me for sure, and I understand why they wouldn’t want the kid from “3rd Rock” in their movie, but I really have to give a lot of thanks to Jordan Melamed, who’s the director that made Manic, and Gregg Araki, who’s the director that made Mysterious Skin, and Rian Johnson, who’s the director that made Brick. These directors who got beyond the fact I had been working on that show and just thought I would be good for their movie anyway.

And, by the way, I love that show. I’m really proud of it.

It’s interesting you look at it as director’s taking a chance on you because I always interpreted it as you being picky about the roles you choose. Do you think it’s one more than the other, or how do you choose your roles? Because going from something like Brick to G.I. Joe is a bit of a leap, G.I. Joe being the one that seems a bit “off” compared to the rest.

JGL: It’s interesting you bring up G.I. Joe, I do all those movies for the same reason, because it seems fun and they inspire me. I don’t know if you actually saw [G.I. Joe], but that character was so much fun to play. I got to wear prosthetic makeup and be like this cartoony villain. They changed my face.

Oh yeah, no one would have known it was you had your name not been in the credits–

JGL: That’s exactly what I get off on as an actor. If I can look in the mirror and go, “Whoa, that’s somebody else,” that’s the thrill I seek.

When I first read the G.I. Joe script I was like, “No. Thank you, but no.” And then they showed me the designs of the character and I was like, “Oh wow, actually that would be so much fun.” So I did it, and I had a great time. Same goes for Mysterious Skin or Brick or Inception or The Dark Knight Rises or 50/50, all of them, I do them because I’m inspired to do them. I’m lucky enough that I was on a TV show for a long time, I made money, I don’t have to do it to make money, I do it because I love it and I take jobs that seem like it would be fun and that inspire me and fulfill me creatively.

Well one of your upcoming films is Lincoln with Steven Spielberg. When does that begin shooting?

JGL: Later this year.

And you’re playing Lincoln’s son, but not much has been said about the story, or at least it seemed incredibly ambiguous. Can you tell me more?

JGL: I don’t think they’ve really, publicly said exactly what it’s going to be.

Then there’s Looper. You and Rian seem perfectly matched as an actor and director team and it seems like it’s going to be a massive departure from what he’s done.

JGL: Yeah, for sure, it is. It’s very much him in that it’s very stylized, it’s very smart, the dialogue is really sharp and fast, but all three of his movies are totally different. Brothers Bloom was a total departure from Brick and Looper is totally different from Brothers Bloom. I don’t know, he’s got a really eclectic taste in movies and he takes on certain genres and puts his big twist on it.

Yeah, because this is sci-fi…

JGL: Yeah, Brick was a detective movie and Brothers Bloom was a con man movie and this is a time travel movie and it’s brilliant man. I think on the one hand it’s really smart and profound and beautiful, and on the other hand it’s the first time he’s had the resources to do a legit, badass, big action movie.

For me I think the big draw to his first two films was the dialogue and the character interaction and if you can take that and match it with an action feature —

JGL: Yeah, and he’s got a really great eye for action and if you watch Brick, those action sequences, even though there’s no money and we didn’t have any cars to flip over or anything, they’re really well shot, really well cut; the rhythm to them is excellent. Never do you feel — I don’t know, oftentimes I feel like some big action movies — you feel like they’re sort of throwing everything at the camera and seeing what sticks, but Rian is very intentional with how he shoots stuff whether it’s dialogue or action.

So this time he got to do a much bigger movie, a Bruce Willis movie, but he still applied the same, really cunning filmmaker’s eye and ear. And his rhythm to the action is fantastic. I’ve only seen a rough cut of it, he’s still cutting it, but I’m so proud of it. It’s a really special movie for me and my life and work.

It seems like it’s a film that’s going to fit in nicely with the great movement of sci-fi films nowadays, the smarter sci-fi, such as what Nolan explored in Inception and Duncan Jones with Source Code, I don’t know if you saw that one…

JGL: Yeah, I liked that movie.

Some of these movies are finally getting back to being science-fiction rather than just alien warfare.

JGL: Yeah, [laughing], right. Exactly. [Rian] is a storyteller and I think that’s the difference between like a Chris Nolan, Batman movie and some kind of run-of-the-mill, big Hollywood action movie, is that Chris Nolan is a storyteller. He cares about the characters. He cares about the story being told, what it means, what it’s saying and he applies that integrity to a huge action movie and I think Rian couldn’t do something that didn’t have the kind of dignity that he — it’s not in his bones, it wouldn’t happen. But he got the chance to do, another thing he loves, which is just a big, fun action movie.

And it seems you’ve basically become attached to him. You’ve been in all three of his films.

JGL: Yeah, [laughing], there’s the little cameo in Brothers Bloom.


So if you haven’t found Joe in Brothers Bloom get to looking and be sure to keep your eye out for 50/50, hitting theaters September 30. I’ve included the trailer below and you can get plenty more information on the film right here.

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