Joseph Gordon-Levitt Breaks Down His Career, from '10 Things I Hate About You' to 'Inception'

i'm putting a positive spin on like my career as a whole right now because i'm making a video for vanity fair i could have made the opposite version of this video where i just had on myself for all this time that i've been sitting here talking and and meant it just as much hi i'm joseph gordon-levitt and this is the timeline of my career again i always took acting very seriously maybe too seriously but even from a very young age when you might assume oh a 10 year old kid is not taking anything too seriously i took it very seriously a river on through it was the first feature film i was ever in up until that point i had done some uh tv shows and some commercials i hated doing commercials because it wasn't serious acting the director of a river runs through it was robert redford he's an actor himself and that was the first time i'd ever been directed by an actor and he did not treat me like a kid at all he treated me just like an actor which is what i was dying for that's what i always really wanted the story i remember most vividly from working with mr redford was uh this scene where i had to walk up to my dad's desk say some lines when you have to walk somewhere and land somewhere on a movie set yet they call it hitting your mark you have to hit your mark which is this little piece of tape on the ground and you have to hit your mark because they've set up the camera and they've set up the lights all in such a way to where you look really beautiful if you stand on that mark but if you're not standing on that mark then it's all wrong and doesn't matter how good your acting is you have to do it again i did the the scene a couple times and the dp the director of photography asked me very nicely if i could make sure to hit my mark and of course i was like oh no i've been blowing it like i haven't been hitting the mark and we were getting ready to shoot the next take and i was just focused laser focused on that mark on that little piece of tape on the ground bob robert redford he goes bob bob came up to me he said i never hit my marks and he didn't let anybody else hear that that's what he had said to me but first of all here's the strength of having an actor for a director he understood exactly what was going through my mind all of a sudden all the things that i was supposed to be focused on were out the window and i was just focused on hitting that mark because acting is always a balance between feeling what your character needs to be feeling telling an authentic story but also accomplishing all the technical things that you need to accomplish to make a movie work how about this if you believe in miracles love at first sight and breakfast in bed contact me for adventures in truth what a wonderful lie let's print it i got the part on third rock from the sun the same way that i got most parts i just went on an audition and then went on another one and then another one and you know if they like you they bring you back and finally i was in a room with a whole bunch of executives from you know the network and the production company and john lithgow i remember really specifically getting to do my audition with john and when you get to audition with another actor it's a lot more fun i remember the energy in that room there's a lot of people and we were getting laughs and uh i hadn't done that much comedy by that point it just felt so good i i came away from that being like well who knows if they'll give me this part you just never know but that seemed great that was fun i'm glad i got to do that of course i really really really wanted the part and uh and got lucky worked out that time been on lots of auditions where it felt good and didn't get the part that one i did i just loved being on set i loved acting and yeah it's true i had to sign a contract that says like for the next i don't remember how many years many years we have the right to say that this is this is what you do for you know nine months of your year is this show and i was like great perfect that's exactly what i want when you all you want to do is act and then you don't have a job it sucks it's it's worse for a you know kid my age just loved loved acting all i wanted to do was act more act all the time have a steady gig and so the idea of signing a contract like that sounded great to me when i was doing third rock from the sun did i miss this and that and the other normal high school thing yes i did i did go to high school i didn't get to go to prom or whatever i didn't go to prom because i didn't want to go to prom i was that kid that was like prom bunch of conformity you guys i'm going to listen to operation ivy and give you all the middle finger that was me oh listen forget her incredibly uptight father and it's a widely known fact that the stratfor sisters aren't allowed to date uh-huh yeah whatever yeah i i i'll be honest i was not sold on doing 10 things i hate about you when i when i first read the script i was like i don't want to do one of these high school romantic comedies i want to be selling you serious movies that's all i wanted to do when i was that age as i was going to you know art house cinemas and watching movies coming from sundance and you know watching slingblade and and reservoir dogs and soda berg and tarantino and and these kinds that's that's what i wanted to do and 10 things i hate about you came around uh and i was like nah no and a bunch of people in my life my agents and you know other people were like are you sure just like consider this this is a pretty good one of these and you know it'd probably be you know good thing just like try try and i auditioned for two parts when i auditioned for 10 things i hate about you i auditioned for the part i played cameron the character name and then i also auditioned for the role that i really wanted that i thought was actually kind of funny was uh the the character's name is michael that was played by david crumholtz and i auditioned for both of those parts and uh the director offered me the role of cameron which i was like uh and i remember having a meeting with them i was like this doesn't make sense if that doesn't make sense and this feels cheesy and that feels cheesy and they listened i think to some of my ideas but mostly i think i was probably just wrong and kind of being too serious about the whole thing luckily i i did do it i did the part and uh almost didn't but luckily i did and all of us had so much fun i'm so glad i did that movie not not only because it's a movie that audiences still love all this you know whatever it is 20 years later the experience is actually what i what i love the most about that whole thing even if people didn't like the movie we had such a good time all of us hung out all the time going at me if you want hashtag i got all five senses and i slept last night that puts me six up on the lot of you it's easy bro i always dreamed of being in sundance movies and uh and then i got to do that with brick also with mysterious skin but i i sort of see them as a pair because i shot both of those movies the same year 2003 and they both played at sundance the same year 2005. they're two very different movies and i got to play two very different characters in them but that was sort of the in a way for me the beginning but yeah finally getting to do what i had always wanted to do what i had always been drawn to do it was also sort of a turning point i guess if you're talking about career but just personally it felt like i know this sounds weird to say or it sounds like i'm not grateful i was always a little embarrassed i think before then and uh i didn't have good reason to be i should have been proud to be an angels in the outfield and i was and i was i was super proud of third rock from the sun i was mostly embarrassed of 10 things i hate about you uh but to be honest i was when i got to do these sundance movies i i just i felt like i was doing what i wanted to do i felt like a reflection of me and the art that i liked i don't know when i look back now i'm kind of equally proud of all those things but subjectively at that time it was it was a real um it was really meaningful to me brick is just such a unique weird hilarious impenetrable piece of writing i remember the first time i read it i didn't know what it was i kept thinking that a ghost was about to enter the story or something supernatural was gonna happen because it was like this is just so strange i always feel compelled by writing if the words inspire me to perform them and say them out loud and ryan's dialogue is second to none i was instantly pacing around my apartment and just trying to say these words it takes a lot of practice ryan's writing is not always easy it's challenging and i love that kind of challenge so what first tip the bulls nah bulls gum it and flash their dusty standards the wide eyes probably find some jig to pin probably even the right one and trample the real tracks and scare the real players back into their holes if we're doing this i want the whole story no cops so it's rare to find a screenplay of a movie that's being made now but like a little independent movie where the writing is is so well crafted that it's gonna it's gonna really challenge you and i remember just meeting with him and and talking with him all about his writing so i don't know we talked about all this stuff and um been friends ever since one of my favorite people i love ryan i think we should stop seeing each other just like that just like that did you say why i mean this thing what are we doing i mean is this normal no i don't know i don't care i'm happy aren't you happy you're happy you're not what we do is argue that is i like romantic comedies i always have i just i guess maybe because i had access to doing them i didn't i wanted to do something else it didn't feel like a typical romantic comedy it was pretty clearly something special and mark webb was pretty clearly a special filmmaker that was going to do something creative and unexpected with it i read that script and had a meeting with mark um before zoe was was cast and the question was like could they make the movie with me because you know or did they need like a bigger name i knew zoe already because we were in manic that's also where i met zoe she and i are in that she's wonderful and manic and so i already knew her and then and when she came into the conversation i was like oh man i would love to do a zoe she'd be perfect for this that would be so ideal but like will they will anybody finance this movie with me and zoey you know gotta hand it to fox searchlight they're they're the studio that financed 500 days of summer and their their whole bread and butter was sort of doing things with that that weren't so strictly commercial and they did make it with me i remember when mark brought up that he was gonna cast her i was so so excited and we just had a blast we that movie was so fun we just had fun every day and again i think you can kind of see it that's that's part of when when people really connect with the movie it's often because the actors are are really feeling what they're doing i will try this um my father accepts that i want to create for myself not follow in his footsteps that might work right we need to do a little better than might thank you for your contribution arthur forgive me for wanting a little specificity [Music] specificity christopher nolan was the sundance director who is making huge movies that's the balance that i wanted to strike as an artist and as an audience member just the movies that i wanted to watch i remember when uh when the dark knight came out in 2008 and of course there was it was steeped in tragedy because um because of heath there's such a brilliant movie and it was brilliant in the same way that these movies that i grew up loving were brilliant the ones i was talking about soderberg and tarantino you know all these movies that were so rooted in character and and and heart and soul and not in glitz and gloss but nolan was managing to bring that artistry to the grandest of you know to a batman movie is the craziest magic trick that he was able to do that when the opportunity arose to go meet chris i hadn't read the script for inception at all because it was chris i was like oh absolutely i don't know anything about this i know that leonardo dicaprio's in it that's it i know it's chris and leo i didn't know leo at the time so i wasn't allowed to call him leo now i am now i can [Laughter] i wasn't auditioning i was just going to like meet him and usually though when i go to audition for something or even meet on a film i sort of present myself in some kind of light such that the director could see me as that character if i'm gonna play you know a uh homicidal maniac from texas i'll go in you know with some stubble and like maybe a little drunk i'll dress and sort of hold myself in such a way that it makes sense that i could play that character this i didn't know what i was going into and so i just put on a suit i was like i'll just be as pro as i can be and uh and in hollywood you don't go into meetings in suits no one wears a suit in hollywood but i wore like a full-on suit tie nice shoes and went into the meeting with chris being like whatever you want anything tell me we talked about movies talked about kubrick talked about violence in movies i remember telling him about sort of just myself and my family and then he offered me the movie i couldn't believe it it's it's sort of the the the big surprise of of my career in a way i remember the first time i read the script i came away with a lot of questions but also this the script for inception did not allude to how involved in particular like i'm in this big dream fight sequence that sort of weaves through the whole second act of the movie or something in the script it's it's like one line of stage direction it's like arthur gets in a fight or something like that and i remember as they started to present me with this fight sequence that i was going to learn and i was introduced to these stunt coordinators and like talking about my schedule for training and things like that i was like and then it but it ended up being this fun house of like and and the main thing i was doing with my life for months was like working out and like training you know kickboxing and and then training on wires and balance and like all this all this stuff that was so so fun i had no idea even when i read the script i didn't know that that's what i was in for all right first of all everybody watches point okay all guys any guy tells you he doesn't watch porn so foolish second of all you are foolish second of all you know damn well we do it all in time yeah i know whenever you want ever since i was a little kid i'd always wanted to sounds cliche but it's true i'd always wanted to direct stuff in addition to act and you know acting is so much fun and i'm so grateful to get to do it but there's a difference between acting and directing when you're making movies because the truth is that movies are the medium of the filmmaker when you're making a movie as an actor your job really is to give the director the ingredients that they need to then make the movie incredibly grateful that i've gotten to act for so many wonderful directors who are able to take the ingredients that i delivered to them and make something so compelling but i also really wanted to play with all of those other elements i love all of those other elements i love thinking about camera and editing and music and etc etc etc i been making little videos just for fun with you know my parents camera ever since i was a little kid and then when i was 21 i first taught myself to edit once you could first get kind of affordable editing software on a computer at home when i first got final cut pro first time i ever got a mac and so i'd been making lots and lots and lots of little things and uh and again yeah i tried writing full screen plays before and had a few but none of them quite really like made sense and for whatever reason i started writing this idea sort of based on the the mythical character of don juan but combining that with a modern day porn addict it sort of just made sense as as a piece of writing and people liked it and found it funny and found it relevant and uh it half surprised me that that was the thing that that i was like okay this is gonna be the first movie i direct great i did have people ask me are you sure that this is the thing you want to be the first thing that you direct and i was like i don't want to second guess it it's hard to make one of these things work it's hard to finish a screenplay it's hard to write something that that seems to actually make sense and be cohesive and and funny like it happened this way i'm not gonna second-guess it let's let's do it and then you know i showed the script to scarlett and it was really her vote of confidence that turned the whole thing real hugely grateful to her for that and then julianne moore wanted to do it i really think that it be between scarlet and julianne that they're really what makes the movie good i think ladies and gentlemen welcome to the very first episode of our show hit record on tv so the very next year after i directed don john i directed a show called hit record on tv hit record was this project that has a long evolution started as a little hobby thing with my brother and i'm actually sitting here now at the hit record office it's crazy that we have an office like this it was you know such a tiny thing for so many years and it's this community of people online that collaborate on all kinds of creative projects and you know a lot of uh places online for art and creativity are for posting something you've made on your own and saying hey world look at my video or look at my song or my piece of writing and on hit record it's less about here's what i've made and it's more about let's make something together it's all geared towards that kind of collaboration we made all kinds of things this way we made books and records and um we made a television show called hitrecord on tv and uh it won an emmy uh and emmy for uh outstanding social interactive media experience or something like that and uh the emmy's over here somewhere i could go should i run again there it is you know there's there's a thing i've thought about this and it's funny i'm like sitting here talking in hindsight about my career and this is a deeply indulgent exercise but i'm rather enjoying it there's a thing that happens with a lot of i think directors oftentimes the second thing you do is like i find it's not just me like you lean way into something very personal and hit record on tv uh is very very very me and oftentimes these sophomore efforts get called to sophomore slump because if you lean really hard into something that just is your personal thing that might appeal less to a broad audience and you know i think hit record on tv is is pretty is is an example of this exact thing it's it's extremely me i'm very very proud of it it's also very kind of particular to what it is it's not kind of a normal show i don't i still don't think there's really any other show that's quite like it and we made it five years ago now i'm really proud of it i i sometimes when i look at it i'm like oh that but when you're experimenting you know some things work better than other things i'm really happy to get to talk about hit record in the context of this career because this career that i'm talking about i guess mine because it's uh it's a deeply deeply personal thing to me if there was a pill [Music] that could give you five minutes let's build it so they get it i'm embedded with the power of pure power i took a couple years off of acting when i had kids and then i i did kind of three movies over the last three years but they're all coming out right now and the first one was called 7500 that just came out on amazon the one that's coming out i guess today or whatever is uh called project power on netflix and then trial of the chicago 7 is going to come out on netflix also they're three very different movies i feel really grateful that you know having taken some time off i got to do all three of these 7 500 is is a very challenging harrowing heavy german like art film project power is like a barrel of popcorn with sugar and butter on it it's just a ton of fun with jamie foxx and new orleans and this um wonderful new young actress named dominique fishbach who you heard it here she's a star this one she's a star and uh and then trial of chicago 7 is a courtroom drama written directed by aaron sorkin which is an incredibly relevant story about today's times and the state of our country and the state of our government and our uh justice system and uh yeah they're three very different things and uh glad to be back i do think i'm in many ways still the same self serious you know snobby little brat that i was when i was you know when i thought the 10 things i hate about you was cheesy or when i you know all i wanted to do was be in sundance movies and i still have that part of myself i think and i think that part of me is probably important to some degree or important to me or important to my work or whatever but i'm deeply flattered that you care to hear me talk this much about all the i've done

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 1,221,486

Rating: 4.9721546 out of 5

Keywords: jgl, joseph gordon levitt, career timeline, jgl career timeline, jgl career, jospeh gordon levitt career, joseph gordon-levitt, jgl vanity fair, jgl interview, joseph gordon levitt interview, joseph gordon levitt vanity fair, joseph gordon levitt career timeline, joseph gordon, joseph gordon-levitt vanity fair, gordon-levitt, vanity fair career timeline, career timeline vanity fair, joseph gordon levitt breaks down, joseph gordon-levitt breaks down his career, vanity fair

Id: YvBy6cUAcHQ

Length: 24min 38sec (1478 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/dating_derp]

Disappointed he didn't talk about 50/50. But this was a good interview.

[u/bobbyioaloha]

Man when he was talking about Dark Knight and Heath Ledger he kind of lost it for a second. That was pretty sad.

[u/Metal-Butterfly]

Going to skip over Angels in the Outfield, spshhh this list sucks

[u/Merkle-bbs]

Funny i came across this earlier and am currently half way through a rewatch of 50/50.

I'm not sure if underrated is the right word, but he is an amazing actor that a lot of people don't really realise some of the roles he's had. That might be because he's a supporting actor to a massive A lister in some of his best works.

Edit: I forgot how good 50/50 was. The scene where he finds the book in Rogans bathroom, amongst other scenes, just absolutely rips me apart.

[u/Chippany]

Anyone else remember 3rd Rock from the Sun? I love that show

[u/alexkidd_in_world]

Saving this video for later but I genuinely liked Premium Rush and 95% of its appeal is JGL.

I get a bit of a Johnny Utah crossed with Bodhi from Point break vibe.

[u/eltrotter]

Interesting to hear his thoughts on Brick; it is one of the weirdest films I've ever seen and I honestly still can't figure out if it 'works' or not. It's the sort of idea that could have been utterly awful in execution, and it definitely isn't that. However at the same time, I can completely appreciate why someone might not be able to stick with it and watch it through to the end.

[u/omarcoming9439]

Man this guy had quite and up and down careeer. Was a young up and coming child / teenager actor ... then disappeared and then resurfaced round around the beginning of the 2010’s and then last few years haven’t really heard Much from this guys

[u/buffaloskinner]

The camera constantly refocusing in this video is driving me crazy!