Joseph Gordon-Levitt Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

The Lookout was by far the hardest thing I've ever done. Partially because both Brick and Mysterious Skin were four to five week shoots, and The Lookout was nine or 10. So there's the marathon aspect, as well as the fact that Chris Pratt is having a harder go of it than either of the other two characters ever did. You know, waking up in the morning is difficult for him. Putting a sentence together is difficult for him. Getting dressed properly, driving a car, all these things. He can do them fine, but it's just much harder than it is for a normal person, so I had to try to make it hard for myself somehow. So it was challenging.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
[It's a] really smart, faithful adaptation of the book. The book is such a tight page-turner… The character I play is an extreme guy… He's a killer. He wants to be Jesse James. He grew up watching cowboy and Indian movies and wants to be that. Then he meets Mickey Rourke's character, who's named The Black Bird and he wants to partner up with him and be a criminal and kill people. He's a psychotic and very bad guy… The thing about him is, he's not the bad killer, the kind of guy that sits and stews and then has these rageful outbursts. He is this extreme extrovert who never shuts up and tells you ridiculously tall tales about himself and mythologizes everything… Hyperactive, hyper, hyper guy wearing cowboy boots.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Most scripts are bad. I read a lot of them. Brick was a good script just to read. It was like, Oh my God, these words feel so good in my mouth. A lot of movies try to set up a world with cool sets, costumes, camera work. In Brick, the world is born from the words.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
The cinematographer came up to me and said, 'You have to hit your mark exactly,'

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
To me, a sex scene in a movie generally means a gratuitous scene that doesn't serve the story but gives a kind of excuse—we've got these two actors, we want to see them naked, so let's bring in the music and the soft light. In Mysterious Skin, none of the sex scenes are like that. They all are about the process that this character is going through—and he grows from each of those scenes. You couldn't have told the story any other way. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. I would be embarrassed if I was like, "Shit, everybody wants to look at my ass."

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
I don't blame the people for the fact that so many movies are bad. I think there's a corrupt, perverted, lazy and sloppy attitude that's pervasive in the movie business. The whole entertainment business is kind of crumbling around us.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
There's this barrier that goes up between the people who make the movies and the people who watch the movies. But the point of art is to have a connection between people. I think it's going to become much more of a dialogue, where everybody will watch everybody's stuff, as opposed to how it is now, where the huge corporations produce everything. I'm looking forward to seeing that.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy. Celebrity doesn't have anything to do with art or craft. It's about being rich and thinking that you're better than everybody else.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
The cool thing about my character was that it's not that digital. I get to put hours of prosthetic makeup on and see a different creature altogether. I've seen how he looks and it's really cool.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Your kisses are snowflakes: each one is unique. They land on me, before they melt away and leave me cold.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
It's fascinating to watch a show develop from a script to a 22-minute comedy. I try to learn as much, and ask as many questions, as I can without being annoying.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
I guess I have an eclectic taste [about (500) Days of Summer, G. I. Joe, and Uncertainty all in one year], I don't just like one thing. Contrast is key. What do they say? Variety is the spice of life. My favorite actors are the chameleons, guys like Daniel Day-Lewis, Billy Bob Thornton, Meryl Streep, people who are always different.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
[Looper's] sort of a down-to-earth Blade Runner: it feels real. It's that style of sci-fi that could actually exist in 30 years.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Sundance means a lot to me. This is my third one. People that come here who love movies. Everyone has the attitude that movies aren't just disposable entertainment - they can really mean something. I love that, because that's the way I feel about films.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
I didn't really like doing commercials. You had to behave like you were on angel dust or something.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
My dad never blew anything up, but he probably had friends who did. He and my mom have always preached that the pen is mightier than a Molotov cocktail.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
I suppose the longer anyone spends on earth, the closer we all get to becoming superfluous characters.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Actually I've thanked you a lot of times so now I'm thanking you again.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt