"In many ways, Snowden feels like vintage Oliver Stone, rippling with paranoia and grounded by an incredible performance (by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead), about a patriot in search of the truth."
Interview Magazine’s senior editor on Snowden [x]
thnkfilm:
“ “How do you know if it’s going to last long enough so I won’t wake up in the middle of surgery? Or what if I don’t wake up after? Mom?”
“Sweetie, you’re going to be just fine.”
50/50 (2011)
dir. Jonathan Levine
”

thnkfilm:

“How do you know if it’s going to last long enough so I won’t wake up in the middle of surgery? Or what if I don’t wake up after? Mom?”

“Sweetie, you’re going to be just fine.”

50/50 (2011)
dir.
Jonathan Levine

"I definitely am going to try something in the musical space in film, for sure. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and I have been friends since I got to town 13 years ago, and we’re going to eventually land on something together, because we’ve talked about it too long for it not to happen. He’s one of the most creative people I know, and I don’t think there’s anybody besides him I would think about doing it with. We’ll eventually land on something. Yeah, I want to."
Channing Tatum tells Vulture about his and Joe’s long gestating dream to do a musical together

’That was so much fun man, I’ve loved seeing that in the past and when you sent me the email asking if I wanted to do the Ragtime Gals I was like ‘Oh my God, I get to do the Ragtime Gals,’ he said clapping wildly. I was psyched.’

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the Ragtime Gals on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Sept 24 - Video here

I found the part where Joe talked about Dan to The Guardian really striking:
“At the same time, he knows what it’s like to be unsteadied by professional disappointment – and, worse, to be toppled, outright, by personal tragedy. In 2010, he lost his...

I found the part where Joe talked about Dan to The Guardian really striking:

At the same time, he knows what it’s like to be unsteadied by professional disappointment – and, worse, to be toppled, outright, by personal tragedy. In 2010, he lost his older brother Dan (“my best friend”) in what he has previously described as a “drug-related accident”. Gordon-Levitt’s grief is still real and knotted up with all sorts of contradictory impulses, as he goes on to explain. For now, he alludes to his brother in passing, telling me that “wire-walking is a metaphor for just waking up in the morning and being alive. Which sometimes feels impossible. Which sometimes feels meaningless. In which it can sometimes be really hard to provide yourself with a good answer to, ‘Why should I wake up and get out of bed? Why should I care? Does this mean anything at all?’”[…]

Gordon-Levitt uploaded a message to say he’d be taking a short break to grieve, but he added: “[Dan] would absolutely positively insist that we not let this bad news deter us on our collective mission.”

That word, “mission”, was selected with care, he tells me now. “It was one of Dan’s favourite words. He would say it all the time, sometimes with profundity, sometimes with perfect triviality. Like, ‘We’re going on an orange juice mission!’ That’s exactly how my brother was.”

Gordon-Levitt’s demeanour when he talks about his brother is one of halting animation. He leans forward on his elbows and speaks in excited blasts, only to cut himself off and pause, looking off to the left or right.

Not so long ago, he gave an interview to GQ in which the writer said Dan had died “of an alleged drug overdose”. Gordon-Levitt posted a message denying this overdose on Tumblr, describing it as “an irresponsible claim”. (GQ stood by its story.) “I’ve had negative experiences in the past talking to journalists about my brother,” he says, “and, I don’t know, I’m hoping that you’re going to be considerate. Especially to my parents, who are going to read this, because they’ve really been hurt in the past. But I do want to talk about this, because, I guess, I trust you, and also because, as I was grieving, I found it helpful to… I mean, just reading different people talk about their grieving processes, it helped.”

He says that not so long ago, while he was training with Petit, he felt a potent reconnection with his brother. It was during one of those sessions in which the actor was up on a 6ft-high wire in his invisible harness. He was inching along, utterly terrified, “and halfway across, I guess Philippe noticed that I was getting scared. He said one word: ‘Breathe’.” “Breathe” was another of his brother’s words. “Dan used to say it all the time. Just that one word. It was the most powerful moment, to be up there on the wire, and to have him say that very thing.”

Was it a happy sensation, or a sad one? He pauses for a long time, staring away. Finally, he says, “The grieving that I do for my brother, it’s evolved over five years. I feel lucky to report that the grief, now, is usually accompanied by some beauty. But the beauty, it’s accompanied by more grief. Things have sort of become more nuanced. That moment with Philippe, was there a sadness to it? Yes, it was deeply painful. But that pain was sort of simultaneous to – and inseparable from – a rare elation.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt by Michael Muller for Playboy Oct. 2015
“You’ve been in show business since the age of six. What motivates you to keep working?
I really enjoy it. That’s at the top of the list. But I try to find the balance between being...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt by Michael Muller for Playboy Oct. 2015 

You’ve been in show business since the age of six. What motivates you to keep working?

I really enjoy it. That’s at the top of the list. But I try to find the balance between being motivated for myself and for the whole team, the 7 billion of us on the planet. People think there’s nothing really important about movies or music or what you could call culture. There’s nothing sacred about it. It’s considered snooty to think this stuff matters nowadays, but I believe it does. I’m not saying it matters more than other things, but it matters to me, and it’s part of being human. That’s enough for me.

"What’s great about him is I think Joe represents every girl’s ideal make-believe husband. And so it was very good to cast him in that and have the role sort of change from that."

Mindy Kaling on casting Joseph Gordon-Levitt as her imaginary husband [x]

I’m really looking forward to see how Mindy subverts Joe’s ideal husband image.

““Of course, when any of us think of the World Trade Center, we think of the tragedy immediately,” he says. “That will always be where our minds go first. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s important to remember that tragedy. But with any...

“Of course, when any of us think of the World Trade Center, we think of the tragedy immediately,” he says. “That will always be where our minds go first. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s important to remember that tragedy. But with any tragedy, it’s also remembering the good times, the beautiful moments, the warm feelings you have toward whatever it is that you’ve lost.”

“I’ve experienced one particular tragedy in my life — my brother died,” he adds. “And it’s important not to think just about how he died. It’s important to also remember his life and all the things that I love about him. And I think this movie does that sort of remembering too. I hope so, anyway.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt on recreating the World Trade Center for The Walk  [x]

Amusing tidbit from Total Film

Remember, when I reviewed Man on Wire and said, that The Walk might have a very unusual nude scene? Looks like they actually did it! 

Here is an excerpt from Total Film’s feature on The Walk (which I’m going to upload in a bit):

image

We meet Annie Alix (Charlotte Le Bon), who at one point Petit piggybacks across a highwire.

“I’m not afraid of heights so I was really excited about that,” says the actress. “Maybe I’m a superhero or Jedi, but I wasn’t afraid at all, I was just worried about Joseph’s back!” Perhaps she should have been more worried about his backside: a later scene sees Gordon-Levitt strip completely nude.

“I was very naked,” he laughs, “but it was kind of freeing to be at work naked. After getting over the awkwardness, it’s like ‘Hey, why don’t we all come to work like this? It might be more relaxed.’”

Sadly the article also confirms that Zemeckis omitted the aftermath of the walk and how Petit treated his friends and lover. I actually thought that was an interesting dark edge of the story but I guess Zemeckis wants this movie to be purely “inspirational”.

"I play Snowden’s girlfriend in the Oliver Stone movie which is currently filming . I was very impressed the first day of shooting but Joseph Gordon-Levitt immediately put me at ease."
Shailene Woodley on her first day of shooting Snowden. [x]