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Joseph Gordon-Levitt Biography |
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Joseph Gordon-Levitt`s remarkable transition from child to adult actor deserves kudos, and then deserves to be let go. (Yes, he was participating in a children`s musical group at age 6, when another child`s manager suggested he should try doing it professionally). After several years of smaller television roles, he did his first feature at age 10 (A River Runs Through It). TV series-regular roles (Dark Shadows, The Powers That Be, 3rd Rock) limited his availability for film during teen years, and college followed at the end of 3rd Rock.
Following (and a little bit during) that academic hiatus, he has successfully shaken off the child-actor image by moving on to intense script and role choices that have been both eclectic and provocative. His path has been guided much more by the quality of the material and the integrity of the creative people involved, rather than pursuit of fame or fortune. Despite his young age, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has already distinguished himself as an actor with a wide range of performances in both television and film. He starred on the hit television series "3rd Rock from the Sun" (1996), for which he earned two Hollywood Reporter Young Star Awards and the show earned three SAG Award nominations for "Outstanding Peformance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.`he was already working steadily in feature films debuting in the Robert Redford Prior to his success on television` film A River Runs Through It (1992) for which he received the Young Artist Award for "Best Actor Under Ten." Other film credits include Angels in the Outfield (1994), The Juror (1996), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), and one of the lead voices in the animated film, Treasure Planet (2002). Gordon-Levitt recently took time off from acting to attend Columbia University. His most recent film credits include the 2001 Sundance film Manic (2001), where he plays an angry young man sent to a juvenile mental institute. He returned to Sundance this year with two diametrically opposed lead roles in Rian Johnson`s Brick (2005) and Gregg Araki`s Mysterious Skin (2004). Brick (2005), earned a Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision. Having screened at the Venice, Toronto and London Film Festivals, Mysterious Skin (2004) has already earned him accolades for his portrayal of a gay hustler haunted by his sexually abused past. Gordon-Levitt, who resides in both New York and Los Angeles, will next appear in Barbara Kopple`s Havoc (2005) as well as Shadowboxer (2005) opposite `Cuba Gooding Jr`. and Helen Mirren. Biography Credit: imdb.com |
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Trivia |
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BiographyFriends and FamilyMichelle Trachtenberg [Friend] :: Daniel [Brother] (older brother) :: Dennis Levitt [Father] :: Jane Gordon [Mother] :: Michael Gordon [Grandfather]Trivia and QuotesQuotes The whole concept of celebrity pisses me off. While I`m not a celebrity, it`s such a weird concept that society has cooked up for us. Astronauts and teachers are much more amazing than actors. "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." [on his parents` activist youths.] Actors didn`t use to be celebrities. A hundred years ago, they put the theaters next to the brothels. Actors were poor. Celebrities used to be kings and queens. Then the United States abolished monarchy, and now there`s this coming together of show business and celebrity. I don`t think it`s healthy. I don`t want to sound self-important, but all these celebrity shows and magazines - it comes from us, from Hollywood, from our country. We`re the ones creating it. And I think it works in close step with a lot of other bad things that are happening in the world. It promotes greed, it promotes being selfish and it promotes this ladder, where you`re a better person if you have more money. It`s not at all about the work itself. Don`t get me wrong. I love movies. But this myth of celebrity has nothing to do with movies. At the heart of the movie, to me, is there`s these two characters that can have one horrible, traumatic experience but react to it in opposite ways and it shows how different people see things differently. Well, today, there`s a president in my country that doesn`t understand that and he thinks that if you don`t see it exactly his way, you`re wrong and evil. And that`s not the way the world works. There can be one event but everybody who sees it sees it a little different or sees it a lot different and that`s what the movies about and that`s what damn "Dubya" needs to understand. Or let him not understand it and go about his ways and go back to his ranch and never bother us again. (about Mysterious Skin) 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. 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. My advantage is that I know the system. Big budgets don`t impress me. They might`ve done when I was 13, but I`ve been working since I was 6. One of the hardest things about playing a soldier is kinda acknowledging that I`ve never done, and might never do anything that brave. Success is not important to me, nor are power or money. If the script feels good, then I`m in. It`s that simple. 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. 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.Trivia Chosen as one of Teen People Magazine`s "21 Hottest Stars Under 21" [1999] Plays the guitar. Was ranked #6 on Entertainment Weekly`s `30 Under 30` the actors list. (2008). | ||
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