A Conversation with Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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or grew <I>into</I> - the confident and brooding young star of the new film <A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/movie20033q/id1945.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/movie2003"><U><B>Manic</B></U></A><A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/movie20033q/id1945.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/movie2003"><U>,</U></A> his first lead role after a decade in the industry.  </div> <bR> <div> There were other minor film roles along the way, most notably a childhood appearance in <B>A River Runs Through It</B> and a young turn in the Shakespearean teen romp <B>Ten Things I Hate About You</B>.  But all grown up now at the age of 22, his gritty work in <B>Manic</B> should change all that.  </div> <bR> <div> When you meet Joseph Gordon-Levitt in person, you're immediately struck by two things - he's quite petite in stature, not much like the wiry and lanky character he plays in the film.  But once that reconciliation sinks in, it's his energy - and I mean intellectual energy - that's so direct and passionate you feel you might be bowled over.</div> <bR> <div> When we sat down to chat about the hard edges of <B>Manic</B> and what's right and wrong in movie industry today, Gordon-Levitt proved a frank, wise young man, clear-thinking and unafraid to talk candidly about the trials of navigating his emerging role in an industry preoccupied with commerce to the detriment of an underestimated audience. </div> <bR> <div> Lee Shoquist, <I>ReelMovieCritic.com</I>:     Compared to most teen films today, <B>Manic</B> has a level of seriousness that feels atypical.   Is that what initially attracted you?  </div> <bR> <div> Joseph Gordon-Levitt:  When I first saw the script for <B>Manic</B>, I was in the midst of reading a lot of scripts for teenagers, because I was a teenager.  And basically what people write for teenagers when it comes to studios is just s--t…</div> <bR> <div> LS:     High-concept marketing stuff.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah, it's just bad.  Hollywood has the idea that movies have to be dumb.  But especially movies for or about teenagers have to be really dumb!</div> <bR> <div> LS:     I think it's been that way for a long time.  I look back to the early 80s when I was a very young teenager, and you had movies like <B>Porky's</B> and <B>Private School</B> and all the same kind of stuff.  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Right.</div> <bR> <div> LS:      I think they were maybe more innocent at that time, even though they were still about the sexual coming of age or whatever.  I think that's still in teen movies today, but they are much more cynical today in terms of their take on everything.  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah, they're just shameless.  And they just have this belief that teenagers, more than even other people, don't want to think about anything, or don't want to really feel anything or engage in anything other than just mindless appeasement.  And that's not true.  And I know it because I was a teenager recently.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     So what kind of stuff do you look for?  What is a film that speaks well to you as a young person?  Can you think of anything?</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Sure.  One of my favorite movies when I was sixteen was <B>Sling Blade</B>.  That whole year actually, right when I turned sixteen, was this spike in indie movies where <B>Pulp Fiction</B> had just come out and made a hundred million dollars, so all the studios said, "S--t, let's go out and find independent movies," or they started making their own "independent movies," and that one year there was <B>Sling Blade</B>, <B>Swingers</B>, <B>Fargo</B>, <B>The Usual Suspects</B>, <B>Big Night</B>, <B>Trees Lounge</B> - these are the ones that I can think of off the top off my head.   That particular year had cool movie after cool movie, and I had just turned sixteen and I was so stoked to be able to drive and go see them.  </div> <bR> <div> But as far as dark or serious tone goes, I think if you talk to an ad executive - and this is why it took <B>Manic</B> a little while to come out, they say, "No!  That's the last thing teenagers want to see.  They want to see <B>The Real Cancun</B>."</div> <bR> <div> LS:     They didn't.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     That's bulls--t!  I'm twenty-two, but I made <B>Manic</B> when I was nineteen, and if anybody is longing for something real and a realistic portrayal of what it's like to be them, it's teenagers.  And that's exactly what <B>Manic</B> is all about.  The characters are not these bullsh--t archetypes; they're complicated and…</div> <bR> <div> LS:     Have real flaws.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     …they contradict each other and they contradict themselves, which is how human beings are.  You can't put your finger on them in a line or a sound bite, which a lot of people try to do.  Because there's one character who is obviously enamored with hip-hop culture, and so some people say, "Oh, he's just a dumb wannabe," or whatever. But really, if you watch the movie, that's not at all what he is, because he goes against that and you see under it, you see where it comes from and it's not just some like <B>Malibu's Most Wanted</B>, or whatever that's called, which is just like this two-dimensional joke formula.  And my character is angry.  So it would be really easy to say that he's the angry, violent one. </div> <bR> <div> LS:     I know.  I felt that when I saw the film.  But he's deceptively "normal."  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     You don't really see- you do see those sort of flashbacks that give a vivid description of the actual incident itself.  But what's challenging about it is that a lot of the characters in the film, you can see that there's this fragmented part of the personality, but otherwise you would assume that they're fairly well integrated human beings.  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Right.  Very true.  I almost hesitate to even tell people that <B>Manic</B> takes place in the adolescent wing of a psychiatric hospital, because people are like, "Oh, it's about crazy people. I don't know if I want to see that."  But it's not about crazy people.  It's about <I>people</I>.  And the first thing you notice about them is how similar they are to people that aren't "crazy," and if you find out anything about what's going on in these hospitals, first thing you find out is there's a s--t load more people in them than you think.  </div> <bR> <div> Even before I did <B>Manic</B> I knew people that ended up in places like this.  Some of them should have been, and some should not have been.  Some of them just had parents that didn't know what they were doing.  Some friend of mine smoked a lot of pot and his parents didn't know what to do, so they sent him to a place like this.  There are a lot of people going into places like this, but no one wants to talk about it.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:       We don't see it in any mainstream movies or otherwise.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     But every single time we have a screening, people come up and say things like, "I had a…"</div> <bR> <div> LS:     …so and so…</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah, right.  But even besides the setting and the institution, everybody - EVERYBODY - knows what it's like to be young and not understand so well about being alive.  And feeling like "Godd---n, the world just f---ing sucks.  It's not for me.  I just don't fit in here."</div> <bR> <div> LS:     And issues of anger.  Everybody knows what that feels like, regardless of whether you're there or not.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Right.  Exactly.  So that's what the movie is about.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:       I've read that the cast prepared for the film with kids who were actually in this situation.  How did that work?  Were you attached to them, and then you built the character from things that you would get from them?  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah.  I didn't go into an institution, because that would have been kind of intrusive.  But I spent a fair amount of time with support groups, in halfway houses and personal appointments where I spent time with people.  And there are actually people that we met during that research that are in the movie and have lines.  And they give some incredible performances.  It goes to question what a performance is because they were just being themselves, and it allowed us to be ourselves - these new selves that we had designed.</div> <bR> <div> LS:     Let's talk about those performances, especially in the group scenes.  There's a remarkable sense of realness that's going on there.  There's nothing in terms of the dialogue of performances that feels pre-programmed or scripted.  It feels almost improvisational in a way, and there's a very comfortable give and take.  So how did you guys navigate that and how did that work?</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yes. Well, it was a really neat, well-written and tight script.  And we used it and then would go off it, and do both.  And the way that it was shot allowed for a lot of spontaneity as well, because your typical Hollywood movie you've got this big set and the camera is locked down and there's all these lights, and you hit your mark and say what you're going to say.  But with these scenes, we just had two guys with little digital cameras who would just be roaming around shooting whatever came up.  You didn't have to worry about, "Oh, I can't say this now because I don't have a camera on me."  We just got into it and the cameras captured it.  And so yes, there's a lot of improvisation.  There's a lot of it that sticks to the script and it just kind of goes in and out.</div> <bR> <div> LS:  There are some very quiet scenes later in the film between you and Zooey Deschanel and also you and Cody Lightning.  There's one where you visit him where he's been isolated and there's a scene with you and her sitting on the bed together.  And it's effective because of what is not said.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     And this is really interesting stuff.  Because in the movies today, quiet moments where someone is not talking or talking over someone else or reacting to a line or whatever, it's rare.  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yes.  It goes to show kind of the whole way that we did that movie, which was try to just be the character and be real about it.  And people don't always talk, and so we wouldn't always talk.  It speaks well of the director that he was able to find those moments.  </div> <bR> <div> A lot of times in a Hollywood movie, because you've got all these business people that are making the decisions, and they're like, "I don't know if it's coming across - this, this and this."  And so they say, "We've got to get some exposition in there.  Make the music- make sure people are paying attention."  Blah, blah, blah.   Because again, they have no confidence in their audience.  They hate their audience!  These business people, if you sit in on meetings in a corporate studio setting, they just have no respect for the people that they think are going to be watching their movie.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:       Because the business end is about the opening weekend box office.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:      Right.  And it takes respect of your audience to be quiet and trust that they will be paying enough attention to understand what's happening without saying anything.  And so those are those moments, I think.  And they're some of the most powerful moments.  Because it's always more powerful to come to the understanding yourself than to be told what you're supposed to understand.</div> <bR> <div> LS:     Have you seen the movie <B>Bugsy</B>?</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah, a long time ago though.</div> <bR> <div> LS:     It's about Bugsy Siegel, the guy who essentially made Las Vegas.  But there is a great scene at the end of the film with Annette Bening who plays Virginia Hill, who was an actress that became his girlfriend and wife.  And she gets the news that he has been killed.  I think she is sitting at a casino table or in a restaurant or something.  And there is this shot that's about- I think I timed it at about 50 seconds or something, where she goes through this whole range of emotions.  First of all, she feels like disbelief, and then maybe she believes it, then back and forth as she comes to the realization.  And she is allowed to have that private moment in a single shot that doesn't cut away…</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     That's great.  That is really cool.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     That's what I am talking about, and I think you are too.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah, it takes time.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     Let's talk about where the film ends up.  Tell me about where you think Lyle (Gordon-Levitt's character) is at by the end of the movie.  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Where I think Lyle is at the end of the movie?  I don't so much like to say what I think things mean…</div> <bR> <div> LS:        …or to give a definitive read on it…</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     That's one of the most interesting questions that comes up most often amongst audience members when they watch the movie, is what happens next to him.  And people ask me that all the time.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     But there is an obvious sort of progress in the last shot.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:       Well, I think so.  Yeah.  So I don't like to say because then people will read this article and say that, "The actor said that blah, blah, blah, so you're wrong."  And that's useless.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     I guess I would say in a general sense that he's probably coming to terms with some things.  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Well, one thing that I would point out, because it is in the movie but it's never really pointed out with bright shining arrows, is <I>The Myth of Sisyphus</I>, which Chad is reading the whole time.  That's the story of the Greek myth of Sisyphus, which is the story of a man who was condemned by the gods to have to push a boulder up a mountain only to, once it gets to the top, have the boulder always roll back down.  He then has to go back and start pushing it up again.  In the Greek myth, that's what the gods do to this guy as a form of punishment.  </div> <bR> <div> And then Albert Camus wrote an essay interpreting the myth, called <I>The Myth of Sisyphus</I>, asking if that were really punishment or if it were exactly what life is, meaning there's really no getting the boulder to the top and having it stay there - it always rolls down.  And the question is whether you go back down and try to get it and psych yourself up and trot down the mountain, or get depressed about it and have it kill you.  And that question and that metaphor are like constant in <B>Manic</B>.</div> <bR> <div> LS:     In other words, it's a process not a conclusion.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah, that's a good way of putting it - it's a process, not a conclusion, or things go in cycles or circles.  Progress is often invisible, you know what I mean?  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     You feel like that in your life?  Like you're on that road?</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Everybody in the world is.  Any benchmark you make for yourself is really your own creation.  You can say, "Well, last year I had that much money, and this year I have this much money.  So I'm making progress."  But that's just money.  Who the f--k cares?  You know, any meaning you want to assign yourself is questionable.  The meaning is whatever you make it, which is my Camus was writing that and the existentialist movement was a response to God Is Dead, and all that.  Yeah, I think everybody has to ask, "Well, here I am trying to do all this s--t.  Does it mean anything?  Or is it just useless?  Am I just spinning my wheels?"</div> <bR> <div> LS:     You see that in the film strongly with Lyle.</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah.  And there's no good answer.  There's no good answer.  I've still yet to hear an answer, like someone saying "No, you're not just spinning your wheels, and here's why…" And so that's the struggle that <B>Manic</B> is about.  And the end of the movie, I could tell you how that plays into my interpretation of the end of the movie, but if you keep <I>The Myth of Sisyphus</I> in mind, you keep that idea of pushing the boulder up and then rolling down and having to walk down the mountain to get the boulder again once it rolls down, that's pretty much exactly what's going on in that scene.</div> <bR> <div> LS:       It's effectively understated in the movie.  Obviously <B>Mani</B>c is not concerned with providing closure or tying things up, and how could it really, given the subject?  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Right.  Exactly.  People compare it to <B>Girl, Interrupted</B>, which honestly I haven't even seen.  But what I've heard is there's a happy ending where someone gets better, and it's like, "Oh, I'm better now."</div> <bR> <div> LS:     Well, for Winona Ryder, at least.  But not for Angelina Jolie's character, who's actually in a worse state than she's been in through the entire film. But yes, the protagonist ends up on a different track.  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Okay.  But those epiphanies don't exist.  That's bullsh--t.  And that's the kind of thing where if you're going through this struggle and you see this movie with this epiphany and getting better, you're like, "F--k, why am I not having that epiphany?"  Well, the reason you're not having that epiphany is because that's bulls--t and it doesn't really exist in the world.  It's a businessperson's cowardice to present the world that way.  They're afraid to present reality, because they think that their audience, for whatever reason, doesn't want to see a more realistic portrayal.</div> <bR> <div> LS:     So it would sound like you then would be geared to look for projects like <B>Manic</B> then, the more clear and honest offbeat independent type things.  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah.  I have no problem with good studio movies.  It's not like I have something against studio movies in and of themselves, it's just that most of them suck.  So I want to do movies and get involved with people that care about what they're doing…</div> <bR> <div> LS:     Like Alexander Payne or Spike Jonze…</div> <bR> <div> JGL:     …or PT Anderson or Spike Lee.  Sure.  So it's not that I am against that, but I just want to do stuff that the people involved really care about what they're doing.  It seems obvious, but it is not obvious.  Because I have worked in this business for such a long time.  Almost anything you do there's just this kind of apathetic adequacy that's kind of what's aimed for.  Excellence is not.  Everyone is just trying to kind of invest enough to get by, but not enough where if its f---ed up, it's their fault, so that they can always point blame at someone else if it doesn't make money.   And <B>Manic</B> was not like that.  It was a few people that really cared about what they were doing.  So it's rare in the studio system, but it's doable.  </div> <bR> <div> A good example is I worked on <B>Treasure Planet</B>, right?  Walt Disney.  Biggest corporation that there is.  People involved with that movie loved what they were doing.  They were really passionate about what they were doing.  And it was a big financial failure.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     I still can't understand why that happened.    </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     I loved working on that movie because the people that made it had been working on it for such a long time, and so hard and they really cared about it.  And that was a Disney movie.  So it's not that I'm against the studio system at all.  </div> <bR> <div> LS:     I wanted to ask you a more personal question that came up when I was reading the press notes.  Your director, Jordan Melamud, talks about how <B>Manic</B> addresses the whole idea of hope and what creates meaning in life.  What creates meaning in your life?    </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Honestly, I'll tell you a story.  In Philadelphia, <B>Manic</B> was at the Philadelphia Film Festival.  I went to the screening and did a Q&A, and this guy came up to me who was sixteen or seventeen, and he said, "That character is pretty much me, and I was in places like that, and I came to this movie two days ago and I came back again today to watch it again, so thank you."  </div> <bR> <div> And I've been working for a long time, and people recognize me and come up to me almost every day and say, "Hey, <I>3rd Rock</I> (<I>from the Sun</I>)," and if they're nice about it, they say, "I love that show.  It's so funny.  I watch that every day."  And that's great.  I love it.  I say, "Thank you," and I really do mean it when I say that.  But this kid came up to me and told me that something I had done was literally important to him, enough so for him to go out of his way to see it again.  And I could just tell by the way he spoke to me it was important to him.</div> <bR> <div> LS:      In other words, affecting rather than just entertaining.  </div> <bR> <div> JGL:     Yeah, because I know in my life, the movies I watch and the music I listen to and the books I read - those are <I>important</I> to me.  It's very important to me, and I don't know what I would do without those things.  And so to be a part of that exchange is about as meaningful to me as anything I can think of.  </div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="621" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="617"><div> Lee Shoquist © 2003</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="617"><div> <A HREF="mailto:leeshoquist@aol.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:leeshoquist@aol.com"><U><U>Leeshoquis@aol.com</U></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>