Joseph Gordon-Levitt Covers GQ Magazine: The Entertainment Industry Is Crumbling
July 17, 2012 by Hollywoodite
Joseph Gordon-Levitt covers GQ Magazine August 2012 promoting The Dark Knight Rises which is out this week after a protracted, somewhat convoluted promotional trail that’s, apparently, given away everything including each plot twist and the ending (unless you checked out of the promos months ago you probably know the movie’s conclusion after David Letterman and others supposedly gave away serious spoilers). There’s almost no point watching the movie now. There’s the claim that, for the most part, spoilers don’t ruin one’s enjoyment. Apparently the HOW is worth paying for even when you know the WHAT. But is it still worth IMAX prices when you already know what’s going to play out?
Even though fans know the score, and probably feel like they watched it already, the movie is going to be second biggest of the year after The Avengers. Probably second, not first. The Avengers had 3D prices and a plot not prohibitive of whether you’d seen earlier movies or knew the characters’ back stories.
But here we are, its premiere was last night and the tension is palpable after films like The Amazing Spider-Man came to be known as “pre-TDKR”; the time sink, the appetizer, before the main event.
Growing up, Joseph Gordon-Levitt admits he was “a sort of serious little dude—snobby,” and tells GQ’s Amy Wallace that he was dangerously at risk of becoming a “hopeless ivory-tower douchebag.” It was somewhat fitting that he played an old geezer trapped in a boy’s body on “3rd Rock From The Sun.” According to his ex-costar, John Lithgow, “he was a very mature boy—I remember him carrying on about the ecological damage that is done when people build new golf courses. What teenager worries about that? And now he’s a very youthful adult. He’s done a flip-flop.”
On not going to his high school prom: “I thought the girls my age were very frustrating. They were, like, looking in their compact mirrors and s**t, and I thought that was evil.”
On how Hollywood is crumbling: “The entertainment business as it has been is not going to be around that much longer. The way it’s going is, there’s going to be artists, and they’ll make their s**t, and they’ll connect to their audience, and you don’t need any of the middlemen: the studios or the agents.”
On how he hates Americans’ fawning over celebrity: “I really don’t like this notion that some people are more important than other people. These stories about these elevated people called ‘celebrities’ teaches you”… and by “you” he meant regular, nonfamous folks…”that what you have to say doesn’t matter. It’s degrading.”
The Dark Knight Rises director Christopher Nolan on Gordon-Levitt: “He has a tremendous charisma and that incredible kind of positivity that can’t be faked.” Which makes him perfect, of course, for Commissioner Gordon’s protégé. “We really needed somebody with a sense of idealism to contrast with Gordon’s weariness. I thought of Joe first and foremost.” – via GQ Magazine.
