Joseph Gordon-Levitt Quotes & Sayings

Blessed are they that crumble; from them new worlds are made. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

On some level, we as human beings can be who we want to be. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I find the voice is what I look for first and foremost with just about every character I play. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I don't have any training in dance. I can convince an audience that I know how to dance because I'm a convincing actor. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The poets pinned tragedies
to their chests like ribbons. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I'm definitely not a science nerd, I'll say that. That was not my forte at school. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

A lot of the motivation for doing the 'Make 'Em Laugh' on SNL was because I had just finished shooting 'Inception,' where there were zero-gravity scenes and I got into really good shape and was training and did all these stunts. Coming off of that, that instilled me with the confidence to do 'Make 'Em Laugh.' — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

If you look at all the movies that have made tons of money, almost all of them are great movies. Even Titanic. I think Titanic is a great movie. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

After you died I realized that
I never really like hunting.
I just like hanging out with you. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

If I were to point to the person who's having the greatest impact ... I'd point to Elon Musk. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I do feel that even though I didn't grow up being a big sci-fi fan or comic books or superhero fan, I felt myself definitely gravitate towards these movies that have a high concept and yet they're giving you a moral dilemma within that. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I mean, movies in general tend to sort of portray time, space and identity as these very solid things. Time moves forward. Space is what it is. You are you, and you're always you. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Monuments make momentous men immortal, but more memorable are mortal men making mere moments monumental. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

There's an absolute prejudice that good movies are dramas and comedies are more dismissable. But I couldn't disagree more. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

If the goal is to get the best artists, actors, and filmmakers in the world to create the best movies, Hollywood does a decent job. And I think no one would disagree with me that it also makes a ton of bad movies and employs a bunch of hacks. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

When I was 20, I went to Paris and tried to meet French women. It didn't work. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

My personal belief is that everything is always happening all at once. — 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

Hollywood can be an exclusive place. Who gets to be on TV, or who gets to make TV can be a small clique of an industry. There's so many talented, skilled people, all over the world, that might not have the connections or the opportunities to work in TV. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The movies I watch and the music I listen to and the books I read - those are important to me. It's very important to me, and I don't know what I would do without those things. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

If I read our story backwards, it's about how I un-broke your heart, and then we were happy until one day, you forgot about me forever. — 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

I think the dual existence thing is a regular pastime for all human beings, and for that matter anything in this universe. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Press is basically a created story. It's all just stories. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

That's what life is: repetitive routines. It's a matter of finding the balance between deviating from those patterns and knowing when to repeat them. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

To be honest, I sort of feel like 'movie actor' isn't of this time. I love it. But it's a 20th-century art form. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I never intended to only do dark, serious things. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Bikes are clearly a superior form of transportation when it comes to just simple getting around. A car makes sense if you need to carry a bunch of stuff. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The thing about Occupy is that the sentiment the movement embodies is timeless: Don't be greedy, share. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I think we all have a tendency to feel like, "Well, what can I do? I can't influence the government or politics in my country." — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I just want to open up the avenues for people to express themselves. That's what the media ought to be. It shouldn't just be a conveyer belt of shiny products to buy. It should be a way that we're all communicating and understanding each other. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

There's something really appealing about the simplicity of black-and-white images. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

It's just a natural part of being a social creature and being a human being. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

You're gone. No mailing address.
But I send you letters anyway. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I love her [Kimberly Peirce]. Incredibly intense is a good way of describing her. Brutally honest. Really sharp. She's a director for actors. That's what she's best at, sitting down with an actor and just getting to the heart of what a scene is. And getting to the heart of not just what the scene is and the character is, but what you are, and how to build that bridge between the "me" and the character, and those emotions. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I think acting is totally conducive to being a little kid, because kids are less inhibited and use their imagination. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Making little videos that you know are going to be on tiny windows is a whole different thing. I don't know what it's going to lead to necessarily, but it's certainly fun. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

This overwhelming desire to be close to you directly conflicts with my intense fear of people. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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 chemistry and the comfort and trust between two people playing a love story l is key, and to have a friend that I could trust, and whose sensibilities I already understood, made it so much easier, and is a big part of why it all looks natural on screen. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

It's nice to not feel like you're just re-enacting a preconceived moment, but there's room for an organic feeling to develop while the camera is rolling. Even amidst these enormous technical productions, Chris [ Nolan] always prioritized making sure that sort of spontaneous and organic feeling could happen at the moment. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I think there is something beautiful in reveling in sadness. The proof is how beautiful sad songs can be. So I don't think being sad is to be avoided. It's apathy and boredom you want to avoid. But feeling anything is good, I think. Maybe that's sadistic of me. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The media's about to become a lot more effective. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

He though of all the
different ways to make it
look like an accident. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The right shoe left, knowing that the left shoe was right. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Comedy takes a very specific technique, specific skills. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I have a lot of trouble getting turned on by girls who are turned on by celebrity. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I want to keep working with people that care about what they're doing. It seems obvious, but it's not. It's sometimes hard to keep on that track. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I would like to do a musical, if I could find a cool one. A song-and-dance role is closer to me personally than other characters I play. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Normally you read a screenplay - and I read a lot of them - and the characters don't feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I think the way the media is going to work in the future is less something that the population consumes and more something that the population creates. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Most scripts are bad. I read a lot of them. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I was such a big Dustin Hoffman fan when I was young. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

As an actor, it's always important to understand what the director is after. That, to me, is my job. When I'm acting, I like to ask a lot of questions and understand exactly why the director is doing what they're doing, so that I can provide him or her with the ingredients that they need to get the scene that they want. It's not to challenge them, in any way. It's just so that I can do my job best. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Okay, I'll admit, I have a few skeletons in my closet; but they weren't skeletons when I put them there. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Here's the new art of the twenty-first century: the art of curating, the art of plucking all the good stuff from a superabundance of crap. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I like making little videos and little records. I've always loved video cameras and four-track cassette recorders, still cameras, anything. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

It's less about what you do and more about who you are doing it with. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

This is the saddest, most depressing music I've ever heard.
It makes me so happy. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

When I was a teenager I loved acting, but I really just loved it for myself. I didn't like the fact that anyone else saw the work I was doing. When I moved to New York, I started to realize that I wanted people to see the stuff that I was doing, and I wanted it to mean something to them. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I enjoy a challenge or provocation, something to think about, to talk about after it's done. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The element of surprise wasn't allowed near the Periodic Table. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Every director is different. And all the movies are very different, and the characters are very different. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I don't think action for action's sake is so fun, but when it helps tell the story, I love doing a good fight scene. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I just love to act. It's my favorite thing to do in the world, and what keeps it interesting, to me, is the creative challenge. So, different kinds of characters, that's what I just love to do. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I'd been an actor my whole life, since I was a kid. And then, I quit for awhile and went to university. When I wanted to start acting again, I couldn't get a job, and that was really depressing. So, I realized, at that time, that I have to take responsibility for my own creativity. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Once upon
a dream
in a blanket
of night sky
you asked me
to tell you a story
which began with
us holding hands. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

When I was a teenager, if anyone recognized me for anything I did, it would ruin my day. I couldn't handle it. It was some sort of neurotic phobia. I guess I was paranoid that people would treat me differently, or in an unfair way, because of my job. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Today's a great time to be any creative type of person, I think, and in just about every aspect of creativity, this generation is going to blow away every generation ever. Because we're the first ones with the Internet. I can get together with some friends, shoot a movie, cut it on my laptop at home, and then put it online. We don't have to listen to anyone. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

That you can be whatever you want to be, whoever you want to be, regardless of your gender. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Mapmaker mapmaker
make me a map
one to one scale,
without a single gap.
Map every rock,
every thought, every tree
and erase all the territory. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I think that anybody who says 'This is the one way to go about being an actor' has probably not done a lot of professional work before. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I know other worlds exist. I can see them in my peripheral vision. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The universe is not made up of atoms; it's made up of tiny stories. — 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

Real life is not as simple as it is on a screen. I think real life is actually a lot more beautiful. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

She drank in all their compliments and soon she was full of herself. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I think our culture is sick and tired of fluffy nonsense and people want something more sincere and heartfelt. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The Internet is allowing us to get back to what's really more natural, which is that storytelling is a shared thing. It's our natural way to be communal. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Most of what Hollywood puts out is crap anyway. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I didn't want to just work within Hollywood when I started a production company. I wanted to be able to collaborate with great artists from all over the world. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Stranger than strangers
are lovers estranged. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I think Hollywood, as it's been, will have to change because the model of Hollywood is "we'll make this content, and you guys buy it," but I don't think that's the future. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

If you're going to put yourself above everybody else, you might end up alone. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The term 'popular culture' always used to mean what the people do - pop songs, folk songs, music in general used to live because people would sing these songs and tell these stories together. Then all of these new technologies came out and it became the work of professionals. — 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. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

A man touched me: his hand ... my thigh. I touched him too: my fist ... his jaw. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I have a pretty eclectic taste in the movies that I like to watch, and also in the movies that I'm inspired to work on. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I go through a lot of bad stuff, because most of the stuff that's written is pretty bad. But occasionally something comes along that's good, and I want to do it. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

A lot of people, most people who are working, they do it for money. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. It so happens that I made a lot of money already, so I don't have to worry that much about it. I wouldn't fault anybody for doing it for the money, but it doesn't interest me right now. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Even today, in our progressive times, in most movies that come out, the men have to have biceps and the women have to be thin or something. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

But I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

If the inspiration is genuine and it's coming from the right place, that's what I like and want to be a part of. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The doctor's wife ate two apples a day, just to be safe. But her husband kept coming home. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Eating is the sleeping of being awake. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

If you do or don't like something it's because of that thing and not because it has the right politics behind them or the right company or the right connections. It's really just about the thing itself. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I didn't really like doing commercials. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I just need some time away to remember why I stay. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt