Joseph Gordon-Levitt Quotations

Every day I've got to be thankful that I am alive, and you never know - the cliche is, I guess, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow, so you'd better be at peace with whatever you got going at the moment.

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.

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

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.

The spiral in a snail's shell is the same mathematically as the spiral in the Milky Way galaxy, and it's also the same mathematically as the spirals in our DNA. It's the same ratio that you'll find in very basic music that transcends cultures all over the world.

As soon as you are trying to be funny or dramatic, that's when things start feeling fake and boring.

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.

If you're going to put yourself above everybody else, you might end up alone.

I think some of the best actors ever were little kids.

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.'

I stopped getting nervous a long time ago, so any time I do get nervous, which is rare - about work, anyway - I always take that as a really good sign.

Making checklists of things you're looking for in a person is the numero uno thing you can do to guarantee you'll be alone forever.

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.

There's no royalty in America, so people deify actors.

It's less about what you do and more about who you are doing it with.

I was just watching baby videos of me and I was obviously an exhibitionist.

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.

The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative.

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.

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

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.

Sometimes what someone else does is really not what you expected them to do, which to be honest, sometimes doesn't work.

When I started editing on my home computer, I said to myself, 'Well, I could be at home studying for a class or I could be at home editing a video.'

I don't blame folks for not wanting to put me in their movies or whatever. I understand if their audiences had an association with me.

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

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

When I'm on set, I do whatever I can to find my focus.

On some level, we as human beings can be who we want to be.

The only thing I want to do is stuff with people who care about what they're doing.

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

I was a sort of serious little dude - snobby.

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.

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

When I was 20, I went to Paris and tried to meet French women. It didn't work.

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.

Ummm... well, the only thing I want to do is stuff with people who care about what they're doing, which sounds obvious, but it's really not.

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.

Press is basically a created story. It's all just stories.

Quality isn't about where the money came from or which company gets to put their name on the thing. What matters is who made the movie and why they made it.

Normally, it's difficult for me to watch a movie that I'm in.

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.

It's a pretty intuitive process, picking the projects that I want to get involved with.

That is very different from how it used to be in the 20th century. Media was very one way. There's a small little industry. It broadcasted its message and everyone else in the world just had to listen. Now the internet is allowing what used to be a monologue to become a dialogue. I think that's healthy and actually restoring a more natural way.

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.

I never intended to only do dark, serious things.

When you believe that you can do something, that's when you can do it.

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.

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.

I think our culture is sick and tired of fluffy nonsense and people want something more sincere and heartfelt.

There seems to be a notion in Hollywood that if you want to make money, you have to sacrifice doing good work with integrity. And I think that's bullshit. I think that's an excuse, and it's what people say who are scared that they can't do good work.

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.

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.

Don't we want to escape our real world and go into something larger than that, simpler than that, more beautiful or darker?

I'm definitely not a science nerd, I'll say that. That was not my forte at school.

I don't think you necessarily have to be the most perfected performer, in order to express your feelings. It's really those feelings that an audience connects with, I think, at least as much as perfected technical skill.

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.

In the old days, people would gather around the fire, or they would gather at a tavern, and they'd tell a story. And then, maybe a week later, someone would tell the same story, but with a different twist on it. That's how folk takes evolved.

Nothing is ever finished. It's a funny thing. I actually think that's really the more natural way of stories or songs.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My favorite kinds of movies are the ones that start a conversation.

Music belongs to everybody. Having a little clique of the industry tell us what our culture is... I don't think that's healthy. And the Internet is helping us get away from that.

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.

The truth of actually working on a movie set is that you're in the midst of a logistical nightmare. There are so many things going on. There are many factors that keep your ideal scenario from ever happening. And you're rarely going to get that.

When I'm on set, I do whatever I can to find my focus. One thing that stays pretty consistent for all my jobs is, I listen to a lot of music while I'm working. Because when there's all this stuff going on, for me to be able to put on headphones and listen to music helps me keep my focus,. A big part of creating a character for me is finding the general palette for what kind of music I'm going to be listening to.

Kids play pretend. I think that kids can be the best actors.

Even when I was really young, I hated doing commercials, because I would say, "That's not real acting." And it's not. It's embarrassing what they make little kids do in commercials.

I think the reason I was able to get the jobs I did is because I worked for some very strong, self-possessed filmmakers who wouldn't listen to the executive-suited wisdom, and they believed in me from director to actor. Not from salesman to commodity.

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.

Genres give a vocabulary. They give a frame of reference for the audience to enter into a movie. Then, once they have their footing, that's when you can start doing things that they don't expect.

The director is the most important because, ultimately, as an actor, when you watch a movie, it looks like an actor is giving a performance, and they kind of are. But, what's actually happening is that an actor has given a bunch of ingredients over to a director, who then constructs a performance. That's movie-making.

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.

Being politically active is "more about doing things, not just standing for some platform or being involved in some political party."

Everyone has the attitude that movies aren't just disposable entertainment - they can really mean something. I love that, because that's the way I feel about films.

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.

Real life is not as simple as it is on a screen. I think real life is actually a lot more beautiful.

You see a woman on a screen and you reduce her to just a thing, a sex object.

The traditions of Hollywood are grand and great and are going to survive forever, in a way. But they're not going to be the only way for much longer. The technology is such now that you don't have to have millions of dollars to make a movie. You can make one with a computer.

I think any time you set out to make something, anybody is going to be confronted by those voices in their head that say "You don't need to do this. Someone else can do this better. You should probably just quit right now."

If you don't stick to your plan enough, and you're too seduced by whimsical notions and new ideas, you can kind of lose your train of thought and end up with something that doesn't have a solid through-line.

"Music is something that professionals do and not something that I do." That's not natural. Music belongs to everybody.

I'm the last person to tell my friends to go see something I'm in. I could care less if friends of mine never saw anything I'm in.

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.

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.

I enjoy a challenge or provocation, something to think about, to talk about after it's done.

If more people rode bikes and less people drove cars, the air would be in better shape and people would be in better shape.

Singing doesn't have to mean that you sound like Stevie Wonder. I love to sing. I'm not the greatest singer in the world. But, a lot of my favorite singers aren't the greatest singers in the world.

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.

Most of what Hollywood puts out is crap anyway.

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.

What makes a good work of art is something that honors certain traditions and breaks with others.

I think violence begets violence. I don't think a way to solve any sort of conflict is with violence because nothing ever ends up solved, that way.

Actors didn't use to be celebrities. A hundred years ago, they put the theaters next to the brothels.

His hands were weak and shaking from carrying far too many books from the bookshop. It was the best feeling.

I have a lot of trouble getting turned on by girls who are turned on by celebrity.

It's HE-RO," the boy argued. "No," the girl insisted, "it's HER-O.

A man touched me: his hand... my thigh. I touched him too: my fist... his jaw.

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.