Interview: Joseph Gordon-Levitt of Brick

There are many things you can get out of six years on a sitcom. Cash; a comfort-zone; a catchphrase. Having a career afterwards – especially at a young age – doesn't normally come in the same package. Joseph Gordon-Levitt went from Third Rock from the Sun and Treasure Planet voice-overs to sex and death in Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin and taking punches to avenge his dead girlfriend in Rian Johnson's Hammett-meets-high school film Brick. In San Francisco, Gordon-Levitt spoke about reading screenplays, small-scale moviemaking and the benefits of passion.

Cinematical: When you first read the script for Brick, did you have any – I almost want to say warning – about the nature and character of the material, or did you just dive into it?

I had no idea what the script was; I opened it like any other script, going 'I wonder what this is. …' and by the time I was through page three, I was flabbergasted. People don't write movies like this anymore. People try to create movies through digital effects and camera tricks – and not that there aren't really cool camera tricks in Brick, but none of them are digital. Rian Johnston, the writer-director, he created the world of Brick with his words … and no one tries to use words anymore; it's like a dying art, the wordsmith. And the language that he came up with for Brick is so fun to say that when I was done reading it, I turned over the last page and went to the front again and started reading it again, just because I liked saying it.
Things like 'Who's she eating lunch with?'

'Who's she eating with?' Yeah.

The other thing that's really interesting about Brick is ... it's a seemingly modest film, but it's really character driven and driven by the emotional lives of these people. And when you read the script, when they asked you to be Brendan, did you just think "Wow, what a gift."

I'm a lucky guy for what I get to do ... and I've been working as an actor for eightee … nineteen years? Since I was six; I'm 24 now. … and it' s only really recently … I did a movie right before Brick called Mysterious Skin … There was one I did before that called Manic, and it's only now after all this time I've been feeling like ... 'Wow, these (parts) are such gifts. To have the opportunity to try to do this .. and I'm just really grateful that … I mean, I'm amazed that this movie's out; this movie cost one one-hundredth of what most movies that you see in movie theaters cost; It had a crew of like 30 people; most crews are like 200, 300 people. There weren't any resources; there weren't any politics, there weren't any big institutions or corporations behind this movie. It was just a really good piece of writing and a few people that cared about it. And the fact that now I'm talking about it (to the media) and telling people they can go see it and they can go see it and pay money to actually see it in a movie theater is … It makes me feel like, 'Well, allright; maybe not everything in the world is going downhill; maybe there's some good stuff going on.'

Cinematical: Well, the film – and Rian – won an award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival … and now, over a year later, it's coming to theaters. You're not involved in that level of the business, but when you talk to Rian, is there any discussion of how this film's kind of become a pregnant elephant – like it's taking a long to make it's way out into the world?

Well, the reason it took so long between when we made it and then when it went to Sundance and now that it's finally coming out now is because of how small it is. The reason that bigger movies that get made by big companies like Universal and Paramount … they have their schedule set already; they know what movies are going to come out in 2009; they have a list. And they calculate it out, and it's all based on numbers. Accountants figure it out; it's not artists that figure it out, it's accountants.  And that's how they do it.  And then the accountants hire executives, and the executives hire artists.

With Brick, it was just a guy who wrote this script, and then he was able to raise money – from friends and family – and very little money, like, a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Which is, granted, a lot of money – but nothing compared to the 30, 50, 80 million dollars they spend to make most movies that come out in movie theaters. And, uh, that's all there was; it was just us, making the movie. Then, once we finished it, then a company, Focus Features bought it. And they're gonna put it out, so it takes a while.

Cinematical: In Brick, you play a pretty classic crime fiction character; you spend a lot of time unconscious, you take a beating really well … What's you favorite piece of crime fiction, whether on the screen or on the printed page?

How about … The Tell-Tale Heart. The Edgar Allan Poe story; that's a good one.