Joseph Gordon-Levitt Quotes - Page 7

For context, the budget of Don Jon is about half the budget of (500) Days of Summer. And (500) Days of Summer is about a third of the budget of the lowest-budget movies produced at a major studio.

This movie [Don Jon] played at Sundance and South by Southwest and Berlin. And it just played - well...by the time it played at Toronto recently, it was already done. But getting to watch it with a thousand people is hugely informative.

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 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.

Everyone has a unique perspective and that's valid. Everyone's perspective is valid. That doesn't mean that everyone has the same degree of skill level as an entertainer, but skill isn't the only important thing. It's also what kind of perspective and feelings you're bringing to it.

So to compare your real life, or your partner or lover or whoever to a character in a movie, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. They don't map.

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.

I know how to make an audience laugh, 'cause I grew up on Third Rock from the Sun, week after week in front of audiences, making them laugh.

We couldn't afford test screenings. This is a relatively low-budget movie [Don Jon]. But what we did have was the festival circuit.

Certainly the animation technology is growing like crazy. All media technology is.

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.

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.

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

I've been hearing it a lot, especially in the last few years; people will say things to me like "Well, if only I was like you in that movie," or "If only I could be with someone like you in that movie." And, you know, it's very flattering to hear that.

I've always found it sort of hilarious, and occasionally horrifying, how these images [in mass media] impact us, and especially when it comes to love and sex and relationships, I think we sometimes develop unrealistic expectations.

I've always paid a lot of attention to the way that different kinds of media affect how we see the world, probably because I've been an actor since I was a little kid.

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.

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.