Joseph Gordon-Levitt: 'I've Chosen You to be My Esoteric Interview For the Day'

With that in mind, did Brooklyn Bobby and Manhattan Bobby feel like separate characters to you?

Yeah. And I love the way [the directors] include New York City like a character, almost. There are the colors yellow and green, the settings, the different dramatic tones between the kind of genre thriller and the less-classifiable... I don't know what you'd call it. Honest green world? I just tend to call them the yellow and the green world. And it all kind of comes together in the scene where, in both worlds, they wind up doing it at the same time. They wind up making love, and I love the way the camera comes up and shows the geometric complements of Manhattan against Brooklyn. It's just a man and a woman, and... I don't know. Again, I'm getting pretty far out here.

But it's true, though. Don't New Yorkers generally perceive Brooklyn and Manhattan as sort of parallel universes?

I've lived in New York for a while, and I don't what exactly this says about me, but I spend virtually all my time in Manhattan. I went to Columbia, and then lived a couple other places. To me, actually, the biggest difference between Manhattan and Brooklyn -- the yellow and the green -- is that in the yellow world, it was really just me and Lynn. In the green world, there was this awesome ensemble of other actors. You could probably make some connection, too, that in Manhattan everything focuses down to one one little point: "It's me and you, and we've got to do this thing. Head down, move forward." And maybe in the outer boroughs, where there's more space, it's different. It's definitely no coincidence that the feels and tones of the two different parts of the movie correspond with those two different boroughs. I think anybody can watch this film, but New Yorkers will have a particular appreciation for it.

(500) Days of Summer has had such a long tail coming out of Sundance earlier this year. It made a killing, people love it, it's still in theaters. What do you make of the sustained popular reaction to it?

I love that movie. You never have control over how the rest of the world is gonna feel about anything you make. I love other movies of mine that didn't get as much attention, but it doesn't mean I love them any less. I don't know. It's a funny dichotomy. To be a creative person I think you have to stick your guns and, in a certain way, not care what people think. But on the other hand I'm a citizen of the world, and I care very much what people think. There's a less solid line between "us" and "them" than we'd like to believe. We're all sort of made up of each other. What we think is largely affected by what everybody else thinks -- no matter how strong we are. [Pause] Anyway. I don't know why, but I've chosen you to be my esoteric interview for the day or something.

I'll take it. Is there a particular movie of yours where the public reaction maybe didn't match your affinity for the film?

I'm only half-answering your question here, but Uncertainty is a good example. It hasn't come out yet, so I can't be disappointed. [Ed. note: This interview was conducted before Uncertainty opened to an very impressive $12,235 on one screen in Manhattan.] And I'm not, but Uncertainty is a good example of a film that's going to have a harder time getting attention than a movie like (500) Days of Summer. And a lot of it just comes down to money and infrastructure and the way the media works. Which is why I'm really excited to talk to someone like you, and you're going to write something that other film lovers will read, because a movie like Uncertainty doesn't have the resources to advertise, for example. It's just a movie that was made by movie lovers that we hope is enjoyed by other movie lovers. Again, I don't have control over how many people see it, but Uncertainty is one that I really do hope people see. I'm rooting for it, and it's kind of an underdog in that respect.

Do you have any particular characters or current events you want to tackle when you host SNL in a few weeks?

You'll have to wait and see! You know I've got to tease you on that, come on. The funny thing is that they actually don't work on that show until the week of. It's one of the things that's such a turn-on about SNL: It's truly live. It's truly timely. Uncertainty -- I love it, but I shot it two years ago. It was over two years ago that I was playing that character and feeling those things. It's taken two years to make it through the mishegoss of film festivals and distributors and all that stuff to finally get in front of an audience. I'm happy it finally has, and I can't wait for people to see it. Saturday Night Live, you do it, and it's on. I'll be feeling it, and the audience will be there at the same time. It's a different kind of thing. We'll have to see what the present moment brings.

Are you nervous?

You know what, man? I am. And I don't get nervous. So that's exciting. 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.

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