It might be unreasonable to suggest that any actor can have a career year at 28, but you can't say 2009 wasn't a whopper for Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In addition to his spunky anti-romcom hit (500) Days of Summer and presence in the tentpole G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, he won a role in Christopher Nolan's mega-anticipated Inception, will host Saturday Night Live this weekend, and saw his tiny indie Uncertainty break $12,000 on one screen over the weekend in New York. The film tracks Bobby (Gordon-Levitt) and Kate (Lynn Collins), young lovers at odds over what to do for the Fourth of July. So they flip a coin, commencing a wild riff on identity, family, NYC culture and genre as one version of the couple spends the holiday evading gangsters in Manhattan, and the other visits an awkward family gathering in Brooklyn.
The latest twisty suspense narrative from directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel (Suture, The Deep End), Uncertainty frames Gordon-Levitt in a refreshingly gritty complement to his other 2009 hits (for those outside New York, it's presently available for download via IFC on Demand). The actor spoke to Movieline about the movie's metaphysics and mindf*ckery, why he loves an underdog and just how nervous he is about his forthcoming SNL gig.
So help me understand Uncertainty a little better. Do you think this dual-existence thing is a regular pastime for these characters, or just a way to spend this particular Fourth of July?
That's a funny way to phrase it. I think the dual existence thing is a regular pastime for all human beings, and for that matter anything in this universe.
So these are two stories actually taking place at once? Or is one imagined and the other real, it's just up to us to determine which is which?
My personal belief is that everything is always happening all at once.
Really? Who else is interviewing you right now?
You are, but you're a redhead.
Ah ha. So what intrigued you about making a movie about this concept?
Well, look -- I love a good love story, and this, to me, is one of the most in depth and honest stories about love between two people that I've personally had the chance to act in. Lynn is a fabulous actress, and the process of Uncertainty itself is just based on improvisation and emotional authenticity as opposed to technical precision. You know, hitting your marks and saying your lines. I think it really allowed us to push the envelope of playing with those feelings of love. So... yeah. It makes for a good date movie.
(500) Days of Summer took an equally radical approach to a narrative about a relationship. What specifically were you trying to say or express about love in these films?
It's the whole of it, really. The juxtaposition. Isn't that how love is? It's never only one thing. For me, my emotional state can go from one pole to another in the span of no time at all. I think that's kind of what Uncertainty is about. 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. These are all useful concepts if what you're trying to do is go down to the grocery store and get a gallon of milk. I guess I'm getting far out, but what I look for in a movie is something that will fuck with my mind and unrest some of those stable building blocks that make up my consciousness. I think Uncertainty does that -- it plays with those notions of time and space, and who are you? Are you sure you're not other things, too? Yes, this seems to be happening right now, but what else is happening?
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.