Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The TV kid who wanted to disappear

At six years old, he was already selling cereal in TV commercials. But Joseph Gordon-Levitt was no typical designer kids' product. In 1996, he landed the role of Tommy Solomon in the series 3rd Rock from the Sun, and that brought him a level of fame he didn't know how to handle.

That job allowed him to save enough money to voluntarily derail his career. Gordon-Levitt hated being recognized on the street while trying to be a normal teenager. In 2000, he decided that was enough and walked away from Hollywood sets.

He enrolled at Columbia University in 2000 to study French literature.

That academic break didn't last forever. He returned to film in 2004 with a clear goal and sought out projects no one else wanted to touch. His performance as a young hustler abused as a child in Mysterious Skin showed that the sitcom kid was gone. It was a risky bet that cost barely $300,000 and earned him the respect of the independent film industry.

And the gamble paid off.

In 2005, he starred in Brick under the direction of Rian Johnson. The film was a high school noir shot on a shoestring budget that ended up winning a special prize at the Sundance Film Festival. As a result, Gordon-Levitt became the go-to face for directors looking for something different from superhero blockbusters.

The architect of his own industry

But massive success was inevitable. In 2009, (500) days together arrived, and his face ended up plastered on bedroom walls across half the world. The film grossed 60 million dollars on a minimal budget. That opened the doors of Christopher Nolan cinema for him, where he took part in Inception in 2010 and in The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.

HitRecord officially launched in 2004 as a personal experiment.

What started as a file-sharing website grew into a collaborative production company that won an Emmy Award in 2014. Gordon-Levitt has always had an obsession with democratizing artistic creation. He didn't want to be just an actor waiting for his agent's call from a mansion in Los Angeles.

In 2013, he dared to write and direct his first feature film, titled Don Jon. The film dealt with pornography addiction and the dehumanization of modern relationships. He convinced Scarlett Johansson to take on the female lead, and the film ended up selling for $4 million after its festival premiere.

After that debut, he focused on real-life figures with a clear political edge. In 2015, he played tightrope walker Philippe Petit in The Edge, and in 2016 he portrayed Edward Snowden in the biopic directed by Oliver Stone. For this last role, he donated much of his salary to help protect the rights of digital whistleblowers.

In 2020, he took part in the production of Aaron Sorkin The Trial of the Chicago 7, playing prosecutor Richard Schultz. Filming took place on location in Illinois and New Jersey on a budget of $35 million.

In 2024, he shot the action comedy Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F alongside Eddie Murphy. This Netflix production had an estimated budget of $150 million.