Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (; born February 17, 1981) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his leading performances in 500 Days of Summer and 50/50 (2011). He is the founder of the online media platform HitRecord whose projects such as HitRecord on TV (2014–15) and Create Together (2020) won him two Primetime Emmy Awards in the category of Outstanding Interactive Program.

Born in Los Angeles to a Jewish family, Gordon-Levitt began his acting career as a child, appearing in the films A River Runs Through It (1992), Holy Matrimony (1994), and Angels in the Outfield (1994), which earned him a Young Artist Award and a Saturn Award nomination. He played the role of Tommy Solomon in the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001). He had a supporting role in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), starred in Manic (2001), and voiced Jim Hawkins in the Disney animated film Treasure Planet (2002) before taking a break from acting to study at Columbia University, but he dropped out in 2004 to resume his acting career.

Since returning to acting, Gordon-Levitt has starred in Mysterious Skin (2004), Brick (2005), G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Looper (2012), and Lincoln (2012). He portrayed Philippe Petit in the Robert Zemeckis-directed film The Walk (2015) and whistleblower Edward Snowden in the Oliver Stone film Snowden (2016). In 2020, he had a supporting role in the legal drama The Trial of the Chicago 7. In 2024, he portrayed Detective Bobby Abbott in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.

In 2013, he wrote and directed Don Jon, a comedy-drama film that was released to positive reviews and earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Screenplay. He previously directed and edited two short films, both of which were released in 2010: Morgan M. Morgansen's Date with Destiny and Morgan and Destiny's Eleventeenth Date: The Zeppelin Zoo. In 2021, he wrote, directed, and starred in a comedy-drama series Mr. Corman on Apple TV+.

Early life Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt was born on February 17, 1981, in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood. He has stated that he is of "100% Ashkenazi Jewish" descent, from a family that is "not strictly religious". His parents were among the founders of the Progressive Jewish Alliance. Gordon-Levitt's father, Dennis Levitt, was once the news director for the Pacifica Radio station KPFK-FM. His mother, Jane Gordon, ran for the United States Congress in California's 28th Congressional District in 1970 for the Peace and Freedom Party and finished last with 2.23% of the vote against Alphonzo Bell, the incumbent congressman; she met Dennis Levitt while she was working as the program guide editor for KPFK-FM. Gordon-Levitt had an older brother, Dan, a photographer and fire spinner who died in 2010 at the age of 36. Gordon-Levitt attended Van Nuys High School and graduated in 1999.

Career Early acting work

Gordon-Levitt joined a musical theater group at the age of four and played the Scarecrow in a production of The Wizard of Oz. Subsequently, he was approached by an agent and began appearing on television and in commercials for Sunny Jim peanut butter, Cocoa Puffs, Pop-Tarts, and Kinney Shoes. In the same year, he made an appearance as a boy who witnesses a murder in an episode of Quantum Leap. During 1992–93, he played in The Powers That Be, a sitcom starring John Forsythe, as a clever young boy named Pierce Van Horne. Also in 1992, he portrayed Gregory Kingsley in the made-for-TV film Switching Parents, based on Kingsley's real-life case of "divorcing" his parents. In 1994, he starred in the Disney film Angels in the Outfield as an orphan who sees angels. In 1996, he got the role of Tommy Solomon on the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. The series ran for six seasons. The San Francisco Chronicle noted that Gordon-Levitt was a "Jewish kid playing an extraterrestrial pretending to be a Jewish kid".

Gordon-Levitt had a supporting role in 1998's Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, the 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You, a modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, and voiced Jim Hawkins in Treasure Planet (2002), a Disney adaptation of the novel Treasure Island. In 2000, he began attending Columbia University. He said that moving to New York City from his hometown forced him to grow as a person. His films include 2001's drama Manic, which was set in a mental institution, Mysterious Skin (2004) in which he played a gay prostitute and child sexual abuse victim, and Brick (2005), a modern-day film noir set at San Clemente High School. In Brick, he had the lead role of Brendan Frye, a teen who becomes involved in an underground drug ring while investigating a murder. Brick received positive reviews, with The Minnesota Dailys critic commenting that Gordon-Levitt played the character "beautifully", saying the performance was "true to (the) film's style", "unfeeling but not disenchanted", and "sexy in the most ambiguous way". Another review describes the performance as "astounding". In 2001, Gordon-Levitt made his debut on the New York stage to excellent reviews in the off-Broadway premiere of Austin Pendleton's Uncle Bob at the SoHo Playhouse. Gordon-Levitt starred opposite George Morfogen in the gritty, two-character play. The production was directed by Courtney Moorehead and produced by Steven Sendor.

He starred opposite Steve Sandvoss as a young, judgmental missionary in Latter Days (2003), a film that centers on a sexually repressed Mormon missionary (Sandvoss), who falls for his gay neighbor. He also had roles in Havoc and Shadowboxer. while New York magazine stated that he is a "major tabula rasa actor ... a minimalist", and his character is effective because he "doesn't seize the space ... by what he takes away from the character". The San Francisco Chronicle specified that he "embodies, more than performs, a character's inner life". His 2008 and 2009 films include Stop-Loss, directed by Kimberly Peirce and revolving around American soldiers returning from the Iraq War, and Killshot, in which he played a hoodlum partnered with a hired killer played by Mickey Rourke. Varietys Todd McCarthy praised his performance, saying he "expressively alternates between enthusiasm and forlorn disappointment in the manner Jack Lemmon could". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said the film "hits you like a blast of pure romantic oxygen" and credited both lead actors for playing "it for real, with a grasp of subtlety and feeling that goes beyond the call of breezy duty". He was subsequently nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

He later played villain Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. On November 21, 2009, he hosted Saturday Night Live. In 2010, he replaced James Franco and starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller Inception, which received favorable reviews.

In 2011, Gordon-Levitt began filming Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, in which he played John Blake, a police officer who emerges as a key ally of Batman. In Premium Rush, he played the starring role of a fixie-riding, brash bicycle messenger; he portrayed the younger version of Bruce Willis' character, in a shared role for the time-travel thriller Looper; and the supporting role of Robert Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln. All three films were released in 2012.

Gordon-Levitt played a new character, Johnny, in the sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), described by the filmmakers as "a cocky gambler who disguises a darker mission to destroy his most foul enemy at his best game". In October 2013, it was reported that he was one of the frontrunners to play Scott Lang / Ant-Man II for Marvel Studios' superhero film Ant-Man, a role which eventually went to Paul Rudd.

In 2015, Gordon-Levitt starred as Philippe Petit in the biographical drama The Walk, directed by Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis. Gordon-Levitt then played National Security Agency surveillance leaker Edward Snowden in Snowden, directed by Oliver Stone. The film was released in North America on September 16, 2016, and also starred Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, and Nicolas Cage.

In 2017, Gordon-Levitt had a voice cameo in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In 2019, Gordon-Levitt starred in 7500 directed by Patrick Vollrath, which had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival on August 9, 2019. It was released on June 19, 2020, by Amazon Studios. That same year, Gordon-Levitt had a voice cameo in Knives Out.

Gordon-Levitt starred in Project Power, directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, opposite Jamie Foxx and Dominique Fishback; it was released on August 14, 2020, by Netflix. He next played lawyer Richard Schultz in the drama film The Trial of the Chicago 7. The film was written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, and released September 25, 2020. In March 2021, Gordon-Levitt was announced as voicing Jiminy Cricket in Robert Zemeckis' live-action film adaptation of Pinocchio. In 2022, he starred as Travis Kalanick, former CEO of Uber, in Showtime's anthology series Super Pumped, based on the bestselling book Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac.

Directing and producing Gordon-Levitt's first film as director, the 24-minute-long Sparks, was an adaptation of a short story by Elmore Leonard starring Carla Gugino and Eric Stoltz. Sparks was selected for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival to be shown as part of a new program for short films. In 2010, he directed another short film, Morgan and Destiny's Eleventeenth Date: The Zeppelin Zoo.

He was one of the many producers of the Broadway show Slava's Snowshow.

In 2013, Gordon-Levitt wrote, directed, and starred in his screenwriting and directorial debut, Don Jon. The film also stars Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, and Tony Danza, and it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013. Following the premiere, the film was acquired by Relativity Media, and Gordon-Levitt stated: "I always intended this to be a movie for a mass popular audience. Everyone told me it was a long shot ... I couldn't possibly be more grateful."

In September 2019, Gordon-Levitt was announced to be writing, directing, starring, and executive producing Mr. Corman, a comedy-drama series produced by A24 for Apple TV+.

HitRecord

HitRecord (pronounced ; often stylized as hitREC●rd)

Gordon-Levitt created the platform in 2010 after a period of stagnation in his acting career. "I wanted to be creative, and no one was letting me [so I said] OK, I have to figure out something to do on my own." The company has $6.4 million in venture capital.

On November 6, 2020, Gordon-Levitt released Hong Kong Never Sleeps, a collaborative short film paying homage to Hong Kong created on hitRECord, on his Facebook page. It features photos and videos he collected from Hong Kongers since August 2020, which some themed around the Hong Kong protests starting in 2019, and voice by actors he recruited in October 2020.

Political views In October 2013, Gordon-Levitt identified himself as a feminist, giving credit to his mother: "My mom brought me up to be a feminist. She was active in the movement in the 1960s and 1970s. The Hollywood movie industry has come a long way since its past. It certainly has a bad history of sexism, but it ain't all the way yet."

Gordon-Levitt has expressed support for the effective altruism movement. In 2017, he spoke at the Effective Altruism Global conference in San Francisco.

Following the October 7 attacks, Gordon-Levitt, (along with Gillian Anderson, Amy Poehler, LL Cool J, Steven Bartlett, Scott Galloway, and tech giants Google, Meta Platforms, and Intel, Amazon, Siemens, and Stripe, Inc.), pulled out of annual technology conference Web Summit following tweets by its CEO Paddy Cosgrave. Cosgrave had tweeted that during its military action in Gaza in the aftermath of October 7, Israel was guilty of committing war crimes.

In June 2026, Gordon-Levitt's name appeared in a leaked document as an attendee of an invite-only annual event organized by Dialog, an organization backed by Peter Thiel. Gordon-Levitt said that he had never met or interacted with Thiel, and that the conference had been ideologically diverse.

Tech regulation In September 2025, The New York Times released an opinion video of Gordon-Levitt talking about the dangers Meta's AI chatbot poses for kids. He said that as the father of an 8-year-old, the idea that kids were having "synthetic intimacy" with chatbots talking to minors made him "livid". The actor called Mark Zuckerberg out for choosing "lots and lots of money" over implementing safety regulations for minors' interactions with his company's AI tools.

In January 2026, Gordon-Levitt testified at the Utah State Capitol in support of greater regulation of artificial intelligence, telling legislators "there are more laws in place governing how you make and sell a sandwich than there are governing this incredibly powerful, new revolutionary technology that's going to change all of our lives." Gordon-Levitt has also lobbied for the repeal of Section 230.

Personal life Gordon-Levitt had an older brother, Daniel Gordon-Levitt. On October 4, 2010, Daniel was found dead in Hollywood, California, at the age of 36. According to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, Daniel's cause of death was "ketamine intoxication, with the injury occurring by intake of overdose". Joseph Gordon-Levitt has publicly disputed the claim that his brother's death was caused by a drug overdose. Their first child, a son, was born in August 2015. Their second son was born in June 2017. Their third child, a daughter, was born in 2022. McCauley and he do not want to reveal any details of their children to the media, including their first names.

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes 1992 Beethoven Student #1 Young Norman Maclean1994 Holy Matrimony Ezekiel "Zeke" Jacobson Roadflower Richard Lerolland Angels in the Outfield Roger Bowman 1996 Oliver Laird1998 Sweet Jane Tony Halloween H20: 20 Years Later James "Jimmy" Howell 1999 10 Things I Hate About You Cameron James2000 Picking Up the Pieces Flaco Forever Lulu Martin Ellsworth 2001 Manic Lyle Jensen 2002 Treasure Planet Jim Hawkins Voice role 2003 Latter Days Elder Paul Ryder 2004 Mysterious Skin Neil McCormick2005 Brick Brendan Frye Havoc Sam Shadowboxer Dr. Don 2007 The Lookout Chris Pratt2008 Stop-Loss Tommy Burgess Miracle at St. Anna Tim Boyle Bar Patron Uncredited cameo 2009 Killshot Richie Nix Big Breaks Todd Sterling Short film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra Rex Lewis / Cobra Commander 500 Days of Summer Tom Hansen Uncertainty Bobby Thompson Women in Trouble Bert Rodriguez 2010 Hesher Hesher Morgan M. Morgansen's Date with Destiny Morgan M. Morgansen / Narrator Short film, also director and editor Elektra Luxx Bert Rodriguez Morgan and Destiny's Eleventeenth Date Morgan M. Morgansen / Narrator Short film, also director and editor Inception Arthur 2011 50/50 Adam Lerner2012 The Dark Knight Rises Robin "John" Blake Premium Rush Wilee Looper Joe Also executive producer Lincoln Robert Todd Lincoln 2013 Don Jon Jon "Don Jon" Martello Jr. Also director and writer2014 The Wind Rises Jiro Horikoshi Voice role, English dub 2015 The Walk Philippe Petit The Night Before Ethan Miller 2016 Snowden Edward Snowden 2017 Star Wars: The Last Jedi Slowen Lo Voice cameo Killer Heat Nick Bali 2025 Paradise Records The Negotiator Cameo Wake Up Dead Man Baseball Announcer Voice cameo 2027 Patrick Post-production Filming, Director, producer, and writer

Television

Year Title Role Notes 1988 Stranger on My Land Rounder Television film Family Ties Dougie 2 episodes 1989 Settle the Score Justin Television film 1990 Murder, She Wrote Boy No. 1 Episode: "Shear Madness" 1991 Changes Matthew "Matt" Hallam Television film Hi Honey – I'm Dead Josh Stadler Plymouth Simon Dark Shadows Daniel Collins / David Collins 11 episodes China Beach 9-year-old Archie Winslow Episode: "Quest" Quantum Leap Kyle Episode: "Permanent Wave" L.A. Law Rick Berg Episode: "Lose the Boss" 1992 Pierce Van Horne 13 episodes 1993 Gregory K Gregory Kingsley Television film Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Zack Lawson Episode: "The Secret" 1993–1995 Roseanne George 4 episodes 1995 Matt Cunningham Television film 1996–2001 3rd Rock from the Sun Tommy Solomon 131 episodes 1998 That '70s Show Buddy Morgan Episode: "Eric's Buddy" 2000 Zach Episode: "Something About Harry" 2005 Numb3rs Scott Reynolds Episode: "Sacrifice" 2009,2012 Saturday Night Live Himself / Host 2 episodes 2013 Lady Gaga and the Muppets Holiday Spectacular Himself Television special 2014–2015 HitRecord on TV Himself / Host Also executive producer 2015 Comedy Bang! Bang! Himself Episode: "Joseph Gordon-Levitt Wears a Heart T-Shirt and Blue Jeans" The Mindy Project Matt Sherman Episode: "While I Was Sleeping" The Muppets Himself Episode: "Going, Going, Gonzo" Lip Sync Battle Episode: "Joseph Gordon-Levitt vs. Anthony Mackie" Todrick Episode: "You Unfollowed Me" 2017 Comrade Detective Iosif Baciu Voice, 6 episodes 2018 Drop the Mic Himself Episode: "Seth Rogen vs. Joseph Gordon-Levitt / Terry Crews vs. Luis Fonsi" The Comedy Central Roast Himself / Host Episode: "Bruce Willis" 2019 Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration Television special 2021 Mr. Corman Josh Corman 10 episodes, also director, writer, and executive producer Star Wars: Visions Jay Voice, episode: "Tatooine Rhapsody" Released: September 11, 2012 Label: HitRecord Format: iTunes

Singles

"Here Comes Your Man" 2009"Bad Romance"2010"La Valse à mille temps""(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman""Lithium"2011"Alcohol""You Can't Hurry Love""Who's Lovin' You""Midnight Radio""C.R.E.A.M.""I Don't Want to Live on the Moon""Don't Look Back in Anger""Sick Again""Nothing Big (Spaceship Remix)""Words We're Waiting""Why Am I So Dizzy?" 2012

Awards and nominations