The spiral in a snail's shell is the same mathematically as the spiral in the Milky Way galaxy, and it's also the same mathematically as the spirals in our DNA. It's the same ratio that you'll find in very basic music that transcends cultures all over the world.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Every day I've got to be thankful that I am alive, and you never know - the cliche is, I guess, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow, so you'd better be at peace with whatever you got going at the moment.
The movies I watch and the music I listen to and the books I read - those are important to me. It's very important to me, and I don't know what I would do without those things.
If you're going to put yourself above everybody else, you might end up alone.
The Internet is allowing us to get back to what's really more natural, which is that storytelling is a shared thing. It's our natural way to be communal.
That is very different from how it used to be in the 20th century. Media was very one way. There's a small little industry. It broadcasted its message and everyone else in the world just had to listen. Now the internet is allowing what used to be a monologue to become a dialogue. I think that's healthy and actually restoring a more natural way.
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.
A lot of the motivation for doing the 'Make 'Em Laugh' on SNL was because I had just finished shooting 'Inception,' where there were zero-gravity scenes and I got into really good shape and was training and did all these stunts. Coming off of that, that instilled me with the confidence to do 'Make 'Em Laugh.'
One thing that stays pretty consistent for all my jobs is, I listen to a lot of music while I'm working.
Press is basically a created story. It's all just stories.
Comedy takes a very specific technique, specific skills.
The career stuff is for business people.
I was a sort of serious little dude - snobby.
There's something really appealing about the simplicity of black-and-white images.
When I was 20, I went to Paris and tried to meet French women. It didn't work.
It's a pretty intuitive process, picking the projects that I want to get involved with.
Making checklists of things you're looking for in a person is the numero uno thing you can do to guarantee you'll be alone forever.
I never intended to only do dark, serious things.
The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative.
Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy.
To me, a sex scene in a movie generally means a gratuitous scene that doesn't serve the story but gives a kind of excuse - we've got these two actors, we want to see them naked, so let's bring in the music and the soft light.
As soon as you are trying to be funny or dramatic, that's when things start feeling fake and boring.
I think the dual existence thing is a regular pastime for all human beings, and for that matter anything in this universe.
I hate cars.
Most scripts are bad. I read a lot of them.
I was such a big Dustin Hoffman fan when I was young.
Hollywood has the idea that movies have to be dumb. But especially movies for or about teenagers have to be really dumb!
I was just watching baby videos of me and I was obviously an exhibitionist.
When I was a teenager I loved acting, but I really just loved it for myself. I didn't like the fact that anyone else saw the work I was doing. When I moved to New York, I started to realize that I wanted people to see the stuff that I was doing, and I wanted it to mean something to them.
Ummm... well, the only thing I want to do is stuff with people who care about what they're doing, which sounds obvious, but it's really not.
Actors didn't use to be celebrities. A hundred years ago, they put the theaters next to the brothels.
The only thing I want to do is stuff with people who care about what they're doing.
While I'm not a celebrity, it's such a weird concept that society has cooked up for us. Astronauts and teachers are much more amazing than actors.
I didn't want to just work within Hollywood when I started a production company. I wanted to be able to collaborate with great artists from all over the world.
Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.
It's less about what you do and more about who you are doing it with.
I don't blame folks for not wanting to put me in their movies or whatever. I understand if their audiences had an association with me.
A lot of people, most people who are working, they do it for money. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. It so happens that I made a lot of money already, so I don't have to worry that much about it. I wouldn't fault anybody for doing it for the money, but it doesn't interest me right now.
Celebrity doesn't have anything to do with art or craft. It's about being rich and thinking that you're better than everybody else.
My dad never blew anything up, but he probably had friends who did. He and my mom have always preached that the pen is mightier than a Molotov cocktail.
I didn't really like doing commercials.
If the goal is to get the best artists, actors, and filmmakers in the world to create the best movies, Hollywood does a decent job. And I think no one would disagree with me that it also makes a ton of bad movies and employs a bunch of hacks.
To be honest, I sort of feel like 'movie actor' isn't of this time. I love it. But it's a 20th-century art form.
The media's about to become a lot more effective.
I think, honestly, that the word 'indie' is a false gimmick. 'Independent' used to mean a movie that was financed outside corporate Hollywood, but a lot of what gets called independent these days is totally produced within that system. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Quality isn't about where the money came from or which company gets to put their name on the thing. What matters is who made the movie and why they made it.
I like making little videos and little records. I've always loved video cameras and four-track cassette recorders, still cameras, anything.
When I was a teenager, if anyone recognized me for anything I did, it would ruin my day. I couldn't handle it. It was some sort of neurotic phobia. I guess I was paranoid that people would treat me differently, or in an unfair way, because of my job.
I was studying for the SAT's and learning lines.
When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature.
