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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Work Teen Love

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

Music You World

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Thankful Peace Mom

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Music Movies Would

If you're going to put yourself above everybody else, you might end up alone.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Alone Yourself Yours

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Wing Win Which

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Health Age World

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Work Time Good

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.'

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Good Zero Wit

One thing that stays pretty consistent for all my jobs is, I listen to a lot of music while I'm working.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Work Music Working

Press is basically a created story. It's all just stories.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Us Tory Ted

Comedy takes a very specific technique, specific skills.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Very Technique Tech

The career stuff is for business people.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Car Business Us

I was a sort of serious little dude - snobby.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Us T Sort

There's something really appealing about the simplicity of black-and-white images.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Age White Thing

When I was 20, I went to Paris and tried to meet French women. It didn't work.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Work Women Men

It's a pretty intuitive process, picking the projects that I want to get involved with.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Wit Want T

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Alone You UN

I never intended to only do dark, serious things.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Us Things Thing

The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Art You Tis

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Men Art Us

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

As soon as you are trying to be funny or dramatic, that's when things start feeling fake and boring.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I think the dual existence thing is a regular pastime for all human beings, and for that matter anything in this universe.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I hate cars.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Most scripts are bad. I read a lot of them.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I was such a big Dustin Hoffman fan when I was young.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Hollywood has the idea that movies have to be dumb. But especially movies for or about teenagers have to be really dumb!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I was just watching baby videos of me and I was obviously an exhibitionist.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Actors didn't use to be celebrities. A hundred years ago, they put the theaters next to the brothels.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The only thing I want to do is stuff with people who care about what they're doing.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

It's less about what you do and more about who you are doing it with.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I didn't really like doing commercials.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The media's about to become a lot more effective.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I like making little videos and little records. I've always loved video cameras and four-track cassette recorders, still cameras, anything.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I was studying for the SAT's and learning lines.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt