Hollywood star Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Saturday praised Christopher Nolan for his unique approach to big-budget films, stating that the Oscar-winning director treats his massive productions as artistic endeavors. Sharing his experience of collaborating with Nolan on the 2010 time-bending thriller “Inception” and “The Dark Knight Rises“, the third part of the Batman trilogy, Gordon-Levitt said that the director is “protective” of his actors during the production of his films.
“What is special about Christopher Nolan is that he does these massive-budget movies but he treats them like art forms, especially in how he works with actors,” said the actor, who is also known for performances in “500 Days of Summer”, “50/50”, “10 Things I Hate About You”, “Looper”, and “The Walk”.
“There are big differences between a small-budget film like ‘500 Days of Summer’ and a huge-budget film like ‘Inception’ or ‘The Dark Knight Rises’,” he added.
Gordon-Levitt was speaking at a session with actor Rajkummar Rao on the first day of the India Film Project (IFP) Season 14.
The Hollywood actor said directors can become absorbed in the technical aspects, such as special effects, set design, and overall production values, during the making of high-budget productions.
However, that is not the case with Nolan, who is celebrated for his diverse filmography, which includes commercially successful and critically acclaimed movies such as “Memento”, “The Prestige”, “Interstellar”, “Dunkirk”, and “Oppenheimer“.
“My experience with Chris is that he pays attention to that, but he makes a strong priority on actors… he is intense on making sure that actors have space to focus and be true to their characters and drama,” Gordon-Levitt said.
The 43-year-old actor recalled filming the gravity-defying sequence from “Inception”, in which he fought several armed men in a rotating hotel hallway.
The movie featured a star-studded cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, and Elliot Page.
“I can’t believe I get to do this. When I first read the script of ‘Inception’, that entire hallway scene only said, ‘They fight.’ I did not know it was coming. I was excited to be in a Christopher Nolan movie, and to work with Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard,” he said.
“Much later, after reading the script, I learned that I was going to have a big, intense fight sequence. I was like, the part that says, ‘They fight, great.’ So, all that was a surprise,” Gordon-Levitt added.
In his Hollywood career, the actor also ventured into direction with the 2013 movie “Don Jon”, in which he starred alongside Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore.
Gordon-Levitt, who grew up in Los Angeles, expressed his love for acting and the entire filmmaking process.
“There’s something magical about being in a place with the entire crew and cast members, with everyone focused on one thing. It’s a beautiful human experience to rely on fellow collaborators,” he said.
Gordon-Levitt also discussed the positive and negative impacts of social media on humanity and creativity.
“Everyone is a human being and can make beautiful art, and that’s wonderful, that’s the promise of the internet. It should open up those opportunities to anybody and everybody to tell their stories and bring them to the world,” he said.
However, he expressed concern about how social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok have turned their technology into a “business.”
“These platforms are governed by algorithms that are optimised to generate profit in specific ways. They have attention-maximising recommendation engines connected to advertising business models, inadvertently shining a light on darker, scarier parts of human nature.
“We’ve seen a rise in extremism, conspiracy, hatred, narcissism, and all these things. I don’t think anyone who works at YouTube or Facebook wants that, but when you let these algorithms govern what shows up in those recommendation feeds, and you have billions of users using it every day, what you get is this damaging side effect, and it’s getting worse,” he said.
As technology becomes increasingly powerful, Gordon-Levitt warned that these issues are likely to worsen and said the responsibility lies with the creators.
“We need to say, ‘You can’t use us this way.’ We need to figure out a way to unite and demand from technology platforms, saying, ‘Hey, if you want to use our creativity, these are the terms.’
“We need transparency regarding how your algorithms work, who owns what data, and how it is being monetised. We should be the ones who own our creativity; your software is useless without us,” Gordon-Levitt said.