Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Dimitri: Let’s talk about Beverly Hills Cop, my favorite movie from childhood.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I remember it from childhood as well. I think it’s one of the first films I watched like, wow, this is crazy.

Dimitri: Can you tell us about working with Eddie Murphy?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I remember when I was a kid, my big brother was a big Eddie Murphy fan. He’s six and a half years older than me. So, when you’re a kid, if you have an older brother like that, he takes on a certain coolness. Because of that Eddie was sort of a symbol to me of my big brother and the cool things that he liked. We would watch him on Saturday Night Live. We watched his stand-ups and his movies, one of those being Beverly Hills Cop. That one is obviously one of his most iconic movies and the memory of listening to the theme song for the first time is one that stands out.

Dimitri: Oh, yeah. It’s one of the classics, that’s for sure.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Yeah, that was one of the very first things I ever learned to play on piano.

Dimitri: Oh? Thats amazing!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Because it had this cool factor. So I learned how to play it on the piano at my parents’ house when I was… I don’t even know how old. Little. There was this special thing, the fondness in my heart for Beverly Hills Cop, and so when this opportunity came along to be in the new Beverly Hills Cop, I was very excited about it. I jumped at the chance.

Dimitri: So tell us about your character. So you’re the new partner of Axel Foley?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Yes.

Dimitri: Are you a partner in LA or is your character from Detroit too? It’s actually exactly 40 years since the original Beverly Hills Cop released.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Like you said, Eddie is Axel, the Detroit cop in Beverly Hills, and it’s that fish-out-of-water story. Yes, my character is from Beverly Hills, from Los Angeles, and you’re right, I think the original movie came out in 1984.

Dimitri: Then the second film came out in 1987, and the third in 1994.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Exactly! I wanted this character to be somebody who could really contend with Axel. Axel is such a formidable character. He fools everybody. He makes them believe what he wants them to believe. He plays on their ignorance, their biases, or their insecurities. And this is what we love about Axel; he’s able to kind of be this master manipulator. I thought it would be fun for him to have a partner who his tricks don’t work on, that Axel can’t manipulate. He tries a couple of times, but my character sort of sees through him. So, at first, there’s great tension between these characters but eventually it grows into a real friendship and partnership.

Dimitri: In the trailer that we’ve seen, you come across as playing on the cool side of Eddie Murphy because he’s aloof, you have that kind of a chill, trying to bring you down-to-earth type of a character. I can’t wait to see the film.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt:  It’s something that Eddie was always talking about. He wanted to make sure that the movie stayed down to earth, that even though it’s really funny and even though it’s larger than life that you still feel a humanity in it. I think that’s a strength of all of Eddie’s movies, that as funny as he is, he always still has a real heart to him, even when he’s doing like big, crazy characters with tons of prosthetic make-up. Part of what’s so funny about those characters is they seem real. You’re like, “I know that person. I know people are like that.”  That’s a real talent of his. So, with Beverly Hills Cop, Eddie was often focused on not just landing the laughs; he was often really focused on making sure that it still felt real.

Dimitri: I had the pleasure of meeting Eddie at the Critics’ Choice Awards. My Swiss watch brand, Francois Borgel 1887 Geneve was one of the main sponsors of the Critics’ Choice when they honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. Jerry Bruckheimer is back on as a producer. He only did the first two, then he skipped the third one and now he’s back again. When I saw his name on the credits, well, that’s a good sign.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt:  It’s not a coincidence that Jerry Bruckheimer has been so successful for so long. He knows what he’s doing.  He and Eddie have a really, really great relationship and a sense of trust with each other. That’s lovely to see.

Dimitri: Can you tell us about working with a new director, Mark Malloy. He’s from Australia. How was it working with him?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Oh, he was a blast. He’s just having a great time. And, you know, such a hard-working guy. It was great working with Mark.

Dimitri: When it comes to the actual franchise, do you think they stay true to the first three? Do you think we’re going to see a lot of the same feel-good atmosphere in the film? Is it still a buddy cop comedy film or a big action film with tons of car chases?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: The first two have a lot of that. There are tons of car chases. Now, 40 years later we’re able to make them bigger. It’s a bigger, grander version, but I think it is very faithful to the originals. It feels just like watching part one or part two, but it’s of course new and there’s a whole new storyline that revolves around Axel’s daughter. Taylour Paige is wonderful as his daughter. There are other new characters too, including me as his new partner and Kevin Bacon who plays a great villain. I think the film very much captured the essence of what Beverly Hills Cop is, but it is presented in a new way and for a new audience. So, if you’re a fan of the old movies (and I really, really think as a fan myself and as someone to whom these movies are dear) I definitely think you will feel what you hope to feel from watching a new Beverly Hills Cop movie. I also think if you’ve never seen the Beverly Hills Cop movies, you’ll just love this because it’s a really fun movie to watch regardless.

Dimitri: I’m glad that Netflix picked up this project. Do you feel that there is more freedom- especially since you are an accomplished actor, producer, and director- with the platforms these days? Do you have more freedom to create stories than like 20 years ago where you had to purely rely on the box office?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Yeah, I do think that the new technology does allow for a wider variety of things to get out there because in the past, you had to only play to a mainstream audience because there was a narrower channel of distribution. In the old days there were only three channels on television. That was it. So you had to fit into one of those three channels. Now there are infinite channels on television. There’s no difference between television and the internet. So, it’s just infinite variety. Now you can reach groups of people, some that are even pretty large, that like stuff that is different from what the mainstream likes. We could also get into some of the pitfalls of the way that the new technology puts us into silos and echo chambers and creates, I think, a lot of problems. There’s ups and downs to the new technology. Beverly Hills Cop, though, is something that is no coincidence that was popular 40 years ago. It’ll be popular today. I don’t think that technology is going to make a big difference.

Dimitri: You worked with some great directors who are complete purists when it comes to films and theatrical releases like Christopher Nolan. Inception, it’s one of my favorite films that you did. Christopher Nolan. I mean, he is just next level.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I have gotten to work with him and yeah, you’re right, he makes things for the theatrical experience. He cares about the theatrical experience.

Dimitri: It’s completely the opposite spectrum when it comes to releases for Nolan’s films, if you miss it in a theater, you have to wait for half a year for DVD release.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Yeah. I understand that. I do, because it is different no matter what. You know, it’s funny, people talk about, “oh well, the screens have got to get bigger, the sound systems whatever…” but I don’t think it’s about the audio/visual equipment. That’s not the advantage of a cinema. The advantage of a cinema is that you’re in a room full of other people, and you’re all focusing on the same thing together and there’s something magical that happens when you’re in a group of other people. That doesn’t happen when you’re alone. Even if you’re alone at home and you’re a lucky person who gets to have a huge screen and sound system in your house it’s a very different feeling than when you’re with other people. With other people next to you, focusing on the same thing, it helps you focus on that thing. Focus is the thing that we are all too short on now because we all have so many options for so many things that are constantly trying to steal our focus. We have the most powerful companies ever, in the history of the world, that are all focused on building mechanisms and systems to steal as much of our attention as they can.

Dimitri: Absolutely.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: These companies are more powerful than oil companies, more powerful than military companies, more powerful than financial companies. These companies all about maximizing our attention are the most powerful and successful ever in the history of the world. Their whole goal is, how can we take a little more of your time? How can we get you to pay attention to our product and our ads more?

Dimitri: And use your content as well. This is what makes me crazy about those tech companies, they produce nothing. You know, in reality, they just give a platform and no content. I completely understand, sometimes I wish there was no social media, so you don’t have to deal with that stuff regularly.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: This is a completely different subject I’m passionate about. We should be able to have social media. We should be able to connect without having these companies attacking us and using predatory, addictive tactics to steal as much of our attention as they can. Social media doesn’t have to be that way if there were proper laws that regulated it. There’s more regulation in Europe than there is in the States so far, but it’s something that we, the whole world, have to go much, much further on. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, it’s worth looking at what they do in Taiwan. The Minister of Digital Affairs, Audrey Tang, I think is a genius and one of the great, great thinkers of our time. She’s accomplished some incredible things. If you look at digital culture in Taiwan there’s so much better, healthier, and more productive ways for their society than what we have in the United States and Europe.

Dimitri: That’s interesting. I never looked into Taiwan, so I’ll have a look.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Check her out. You can find and listen to a podcast with Audrey Tang.

Dimitri: I will check it out. You know what? When you mentioned the movie experiences, I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino’s film. I was at the Bruin Theater in Westwood, CA, and when they showed inside the Bruin Theater in 1969 in the film, the whole theater just went crazy. It was one of the coolest experiences. What do you do to relax, what do you do to chill?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Well, I’m a dad. So actually, that’s my biggest job, but I don’t think of it exactly as a job. Although it is kind of a job. A job I love is being a dad and that’s where I spend as much time as I can, with my three kids!