Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Biography

Introduction:

Gordon-Levitt, the younger of two sons, was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in the Sherman Oaks and Van Nuys neighborhoods. He is Jewish. His father, Dennis Levitt, was once the news director for the Pacifica Radio station, KPFK-FM.His mother, Jane Gordon (daughter of director Michael Gordon), ran for the United States Congress in California during the 1970s for the Peace and Freedom Party and met Dennis Levitt while she was working as the program guide editor for KPFK-FM. Gordon-Levitt has an older brother, Daniel (born 1974).

Gordon-Levitt joined a musical theater group at the age of four, and played the scarecrow in a production of The Wizard of Oz. He was subsequently approached by an agent and began appearing on television and in commercials for Sunny Jim peanut butter, Cocoa Puffs, Pop-Tarts, and Kinney Shoes.

Gordon-Levitt has said that he made a conscious decision to "be in good movies" after returning to acting. Since the early 2000s, he has appeared in what has been described by the Boston Herald as a series "of acclaimed and underseen indies" that "pegged him as a rising star on the indie film circuit". These include 2001's drama Manic, which was set in a mental institution, 2004's Mysterious Skin, in which he played a gay prostitute and child sexual abuse victim, and 2005's Brick, a modern-day film noir set at a high school (San Clemente High School), in which 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 Daily's review commenting that Gordon-Levitt played the character "beautifully", "true to film’s style", "unfeeling but not disenchanted" and "sexy in the most ambiguous way", and another review describing the performance as "astounding".

Hookups

• None that we know of. (Add his name to the chick he's hooked up with, and it will show up here).

Stuff He's Done

Projects:

Film, Television, Commercials