Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt is best known for his role as Tommy on 3rd Rock from the Sun and for movies like 500 Days of Summer, Inception, 50/50, The Dark Knight Rises, Looper, Lincoln, and Snowden. In this interview, we discuss Joseph’s work as a writer-director, for the film Don Jon and the new series Mr. Corman.

In the 2013 film that co-stars Scarlett Johansson, “A New Jersey guy dedicated to his family, friends, and church, develops unrealistic expectations from watching porn and works to find happiness and intimacy with his potential true love.”

In Mr. Corman, the story follows the life of a public school teacher in San Fernando Valley. In addition to creating the series for Apple, Joseph also stars as Josh Corman. Debra Winger plays his mother. Juno Temple plays his ex. Arturo Castro plays his roommate.

During this interview, Joseph talks about how underlying themes create characters, luck versus hard work, adapting stories to include real-world events, balancing a multitude of creative urges with Hit Record, and how to write dialogue actors want to read.

If it’s your first time listening, make sure to subscribe and visit my new website for information on the YouTube channel, the blog, this podcast, and my new book ‘Ink by the Barrel’ which takes advice from these 200+ interviews at the link below…

Follow us on Instagram: @creativeprinciples

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!