Just call him Mr. Sundance.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is attending his sixth Sundance Film Festival, this time as writer and star of his directorial debut and host of the festival’s closing awards ceremony.
The 31-year-old premiered “Don Jon’s Addiction” Friday at the independent-film showcase. He plays the title character, a man who prefers pornography to real sex, even though he brings home a different woman every weekend. Scarlett Johansson, Tony Danza and Julianne Moore also star.
“I wanted to tell a love story, and in my observations, what gets in the way of love often times is the way the people objectify each other,” Gordon-Levitt said in an interview Saturday. “The story centers on a relationship between a boy and a girl, and the boy watches too much pornography, and the girl watches too many romantic Hollywood movies, and they’re both sort of objectifying each other.”
He brought the film to Sundance because of its community of artists that love storytelling.
“It’s a community that reassures each other that there’s more to movies than glitz and glamor and box office,” he said. “And look, that stuff’s all fine. But stories predate Hollywood. Stories predate the English language, and the reason that I love working in movies is because I love stories … and I love being a part of this community here at Sundance that embraces that more than some of the other things that tend to take prominence in other parts of the movie industry.”
He said his film “would never get made within the studio system, but it’s a mainstream comedy.”
“It doesn’t follow the formula, but it’s going to get out there and be in front of mainstream audiences,” he said. “Sundance makes that possible for movies that don’t follow the same old formula to get out there and find audiences.”
Gordon-Levitt said he plans to spend the week seeing films before hosting the awards ceremony on Jan. 26.
Hwang Dong-hyuk On Season 2 of “Squid Game,” Wrapping Production on Season 3; What’s Next?
Viewers may gasp, cringe or cry out watching characters die on Netflix's "Squid Game," but those simulated deaths have a different effect on its creator, writer and director. Instead, Hwang Dong-hyuk feels happiness seeing them go.
The show has a huge cast and Hwang says it was "really difficult" to manage everyone on set.
As characters would die, Hwang recalls saying to the actors on their last day, "'Oh no! How sad! I won't see you tomorrow,' but I was always smiling inside."
"Squid Game" season two premieres Thursday. It once again stars Lee Jung-jae and centers around a secret competition in South Korea that targets people in debt and the winner gets a big cash prize. What they don't know is that losing the game is deadly.
Hwang originally conceived of the show 15 years ago as a two-hour film but it failed to gain traction with financiers or even interested actors. He put it aside and worked on other films instead. He then had the idea to make it a TV series instead and took the project to Netflix. There, it could reach a wide audience.
"I never in my wildest dream thought it was going to be this huge," said Hwang, who spoke about the show and what comes next. Answers have been edited for clarity and length.
Q: What have you learned from "Squid Game"?
HWANG: I learned that I shouldn't give up. If you love something and if you want to create something, it might not work now, but the time might come later. Or that idea could be the source of inspiration for something else.
Q: You've already finished filming season three of "Squid Game." Have you thought about what your next project will be?
HWANG: I'm afraid to talk... Read More