Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the Collaborative Spirit of hitRECord TV

I just want to fly and shine. And then you go to look back and you're like, it wasn't recording. You gotta struggle to survive. You gotta kill your enemy and eat him. Are we recording? The the red light on. You can tell 'cause the red light. You see you have the host voice down from the beginning like you're hosting the show and you have a host voice. I'm a little nervous you being here. Yeah. I'll tell you why we always ask are we recording?

Yeah, why is that?

Well because it's happened enough times that it's something my brother and I started saying to each other uh because I'm sure it's happened to you too. Like you something cool is happening and you go to record it and you do it and then you go to look back and you're like It wasn't recording. I love that you said because I watched a lot of your interviews and you always say I'm really glad that you didn't like pull back for your for your solo interview. That's awesome. But yes, I've done that and isn't it always shoot it wasn't recording. Isn't it always when you're the most brilliant, it wasn't recording.

Yeah. Well, exactly. So that's why like we kind of have this this tradition that before we start anything, we say are we recording? Yeah. And it's sort of that was at the very beginning before Hitrecord was even a website when it was just like a little game that my brother and I would play. Now it's a TV show.

And now you have over 300,000 collaborators. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that you guys say it's not a competition, it's a collaboration. Because that really never happens in life anymore. Everything's a competition.

It's the only safe place in the world. It's a jungle out there. You gotta struggle to survive. You gotta kill your enemy and eat him. That's the American way. That's the everyone way. That's the that's the Planet Earth way. But but wouldn't it be nice if we could uh rather than killing each other and and eating it we we could work together and make things together. Everything you're going to see on this show is made by an online community. Hundreds of thousands of artists. What do you really want to do?

This show is like a new take on TV. How do you think it's like a fresh take on anything that's been done before on television?

No one's no one's made TV this way before. I know that. I feel like so much of what goes on on the internet is very much like, "Look at me. Look at me. Look at me." And that's fine. I think you're talking about I've never self- But the idea on Hitrecord is let's what can we what can we do together rather than just like going out and being like everyone look at my page. Everyone look at my song and be like, oh, you wrote some lyrics maybe I'll turn that into a melody and like oh, you guys got to uh, you know, you did a cool illustration I can turn that into an animation you know and it's it's that sort of process that makes our show.

So people out there, you can contribute if you are not one of the 300,000 people just send your material on over. I want to see if we can somehow contribute in this interview. Okay. I want to see if something will just you know happen. I'll contribute a shoe. I'll do whatever. I mean.

Sure. Yeah. A lot of I mean a lot of the great contributions happen with just people taking out their phone or talking into their webcam or whatever there's a whole bunch of little little clips of just people sharing their thoughts. Those become a springboard. Where someone will say like there was there was a conversation where uh there was people talking on the site about their favorite candy. Cuz someone lived in the UK and someone lived in the US and they have different candy, you know. And so he was describing.

Someone from Canada and we have totally different Canadian candy that's that's way better. And uh and it says sorry when you bite it.

And uh but he was just describing uh strawberry bootlaces. And no one you know in the US the person from the US didn't know what that was. And so he just started writing down. And and then it ended up being this like kind of great funny piece of writing. And then, you know, there was voiceover recorded over it. And then someone took the voiceover and played piano along with that and then I acted out the story and then people put animations behind my acting. And that's how we kind of build things and and that's uh that's what ends up on our show.

Now, how much fun was it playing doing a superhero spoof with Anne Hathaway? That one's super fun.

I think both Annie and I got a lot of catharsis.

Oh, you just call her Annie? Anne. Miss Hathaway. You're tighter with her than we are. Sure, she wouldn't mind if you called her Annie. Uh but yeah to to just to spoof the superheroes. I I play Brock Blaster and she plays Vivica Virus. We had a lot of fun. And there's a spider whatever it is with 100,000 arms.

Right. Well, the yeah, the the point of that short film is is it's actually about the sidekicks. Because the theme of the episode is the number two. Yeah. So everything having to do with the episode is is the number two. There's like people talking about being the second child, uh there's a song about sort of couplehood and uh and then and then there's this comedy short film about being the sidekick to a superhero. And so Annie and I play these kind of obnoxious self-important superheroes.

Because you do have an episode about the number two. Yeah. Or things that so um two people you still want to have on the show. Dream people. Oh. Because you had Joss Whedon but that was a pretty cool cameo. That was a very cool cameo.

Yeah. Uh uh people that I would like to have on the show. Hmm. I don't know. Uh David Bowie and and.

Oh nice. That's a good one. Spike Jonze. How about that? Oh good. Those are good ones. I love David Bowie was so random. I was not expecting that. Um you have an episode about the dark. Yes. Keep this one clean but what's the best thing that's happened to you in the dark?

You don't want me to keep it clean?

Well, I don't honestly. That was reverse psychology. Uh what what did you say? The best thing that's happened to me in the dark? That you can share? 'Cause I had once like a great conversation with my best friend. Like we bonded and somehow in the dark and I think you talked about this on the show. You can reveal more things when it's dark. You don't look somebody in the eye.

That's interesting. Yeah. You know what that reminds me of that brings me back to um sleepovers.

Oh really? Really? Which you don't really do anymore. As a we should. We should. As adults, you know. I want a sleepover. Young Hollywood. So you want to sleepover? Young you want to sleepover? Because I would give you come over or sleepover. Whoa.

Well because that was the difference if you're just gonna come over after school. Sleepover. You know, then you play and then your mom comes picks you up and that's the end of it but if it's like the weekend it's not just like a come over play date. It's a sleepover. And you get chips.

But you're right it made me think of it because you'd have conversations after you've gone to bed. You're no longer looking at each other. It's dark. But like that's when you get into like the meat and potatoes. So, you know, what you think of, you know, which girl's at school and what not, you know. Who did you have a crush on when you were back in the day?

Oh, there were too many. You have a crush on a girl in every class. I mean, that's what keeps it interesting. That's what keeps you going to school. The truth comes out. No, that's actually that that's sort of the truth. I think I might have even said this on the show or we might have cut this part out. I forget but um but when I was when I was in high school, I was working on a TV show 3rd Rock From the Sun and uh and oftentimes when you're working on a show full-time like that, you don't go to normal school. You you you just do school at work and then during off-days,

Right. You do home school. Right.

So I wanted to just go to you know, school. I went to Van Nuys High a public school in the valley. And um

Hey, you're it's my neighborhood. Van Nuys? Yeah. 818. Oh, yeah. I found me in the 818.

But but the thing was my my actual reasoning when I was 14 years old was I knew that if I went to home school during my, you know, days off, I would never ever talk to any girls. Where would I ever meet a girl? And that sounded like hell. So I honestly ended up being such a good thing for me because lots of chicks. I I didn't get any chicks when I was in high school. No but but I did make some of my best friends in life that I'm still friends with.

Jane Kaczmarek, world famous star of stage and screen. Yeah, I must have dropped you harder than I thought. Anyway, let's get back to it. Get up. Get up, but I can't walk. Of course you can walk. We were just dancing. Dear God. A five six seven eight. Okay and then last but not least you do play a superhero in one of the episodes. I'm gonna ask the worst cliché Comicon question of all time.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Okay. That's never been asked before. Superpower what would it be? I like the idea of of empathy but like superhero empathy meaning that um, you know, because what empathy means is you can kind of understand what someone's feeling. But empathy where you could actually see through someone else's eyes and really feel what someone else is feeling like really feel. Um, I think that would make a cool superhero and I think it would be fascinating to be able to not just put yourself in someone else's shoes metaphorically. I'm like, oh, I wonder how they're feeling. Let me see if I can imagine it. But actually really feel it, you know, uh and hear what they're hearing and see what they're seeing. Um, I think that'd be a cool superpower.

In the year of the year of the selfie generation. I don't know if that's gonna happen. Thank you for coming in. I just want to fly and shine. And selfie all day. Selfie all day. Didn't contribute. I know I have to let you go but it was great to have you here. Thank you. Thank you.

Can I go out with jazz hands? Can somebody animate it? Somebody out there Yes. on Hitrecord wants to, you know, maybe animate this situation? Yeah. No. Animation's easy. It doesn't take any time at all. Yeah you can make me you can make me look like a superhero. Make me look like I'm flying.

I'm sure that will. Thanks for coming in. Thanks very much. Thanks for stopping by.