Interview: Joseph Gordon-Levitt - The man who fell to earth

CHILD acting stars often face uncertain futures. For some, the pressures of fame and celebrity lead to burn out and substance abuse. Others simply fade away, discarded by an industry that no longer knows what to do with them after they have outgrown the kinds of roles that made them famous.

And then there are success stories such as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who broke through playing an alien masquerading as a boy on the hit sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun.

Instead of disappearing into obscurity, Gordon-Levitt, 28, has emerged as a daring and chameleon-like actor capable of playing anything from a sexually abused rent boy to a war-fried Iraq veteran. In his latest film, quirky romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer, he plays a heartbroken greetings card writer trying to figure out what went wrong between him and the woman (Zooey Deschanel) he thought was "the one".

(500) Days of Summer was not the first romantic comedy the actor had been offered, he says – but it was the first that wasn't "awful". "There's a formula that conventional wisdom says makes money," he explains, "But when all you're doing is following a formula that you think is going to make money, it tends to make for pretty crap movies."

(500) Days of Summer, on the other hand, does not entirely play by the rules. We know the relationship is doomed from the get-go, while the characters, suggests Gordon-Levitt, "feel like people, not like Barbie dolls". In a very modern way, Tom and Summer blur the line between the genders, making their roles less clearly defined. "In my parents' generation of love stories," says Gordon-Levitt, "the man had to be the man. The woman had to be the woman. Neither Tom nor Summer fits into those boxes well, and I'm proud of that."

Gordon-Levitt was raised by politically progressive parents (his mother, Jane Gordon, ran for Congress in California in the 1970s for the Peace and Freedom Party), so it's not hard to imagine that their values might have informed the way that their son approaches his work. "I was certainly taught that as diverse as humanity is, everyone's a person and everyone deserves to be respected as a person," he says . "And that is, certainly, how I approach a character. Because if you don't love and respect your character, you're going to end up making something thin."

Another major influence has been the period during which he quit acting to attend Columbia University in New York, which he says changed his attitude to his chosen profession. "When I was younger, the only reason I did it was because I liked it. It was pretty much selfish. There's still that selfishness, but there's something else as well. When I was a kid I really just cared about myself and the people close to me, and I didn't really have much respect or sympathy for the world at large. But I grew to care about the world around me in a way that I never had before, and I agreed to connect to the human race."

He was at university on 9/11, and doing French studies at a moment when France was so vilified that French fries became freedom fries. "It was interesting," he sighs. He is proud that, with Barack Obama in power, he can now come to Europe and "not have to feel embarrassed".

"Obama's the president and that's fantastic," he says. "But it would be ridiculous to think all of a sudden the country is a brand new place." On the other hand, he believes that in a small way, (500) Days of Summer is evidence of the shift that's taken place in the United States. "I don't think people would have been so hungry for the kind of sincerity it has to offer five years ago," he says. "Then, American culture was much more about excess and I think we've gotten a little sick of that. We've come to realise, 'Wow, we're almost in a Great Depression now because of that'. I think our culture is looking for something a little more sincere, a little more humble, and I think that (500) Days of Summer reflects that."

At the other end of the spectrum, he can currently be seen in the sfx-driven GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, a film he says he did because he got to wear a "crazy mask" and elaborate make-up, and alter his voice. He is now working on Christopher Nolan's top secret sci-fi epic, Inception. These could not be more different to the indie-inflected films that have filled his CV since his return to acting. They do not, however, signal a change of direction, he insists.

"What I like is acting," he says. "So to me it's not about whether the movie is big or small. It's about is there an interesting creative challenge here."

&149 (500) Days of Summer is in cinemas from today; see more of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's own work at his website, www.HitRecord.org