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Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (born February 17, 1981) is an American actor. He began his career as a child actor, and since graduating to adult roles in 2001 has strongly concentrated on independent films.

Biography

Personal life

Gordon-Levitt was born in Los Angeles, California to Dennis Levitt and Jane Gordon; he is of Jewish heritage. For two years, he attended Columbia University, later dropping out to concentrate on acting.

Career

Gordon-Levitt began his acting career at the age of six, appearing in several late 1980s made-for-television films and two episodes of the series Family Ties. After having a lead role on a prime time soap opera, the short-lived 1991 remake of Dark Shadows, he made his feature-film debut with a background role in 1992's Beethoven and later that same year he played a young version of Craig Sheffer's character in A River Runs Through It. In 1994, he played a Hutterite boy in the comedy, Holy Matrimony, and appeared in the lead role of the successful Disney film, Angels in the Outfield. In 1996, he began playing Tommy Solomon on the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, a role for which he may still be best known. During the late 1990s, he also appeared in several films, including The Juror (1996), as Demi Moore's character's son, the horror film Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, as a pre-credit victim, and the Shakespeare-based teen comedy 10 Things I Hate about You, in which he played a leading role.

After 3rd Rock from the Sun ended its run in 2001, Gordon-Levitt appeared in what has been described by critics as a series "of acclaimed and underseen indies", including 2001's drama Manic, which was set in a mental institution, 2005's Mysterious Skin, in which he played a gay street hustler, and 2005's Brick, a modern-day film noir set at a high school (San Clemente High School), in which he plays the lead role of Brendan Frye, a teen who becomes involved in an underground drug ring while investigating a murder. Brick received generally positive reviews, with one critic commenting that Gordon-Levitt plays the character "beautifully", "true to film’s style", "unfeeling but not disenchanted" and "sexy in the most ambiguous way", and another describing the performance as "astounding". He has also done the voice of the main character Jim Hawkins in the Disney animated feature, Treasure Planet. He was also a Guest Star early on in Season 1 of That 70's Show, in the episode "Eric's Buddy," playing a homosexual school mate of Eric's, who end up becoming lab partners before Eric knows the secret his friend 'Buddy' is hiding.

Gordon-Levitt's upcoming roles include Killshot, playing an assassin opposite Diane Lane and Mickey Rourke, The Lookout, playing a mentally handicapped janitor involved in a bank heist, and Shadowboxer.

Selected filmography

References

Footnotes

Web sites

• Hitrecord.org Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Official Website
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt at TV.com
• josephgordon-levitt.net Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan site

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