Joseph Gordon-Levitt Speaks Out On His Trump, Harris Video
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has spoken to Newsweek about the amusing debate recap video he performed for The New York Times after Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump went head to head on September 10.
The Hollywood star takes center stage in Amazon 's latest film Killer Heat, based on Jo Nesbø's short story The Jealousy Man—a contemporary mystery in classic noir style. Set against the sun-drenched backdrop of Crete, the film follows private investigator Nick Bali (Gordon-Levitt), an American expatriate drawn into a web of intrigue surrounding the suspicious death of young shipping magnate Leo Vardakis (Richard Madden).
The official police report claims Leo's death was accidental, but his sister-in-law (Shailene Woodley) remains unconvinced. As Nick delves deeper, he finds darkness at every turn: where the rich and powerful Vardakis family rules like gods, jealousies run deep, and anyone could be a suspect.
Throughout the film, there are references to Icarus, who died after flying too close to the sun with waxen wings. References to Greek mythology are used to critique the ruling classes of today, reflecting broader societal themes. Additionally, the theme of freedom in the film echoes the Democratic Party 's platform—Beyonce has given Harris the rights to use her song "Freedom" as part of her campaign—and reflects the current U.S. political landscape.
Gordon-Levitt is an actor known for his political involvement and in September, The New York Times enlisted the musical talents of the musical quartet the Gregory Brothers and the 10 Things I Hate About You actor to provide a recap of the debate—which involved lots of singing and social commentary.
"I'm good old friends with the Gregory brothers, the masterminds behind that video. We've done those debate videos—we did one in 2012, we did one in '20—I don't remember if we did one in 2016. We did one in 2020 and they're so brilliant," Gordon-Levitt told Newsweek.
"All of their videos are so brilliant and I was delighted that they asked me to do it. And by the way, that debate made it pretty easy to turn into a song because there's a lot of songifiable moments in that debate."
Gordon-Levitt is of course referring to Trump's false claim that Haitian migrants are stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
"I mean, as soon as you hear a presidential candidate saying 'They're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats," it's hard not to picture like, 'They're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats.' It just writes itself," Gordon-Levitt added.
He demonstrated his singing talent by performing an impromptu rendition of his debate recap by singing the end of his sentence, giving Newsweek a unique glimpse into his versatility.
Gordon-Levitt said he engages in politics "as much as I can" and encouraged people to go out and vote come the election in 2024.
"I'm very grateful to live in a country that's a democracy where we get to vote and pick our leaders and I would just encourage anybody out there—here in the U .S., we're having our elections and I would just encourage everybody to go out and actually vote," he said.
"Look, there's a lot of people in the world, billions of people who don't get to pick their leaders, who don't live in a democracy and ours is far from perfect. Our government is dysfunctional and messed up in so many ways and yet, if you compare it to what real dictatorship looks like, it's a privilege to get to participate and vote. And I'm grateful for that privilege and I look forward to voting come November."
During the conversation the actor also mentioned artificial intelligence. On September 18, he took to his Instagram account to ask Gavin Newsom , the governor of California, to sign SB1047, the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act.
"AI can be awesome, but it needs rules and regulations. Please sign SB1047," Gordon-Levitt captioned the video .
Gordon-Levitt told Newsweek that journalists and actors have "every right to be concerned" about what the advancement of AI will look like for their professions but he believes that AI will probably "go way beyond that."
"I think anybody that does work on a computer at all is likely going to have their job threatened by this technology," he said.
"And there are fair ways to go about it. We've talked to plenty of experts, technologists, entrepreneurs, politicians, lawyers who talk about, 'Hey, these models, they don't work unless they're fed with huge reams of data.' But who produced that data? Humans did. Now, the big tech companies that build these products, they don't want to pay attention to all the humans who produced the data they're using.
"They would rather say like, 'Oh no, we've just invented artificial intelligence. It's its own thing.' Because what they really ought to do is get consent from all those humans whose data is feeding into their models and they should probably even pay all those humans whose data is going into their models.
"Of course, their business wouldn't be as profitable that way. So these are questions that are going to impact journalists and actors maybe earlier, but doctors, accountants, lawyers, salespeople, advertising, logistics, whoever you want to really bring up anybody whose work is interacting with data and computers is gonna be dealing with these same issues."
The 500 Days of Summer actor emphasized that it's "really important" to stay ahead of big businesses, technologists, entrepreneurs, and others who are leveraging AI.
He added: "I know it's not like the most salacious, entertaining stuff to talk about. I know this interview just got dense and maybe not pretty, but if we want to not end up in a new feudal society where the tech overlords just have all the money and everyone else is just serfs we need to start talking about this stuff now."
