With the advent of streaming services, this generation of children has been introduced to a wide variety of new programming to grow up with, including Apple TV+'s endearing animated series Wolfboy and the Everything Factory. Created by Toff Mazery and Edward Jesse and developed by Michael Ryan, Mazery, and Jesse, the series focuses on the titular Wolfboy as he discovered a strange realm at the center of the earth where Sprytes are tasked with creating magical things like clouds, trees, dreams, hiccups, rabbits, and everything else. In this new world, Wolfboy learns that he can put his creative energy to good use now that he is free to let his wild imagination run free create and destruct. The central thesis of the series is to introduce its young audiences to the idea that oddballs and dreamers are agents of good. Which is a concept that makes sense when you consider that Wolfboy and the Everything Factory is executive produced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and his production company HitRecord.

In addition to executive producing the series, Gordon-Levitt also lends his voice to the impressive voice cast which also includes Kassian Akhtar as the titular Wolfboy, Archie Yates as Sprout, Lilly Williams as Xandra, Cristina Milizia as Floof, as well as Juno Temple, John Lithgow, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, David Krumholtz, and Flula Borg in supporting and recurring roles.

Ahead of the premiere of Season 2, Collider got to chat with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a 1-on-1 interview, where we discussed all things Wolfboy and the Everything Factory from how the series was developed by HitRecord's wirrow, why it is so important for children to have engaging and meaningful programs to watch, creating a good environment for the young cast, how working with Rian Johnson on Poker Face was like coming home, and what it was like to get the script for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley and working with Eddie Murphy.

COLLIDER: I just want to say I am a huge fan of HitRecord. I've been a user on the website since it launched.

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Really?

Yes! I even went to the live recording like a decade ago in Richmond.

GORDON-LEVITT: No way. Oh yeah, I remember the Richmond show. That was a good one.

Oh, yeah! It was. I really feel like Wolfboy and the Everything Factory is really everything creatively that HitRecord has represented over the years. I just want to say congratulations to you and the whole team for Season 2.

GORDON-LEVITT: Thank you. Thank you. You got to tell me your username on HitRecord. I'll check out some of your... Are you writing on there? What's your art?

I just browse! I really enjoy seeing what everybody does on there.

GORDON-LEVITT: Right on. Okay, well I'll check out your recommendations then.

I want to know what drew you to produce the series.

GORDON-LEVITT: It was Toff. It was Toff Mazery. If you're a HitRecorder, you might know him as wirrow, that's his name on HitRecord. He was just an artist that always stood out to me as somebody so skilled and so heartfelt and so creative. We just came to him and said, "You would be great at making a show. What would you do if you could do anything? What would you do?" And knowing not at all what he would say. He was like, "I'd like to do something that's sort of youth-oriented, but that grownups could like too. It's sort of magical. It's sort of maybe a bit of adventure time or [Hayao] Miyazaki and I have this idea."

It went from there, and we spent years sort of all refining it together, and Edward Jesse, who's also on HitRecord, he's edwardtheninth, he came on as a co-creator, is a great storyteller. The two of them did a wonderful job. But ultimately it wasn't any of the specifics. It was just the people. Sometimes you just put your faith in a person and try to support them. I think it really paid off in this case.

Why do you think it's so important for kids today to have shows like Wolfboy, that they can get into and see all of these really important messages that are interwoven into the episodes?

GORDON-LEVITT: Yeah, thank you for saying that. That's always been one of my favorite parts of Toff's art as well, is he does that magic trick where he makes something that seems really... It can seem simple or just pretty or funny, but there's an underlying ethos or message or idea. As a father, I have children of my own, and a lot of the stuff that's made for kids to watch lacks that. It's a sort of hyperstimulation. Look, this is true about entertainment for adults as well, of course. But I feel like it particularly rubs me the wrong way when it's aimed at kids.

And so we wanted to do something that struck that balance, that was... I wouldn't say that this is educational, it's a work of entertainment, but I think there is a very genuine care put into what will kids take away from this? Even what are the kids going to take away from this consciously and even unconsciously? What are the values that are endorsed by this? And focusing on creativity, kindness, and friendship. Not just like boom, boom, boom, boom. Hey, we're going to keep your attention with lots of flashy things and high-energy moments, one after the next. But allowing, allowing moments to breathe, allowing attention spans to expand. These are all values that we were trying to instill in this show.

Are there any storylines in Season 2 that you are particularly proud of or really excited for people to get to experience when it launches?

GORDON-LEVITT: Yeah, so now you can watch Season 1 and Season 2. [I'm] really excited that we got to do a second season of this. So a lot of what Season 2 is about is going into a new realm that's different than what you're used to. Meeting people who are different than you might be used to. People who you've heard are other than us are the other side, the bad guys. Sort of finding out that, like, "Oh, huh!" Once you get to know a Disarray, they're in many ways very similar to us, and they're not bad guys. In fact, there is no creativity without destruction. I think it's a lot of the sort of fantasy genre, pits the good heroes against the evil villains. The evil villains are just that. It's not to say that there aren't evil villains in the world. I think there are power-hungry, autocratic, fascistic forces in the world.

So when you have a story like the Lord of the Rings or something, and you have a Sauron, who are like dictators, that's an important story to tell. This story is different than that. I love that. I think it's a real stroke of brilliance that Toff and Edward took the story in a different direction. You think Nyx is sort of the big baddy. You think she's going to be like Sauron or Voldemort, but she's not. The Disarrays are not just Orcs. It turns out they're really something different than that and kind of similar to Sprytes in a lot of ways with some important differences. So I think there's some really great lessons about having empathy for the other side, I guess you could say. Or not necessarily the other side, but people who are different from you.

This voice cast is so phenomenal. I was really impressed by Archie Yates. I mean, everything he does is just incredible. You are someone who has worked in this industry since you were a kid. Was there anything that you set out as EP to make sure that this was a really good environment for the young cast?

GORDON-LEVITT: I always just wanted to treat the young cast as actors as opposed to as children. I remember being that young and working and the people that I liked working with best, they never treated me like a child. They just treated me like a collaborator. That felt really good. That's where I felt I learned the most and I felt most empowered. That was, I think our aim with our young cast was not to say, "Okay, kids, your kids." But rather just, these are actors. It's like, I'm an actor and treat them as artists.

You voice act as well in this series. Was that something that you had always planned to do or something that kind of came about as the series progressed?

GORDON-LEVITT: It was a possibility that we talked about, but we didn't know exactly what we were going to do. At first, honestly, we didn't even know if we were going to have kids play the kids, because oftentimes on animated shows, you know, get adult voice actors to play the kids. There was a time where I thought that Toff should voice Wolfboy because the character is similar to him in so many ways. I love Toff's voice, and he's a great voice actor in his own right. It was Toff himself. It was like, I actually think that we should get age-appropriate actors to do this. He was just, I think so, so right. It was also him that suggested that I play Lux Craft, which was not what I was, not the role I was anticipating playing, but was so fun, such a fun surprise that I'm not usually the one that gets to play the rotund wizard with a violet beard down to his belly and getting to is a blast.

Now you're currently working with another director who I love, and I feel like this is a good question to ask because I think yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of Looper. What is it like getting to work with Rian Johnson again on Poker Face?

GORDON-LEVITT: Oh, it was the best. It's like family. Rian, as well as Ram, the producer, Steve, the DP, Dale, the camera operator. So, it's a family. I've done a bunch of stuff with all of those people. Jaren who was the second unit DP was the DP on Mr. Corman, Dale operated on Mr. Corman, et cetera, et cetera. A bunch of those same folks worked on Don Jon too. Of course all of Rian's movies, it's like going home, it just feels so fun. Yeah, so it was just a pleasure. It was like, you know, [you] have moments in your career where you're like, I have got to do this. Then you have moments in your career, [like] all right, this is the nectar at the heart of the tree and why I do all this for these experiences.

I have to ask my last question. Everybody at Collider wants to know, what was your reaction when you got the script for Beverly Hills Cop?

GORDON-LEVITT: The first thing I ever remember learning on piano was that theme song, Axel F, right? I remember my brother was a huge, I have an older brother, who loved Eddie Murphy, who loved Beverly Hills Cop, as well as Raw, Delirious, and his stuff on SNL. So it's an early childhood, one of those deep-seated affinities. So the opportunity to get to be in a movie of Beverly Hills Cop… we're shooting now, I get to hang out with Eddie Murphy and talk about movies and music and stand up, and I mean, he's such a sweetheart. It's such a treat. The whole thing is such a treat.

Wolfboy and the Everything Factory Season 2 is streaming now on Apple TV+.