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Keep the content coming, Joseph Gordon-Levitt! We just recently got the tense hijacking thriller 7500 and Gordon-Levitt has The Trial of the Chicago 7 due out on Netflix on October 16, but right now the spotlight is on another Netflix release: Project Power. 

As Gordon-Levitt describes in this interview, he was looking to do something a bit more fun at the time, and Project Power certainly fits that descriptor. The story takes place in New Orleans where a new drug has flooded the streets, a pill that lets someone unlock a superpower for five minutes. Gordon-Levitt’s character, Frank, is a local cop who’s actually buying Power for himself from a local teenage dealer (Dominique Fishback), but only so that he can level the playing field while trying to apprehend criminals on the drug.

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Image via Netflix

Again, as Gordon-Levitt hoped, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the movie, especially when it comes to the highly appealing core concept and waiting to see what power will manifest next. But, my personal favorite part of the movie was the very human connection between Gordon-Levitt and Fishback, and it turns out, she’s his favorite part of Project Power as well:

“She’s my favorite part of this movie. Anybody out there who’s into movies and acting and who’s interested in an up and coming talent, you have to check out Project Power just to see Dominique Fishback.”

As Gordon-Levitt explained, he and Fishback were very enthusiastic about making the relationship between their characters something special. How’d they go about doing that?  Backstory and improv!

“From the first time we met, we were rehearsing and we decided to just do some improv about how these two met. Because they’re an unlikely pair. It’s a high school student and a detective, and we wanted to kind of go through and experience the backstory of, ‘Okay, how did these two meet? How did they become friends? How did they come to care about each other?’ And so we did it! We went through like, ‘Ok, the first time they met was like this and then they saw each other again and they ended up staying in touch and here’s why and here’s how that went.’ And after having gone through all of that, we had this history in place that we had experienced and I think you can feel that. Even in our first scene, the audience doesn’t knowing anything yet about their relationship, but we knew it and I think you can feel that when you’re watching.”

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Image via Netflix

If you’d like to hear more from Gordon-Levitt on what drew him to the project and what boring but practical superpower he’d most like to have, check out the full conversation at the top of this article! Project Power is now streaming on Netflix.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt:

  • Gordon-Levitt discusses what it was like working with Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman; why he wanted to jump into something fun.
  • Gordon-Levitt on his experience working with Fishback; figuring out the backstory for their characters.
  • Gordon-Levitt reveals the most boring but practical superpower he’d like to have.