Weekend Open Thread: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Shows the World His Video of, His Uh….r

… of his assholes.  Plural.  (I just didn’t want to put that in the story title.)  And I don’t mean a body part.  And these assholes are people — paparazzi, in fact.  After an ambush, he turned the tables on them and took what turned out to be a pretty fascinating video entitled “Pictures of Assholes.”  Hat tip to AmericaBlog for the story:

I first encountered Gordon-Levitt on Roseanne when he began to appear as George, the friend of D.J. Conner, Roseanne’s son played by Michael Fishman (who attended the OC High School for the Arts in Los Alamitos. Fishman, god love him, had won the role at age 6 with no acting experience — and that lack of experience showed. One can hardly blame him for it; he’s not the one who cast himself.)

Michael Fishman (DJ) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (George) defining child acting on *Roseanne*.

Gordon-Levitt played the role as if he had no idea what a stage direction even was; I developed an instant  and lasting prejudice against him as completely talentness, enough so to make Fishman look like Daniel Day-Lewis by comparison, and — hey, wait a minute!  It wasn’t until years later, and watching many wonderful Gordon-Levitt performances, that I realized that he was probably actually a gifted young actor who had been instructed to act like he couldn’t act a lick, specifically to make Fishman look good.  (And it worked.  By the way, Fishman has re-entered the industry, partly in production, and has reported taken lots of acting classes.  I’d enjoy seeing him act as an adult, though probably praying silently that he’d acquit himself well.)

Roseanne now seems to be a somewhat forgotten show, but it was notable among other things for being a warm petri dish in which some of the best young actors of the past couple of decades were cultivated.  That includes Roseanne’s “daughter” Darlene (Sara Gilbert), her boyfriend and eventual husband David (Johnny Galecki), Roseanne’s older “daughter” Becky (Sarah Chalke — though originally and eventually Lecy Goranson — too hard to explain), and — in an older cohort and early on in the show, George Clooney.  (Yeah, before ER.)  Honestly, given that California was a safe Obama state, if I weren’t a Democratic party official I would have wanted to case a vote for Roseanne Barr in this past Presidential election — she was the Peace and Freedom candidate — not so much as a protest (although I do like her policies) so much as to say thanks for being a good benefactor to a fantastic group of actors.  (I didn’t, though — because … Tom Arnold.)

Gordon-Levitt has become an articulate and wonderful actor, the kind that makes you feel good to be a human being (which he was not in his first big starring role in Third Rock from the Sun.)  He also starred in one of the best fight scenes of all time in Inception.  It’s fun to see his video making the rounds this week.  And if Michael Fishman wants to write a response to the critique of his young acting skills — or if Gordon-Levitt does — OJB will happily provide space to them.

This is your Weekend Open Thread.  Talk about whatever you’d like within the bounds of honor and decency.