JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT STUDIES BRAIN TRAUMA

Joseph Gordon- Levitt stars in The Look-Out as a promising hockey player with his whole life ahead of him when he sustains a severe brain injury in a car accident and must constantly fill the holes in his memory with note taking.

To prepare for the role Joe delved into the minds of the brain injured and met with several men who were facing similar challenges to his character.

“The guy I play Chris Pratt he has suffered the technical term, a traumatic brain injury. I did some reading about it but more helpful was meeting the guys that had been through it who were all different. You can’t put ‘em in a box and that was really enlightening because it’d be easy to label the character brain injured, disabled and kind of playing a stereotype but hanging out with guys who were individuals made me want to make a character who is an individual and a whole person and not just a category.”

Joe also read up on neurology and found inspiration for the character in a book written by a World War II veteran who came back with a brain injury and fought to regain his communication skills.

“He re-taught himself to read and write which was really difficult for him because his brain worked where he could only see one word at a time. And he titled his writings I’ll Fight On but he didn’t title it that until 20 years of writing. He first titled it as I forget what Life Sucks or something like that but he wouldn’t quit. To me that was one of the most admirable things about this character that even though his life got pretty hard he wouldn’t just sit there and complain. He wanted to keep trying to live a life.”

Joe deprived himself pretty much from a life in between takes to get deeper into his character’s alienated and lonely space isolating himself from friends and co-workers for a month, existing in his own private world. The Look-Out opens today in theaters.