Joseph Gordon-Levitt Thinks Stripping For 'Don Jon' Would Have Been A Distraction

Joseph Gordon-Levitt won't be stipping down for nude scenes in his upcoming feature directorial debut Don Jon, in which he also stars.

As the title character in Don Jon, Gordon-Levitt, who also served as screenwriter, plays a man consumed by the unrealistic portrayals of love and sex he sees in porn. The film certainly does not shy away from sex. However, when asked in an interview why he decided to leave his body to the imagination, Gordon-Levitt revealed that sex in the film was not meant to be realistic, and that nudity “would just be distracting.”

“It’s really not the point of the movie. This is not a movie of brutal realism; it’s a comedy and it’s a story. It’s sort of a parable, so there would really be no reason to have any nudity. The only nudity that’s in the movie are these clips from real pornography videos,” the actor/director explained.

Gordon-Levitt expanded on the issue, saying that Don Jon isn’t about providing audiences with gritty, sexual images as much as it is about getting the audience to question the sexual images delivered to them through mainstream media.

“I don’t think it’s [the movie] all that sexually explicit; there are some very modified and stylized clips from pornography videos because that’s a central symbol in the movie, but there aren’t really any realistic sex scenes. It’s not a movie that’s about shocking you with anything graphic,” he said.

Gordon-Levitt, known for his roles in Inception, The Dark Knight Rises and (500) Days of Summer, may have said no to onscreen nudity for now, but he did strip for fans during his opening monologue when he hosted Saturday Night Live in Sept 2012.

Don Jon opens Sept 27 and also stars Scarlett Johanson, Julianne Moore and Tony Danza.

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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