How Jimmy Fallon Made Joseph Gordon-Levitt Cry After Becoming A Dad Himself

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Project Power
(Image credit: (Netflix))

Has anyone else been missing Joseph-Gordon Levitt lately? Before his eventful 2020 with his first starring roles in four years, Amazon’s 7500 and the new Netflix action offering Project Power, the actor has been pretty much out of the spotlight. It’s been for a really sweet reason though. The 39-year-old actor has been taking time off to raise his two sons with his wife, Tasha McCauley.

When stopping by for a virtual chat on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s eyes lit up at the mention of his young family. He gave a cute shoutout to fellow father Fallon, who recently appeared on Jurassic World star Bryce Dallas Howard’s Apple TV+ documentary called Dads. JGL recalled the moment he watched the late night host speaking about fatherhood with these words:

The question was: what is a dad? And you were like, and you were looking for the right word and you were like: a hero. I just about started crying. Thinking about that I’m someone’s dad now because I remember looking up to my dad that exact same way and just there’s not really a lot of other people you can just grab ‘em and [mimics hugs].

Now that’s adorable. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has two sons who are five and three years old, respectively, and Fallon has young daughters who are around five and six. JGL is still figuring out what it means to be a dad, and the Apple TV+ doc that Jimmy Fallon appeared in really got him in the feels. We don’t hear celebrity fathers gush about their roles as fathers, so the pair getting a little emotional together about their kids just makes us love them more. You can check out the full Jimmy Fallon interview below:

Alongside the dad talk, the 500 Days of Summer star also discussed his almost 20-year online collaborative creative platform called HitRecord that serves as a space for writers, designers, filmmakers and such to work together to make art. JGL’s latest movie is Project Power, also starring Jamie Foxx, Dominique Fishback and Rodrigo Santoro, and it's a unique take on the superhero genre. In a future New Orleans, there is a pill that allows its users to gain a mysterious power for five minutes.

The new Netflix film has been met with mixed-to-positive reviews by critics, debuting at 66% on Rotten Tomatoes today alongside its fresh release. CinemaBlend’s own Sean O’Connell gave the film three out of five stars in his review, calling it “cool premise,” but knocking it for having a “tremendous missed opportunity.”

Besides Project Power, you can check out Joseph Gordon-Levitt in his new airplane thriller flick 7500 on Amazon Prime, and look out for Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 with Eddie Redmayne, Yayha Abdul-Mateen II and Sasha Baron Cohen. It's expected to hit Netflix this October. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more movie news.

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.