Joseph Gordon-Levitt
OF ‘MR. CORMAN’ ON APPLE TV+
How did you like filming “Mr. Corman” in New Zealand after production in Los Angeles was shut down due to the pandemic?
It’s funny because I wrote the show about where I’m from, which is a relatively mundane place, the San Fernando Valley. It’s the suburbs of Los Angeles. But the truth is anyplace in the world has a unique flavor, and part of what I was really excited about doing was leaning into the unique flavor even of a mundane place like the suburbs where I grew up. And so we thought it would be pretty easy to capture that flavor because we were going to be shooting it there.
And then when we came here, we had to use all kinds of movie magic to capture the unique flavor of Van Nuys, California. But I think we’ve been successful. Even though a part of the show is shot in L.A. and part of it is shot in New Zealand, I think it still really feels like the place where I grew
up.
How has building a series from the ground up been for you?
I actually love the serial storytelling. I’ve haven’t been on a series like this since “Third Rock From the Sun,” which is a very different style of television. “Third Rock” was a classic sitcom in that we would basically put on a play and then they would have four cameras there. We would do it in front of an audience. They shot it in the classic sitcom style. You know, Jim Burrows, who directed
our pilot – you know, Jim Burrows directed “Cheers” and a million other classic TV shows like that.
And so “Third Rock” was a blast but “Mr. Corman” is much more like making movies than making that kind of TV. It’s just like it’s a movie that’s broken up into sort of 10 short films, and I love the
medium of short films. And I really love getting to dive that deeply into a character.