JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT

The star of movies including Looper, The Dark Knight Rises and The Walk, plus TV’s Super Pumped, Mr. Corman and 3rd Rock From the Sun, is heard but not seen in the live-action remake of the timeless classic Pinocchio (Sept. 8 on Disney+). Gordon-Levitt, 41, voices Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio’s insect adviser, in the fanciful story of the puppet who yearns to become a real boy. Tom Hanks plays Geppetto, Pinocchio’s creator.

What is it about the Pinocchio story that still makes it relevant? I love the moral of the story, which is all about telling the truth. The image of your nose getting long when you lie is one of the most transcendent images in popular culture, and telling the truth versus lying is perhaps more important now than ever before in history.

What was your take on your character, Jiminy Cricket? Director Robert Zemeckis came up with a quintessential kernel of plain-worded wisdom. He said, “If you were telling the story to your kids and doing the voices, how would you do it?” So I sound like a dad who’s a fan of the old Jiminy Cricket, telling the story to his kids and doing the voices like a goofy dad does.

What intrigued you about Uber founder Travis Kalanick in Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber? Oftentimes, the most inspiring roles to play are complicated characters; they’re not simple heroes or villains. They’re both. And Travis is a great example of a very complicated character.

People still watch 3rd Rock From the Sun. What keeps it from aging? Even though the camera work is the classic four-camera filmed before a live audience and doesn’t have any of the snazzy filmmaking that a lot of shows nowadays do, it has great writing and the energetic performance of John Lithgow. Audiences love watching such an incredible performer as him.