A lot has been said about the long-awaited Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For, the long-awaited sequel to Robert Rodriguez's 2005 adaptation of Frank Miller’s hugely popular graphic novels.
A lot of new stars have joined the cast for the second outing to Basin City, including Josh Brolin and Eva Green, but most of the attention seems to have been lavished on one man: Joseph Gordon-Levitt. His performance as gambler Jonny has been lauded by several critics as a highlight. In fact he's described as one of the film's "greatest assets" by The Telegraph. Even though The Economist's writer didn't love the film, he said that "Joseph Gordon-Levitt is entertaining as the gambler looking for revenge." (I'm not really sure The Economist is the target audience, anyway...)
In an interview with Refinery29, the actor talked about landing the role and getting a chance to live out his childhood dream of appearing in an animated world. Asked about his reasons for wanting the part, he said: "Honestly, just getting to become a part of that world and play a Rodriguez bad ass. I grew up watching his movies and wanting to live his movies."
A die-hard fan of Sin City, he added: "I remember when the first one came out and leaving the movie theater thinking, 'I’ve never seen anything like this.' It’s somewhere in between a cartoon and a live action movie. It’s perfect." (Worth getting beaten up for, then – one of Johnny’s primary roles seems to be as a punch bag for the evil Senator Roark’s henchmen.)
"You get to become a cartoon in a way... I love that... The sky isn’t perfect. It’s actually just pure black, and the snow is pure white," he said about Frank Miller’s distinctive, ultra-real style. "Isn’t that kind of what we’re all looking for when we go to the movies? We want to escape the real world into something that’s larger than that – something that’s more beautiful and darker."
He also talked about what it was like to appear on screen with Christopher Lloyd (who, of course, played Doc Brown in Back to the Future. I grew up watching those films and JGL and I are about the same age so I can only imagine how awesome that felt).
"He’s sort of this junkie in dirty clothes," Joseph says of Lloyd's character, "but he’s got this almost poetic, sad, self-talking soliloquy going on as he’s setting my bones with popsicle sticks. I’m like, 'man, this is Doc Brown!' But, it’s really cool because he’s a really strong actor, and he can do a lot of different things. It was really entertaining when he applied the energy he brought to a character like Doc Brown to the dark flavor of Frank Miller’s world."
Check out Gordon-Levitt in action with the rest of the all-star cast in the trailer below and click here to book your tickets for Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For.