Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Making Mr. Corman and Casting Debra Winger

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s career has always involved work in both film and TV, but Mr. Corman represents his first major commitment to a show since 3rd Rock From the Sun. However, he’s also bringing an auteur sensibility to the new Apple TV series premiering today, as not just the star but the creator, co-writer, and director of eight of the 10 episodes. Mr. Corman features Gordon-Levitt as a teacher living in Los Angeles, struggling to cope with anxiety and other issues with the help of his roommate Victor (Arturo Castro) and mother Ruth (Debra Winger). It’s an intimate character study set in contemporary times — so contemporary, in fact, that Season 1 was rewritten to accommodate the pandemic, which shut down the original production and shifted the story to some degree... though, as Gordon-Levitt revealed during a one-on-one interview, not as much as you might have expected. In the transcript below and the video above, Gordon-Levitt explains how the pandemic altered the series, why i