Joseph Gordon-Levitt asks Malay-speaking followers to help him in latest project

US actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt had gone on Facebook to crowdsource for his latest project. The versatile actor who is known for his performance in Inception, 500 Days of Summer, Don Jon and Looper had requested for contributions in a Facebook post dated August 11. Gordon-Levitt asked for Malay-speaking followers to send recordings of themselves saying the word ‘poetry’ in the language.

The recordings are to be submitted on HitRecord which is a collaborative media platform founded and owned by the actor. The initiative for this project is part of an international project called Poetry Around The World where people around the world are invited to say the word ‘poetry’ in their native tongue. This is the project description:

“I wanted to start a project where we can collect poetry written in many different languages and see what larger projects they might spark. Maybe community members who are multi-lingual can eventually translate a few poems, and we can see how they evolve and change in the process.”

So far, 1265 recordings have been submitted to HitRecord, with languages such as Tagalog, Mandarin and Spanish. Numerous recordings of the word “puisi”, Malay for “poetry”, have been submitted as well. In another post, the actor invited Malaysians to collaborate with him for music for his new movie Project Power. Gordon-Levitt in the past has also crowdsourced for one-sentence story contributions too.

He shared a photo of a Singaporean woman dancing in the rain in his appeal on Facebook and the post went viral. The majority of the story contributions were written in a Singapore context as well.

Born as Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt on February 17, 1981, Gordon-Levitt is a US actor, filmmaker, singer and entrepreneur. He was a child actor in the films A River Runs Through It, Angels in the Outfield, Holy Matrimony and 10 Things I Hate About You, and as Tommy Solomon in the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun.

Gordon-Levitt took a break from acting to study at Columbia University. In 2004 he quit studying to go back to acting.

He has since starred in (500) Days of Summer, Inception, Hesher, 50/50, Premium Rush, Miracle at St. Anna, The Brothers Bloom, The Dark Knight Rises, Brick, Looper, The Lookout, Manic, Lincoln, Mysterious Skin, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

He portrayed Philippe Petit in the Robert Zemeckis-directed film The Walk (2015), and whistleblower Edward Snowden in the Oliver Stone film Snowden (2016). For his leading performances in (500) Days of Summer and 50/50, he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. /TISG