I had the chance to sit down with Joseph Gordon-Levitt today, for an interview about his new series, HITRECORD ON TV. I'll have plenty more with Gordon-Levitt discussing that series next week -- though you can more of what he had to say about the show today here -- but during our conversation, we also touched upon The Sandman and Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Joseph Gordon Levitt Talks HITRECORD ON TV

Gordon-Levitt is playing the role of Johnny in Robert Rodriguez's follow up to 2005's Sin City, alongside a large cast that includes Josh Brolin and Bruce Willis. As for The Sandman, it was recently revealed that Gordon-Levitt is producing a film adaptation of the acclaimed comic from Neil Gaiman, and could possibly also star in it and direct the film as well.

We spoke about the current status of Sandman, and what drew him to the project, and what he learned working on Sin City that helped influence HITRECORD.

IGN: What stage is The Sandman at?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Early days. Very, very early days.

IGN: We know you're producing, but there's various "You might star, you might direct"...

Gordon-Levitt: Lots of potential, but it's still very early.

IGN: Should we take you tweeting the hashtag "Prelude" in relation to Sandman to mean what we think it means, that you'll be adapting the “Preludes & Nocturnes” storyline that began the comic?

Gordon-Levitt: I honestly just wrote that as sort of a pun, because this tweet was a prelude to who knows what's to come. Obviously "Prelude" is the title of the first issue, but... Yeah, nothing is cemented yet. But there's so much potential in that material. It's exciting.

IGN: What is it about Sandman that sparked your interest?

Gordon-Levitt: Well, I love just the basic concept of it - just the concept of personifying Dream, along with all of his brothers and sisters, the seven Endless personifying Death, personifying Destruction and Delirium and Destiny and Desire and Despair. I mean, that's just a fascinating and, I think, a really cinematic concept. You look at the art of Sandman, and it just looks spectacular. I love big, spectacular movies, but oftentimes big, spectacular movies sort of get stuck in a rut. They go down certain paths that end in big explosions or whatever. Sandman has so much opportunity to do something that's on a grand, grand scale, but really unlike your average big, grand-scale, spectacular movie. I guess that's the tip of the iceberg.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in HITRECORD ON TV.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt in HITRECORD ON TV.

IGN: You mentioned to me earlier that you did that week of work on Sin City. What was that like? Rodriguez obviously works in such a quick, distinct style.

Gordon-Levitt: I loved working with Rodriguez, and actually doing that week on Sin City was really influential because a lot of the short films that we made with HITRECORD were made in a somewhat similar way to the way that Sin City is shot, completely on green screen. You've seen the first episode, so you've seen the one with Elle Fanning. That was shot very much like Sin City. We don't have a huge airplane hanger like he has. We have a corner of our office. [Laughs] We converted that into a green screen site. But you know, just having the actors performing entirely on green screen and then creating the world around them -- the difference being of course that Rodriguez has his team of Troublemakers, whereas we put the green screen footage up on our site and anyone is open to contribute their illustrations and animations to get behind it.

IGN: Your name is brought up with so many projects, and you’ve been rumored for a Marvel movie more than once. Having now done Sin City and Dark Knight Rises –- and developing Sandman -- do you feel like, "I've done enough comic book stuff," or if the right Marvel project happened, would you be open to it?

Gordon-Levitt: Yeah, I don't pay as much attention to the categories or genres of things. I pay attention to what the material is about. Does it resonate with me? Does it inspire me? Who are the collaborators? That kind of thing.