Joseph Gordon-Levitt to costar with Scarlett Johansson in his directorial debut

By Jean Bentley

February 8, 2012 4:14 PM ET

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt has lined up an impressive costar for his feature film directorial debut: Scarlett Johansson.

Gordon-Levitt tells Deadline that he'll direct and star in the untitled comedy, which he wrote himself. The actor will play a ladies' man who tries to become less of a "selfish dick," he says, and he'll act alongside Johansson and another female lead that's yet to be cast.

"I was a child actor for years and quit at 19, went to school a while, and a big part of why I came back was that I ultimately wanted to make movies," Gordon-Levitt says of his urge to direct. "I spent a year working with Chris Nolan, Rian Johnson, Steven Spielberg, and I did my best to pay attention. I've also been making short films for a long time now. I've directed a ton of them, and that is a huge part of why I feel comfortable and confident in this."

Gordon-Levitt runs the website hitRECord, a production company that encourages collaborative filmmaking and other creative endeavors. He's written scripts for a while now, and has spent three years on this one.

"This is the first time I finished a feature film I thought was good enough to make into a movie," he says. "I've written others, including one mammothy huge sprawling thing that encompasses my entire point of view of everything since I was 20 years old. [In this one,] I wrote myself a helluva role, one that people wouldn't necessarily [have] thought of me for."

Shooting begins April 16.

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