Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Xmas movie has heart

Joseph Gordon-Levitt insists his new movie isn't simply about three guys going out for kicks.

The 34-year-old stars alongside Seth Rogen and Anthony Mackie in The Night Before, which follows three childhood pals during an annual reunion on Christmas Eve.

It may sound like a simple storyline, but Joseph is adamant there is more to it than meets the eye.

"I like the root of it though because it’s not just three guys going out simply for kicks. There’s a cool origin story to their tradition of going out every Christmas Eve," he explained to Collider. "My character, Ethan, sort of has a family tragedy where he loses both of his parents near Christmas ten years prior and so he’s alone on Christmas and his two best friends come and kind of say, ‘Hey, let’s hang out. We don’t want you to be alone on Christmas,’ and that inadvertently begins a yearly tradition of a big night out on Christmas and now it’s ten years later and they’ve been doing this every year."

Seth added that there's real emotion throughout, with director and co-writer Jonathan Levine injecting elements from former festive movies into his project. There's still plenty of fun to be had though, as Seth reasons they can get away with a lot of ridiculous stuff due to the moving undertones.

The characters have contrasting personalities, with Anthony explaining what fans can expect from his alter ego Chris.

"I’m more of a love machine than anything because I’m an athlete and basically my character has been an athlete for almost 15 years now, but he’s finally found fame, so he’s really into being famous, which if you go out in New York, you see a lot of these guys," he laughed, describing his role as a "fame w***e".