Why ’10 Things I Hate About You’ Makes Joseph Gordon-Levitt Feel ‘Old’

Joseph Gordon-Levitt may have an eternal baby-face, but 10 Things I Hate About You’s 25th anniversary is still making him feel a bit weathered.

“I must be old,” Gordon-Levitt, 43, quipped during the Wednesday, June 19, episode of CBS Mornings when asked how he feels about the teen comedy turning 25. When cohost Nate Burleson pointed out how young Gordon-Levitt looked in the film, the actor confessed he’d heard that remark before.

“My wife, [Tasha McCauley], was talking to her friend who was like, ‘Oh, Joe was so cute in that movie! What was he, like, 10 or 11? ’— I was 17!” he said, laughing.

Based on Shakespeare’s 16th century comedy play The Taming Of The Shrew, the 1999 film followed Gordon-Levitt’s Cameron James as vies for the attention of Larisa Oleynik’s Bianca Stratford. When Bianca reveals that she can’t date until her sister Kat (Julia Stiles) does, he devises a plan to trick Kat into falling for the school’s resident bad boy, Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger).

Life imitated art as Gordon-Levitt reportedly dated Stiles briefly while filming. After the movie’s release, he and Oleynik also sparked a romance and dated for three years before calling it quits in 2002. He later moved on with McCauley, and the couple quietly tied the knot in December 2014. They share two sons, whom they welcomed in 2015 and 2017.

After the birth of his first baby, Gordon-Levitt explained why he’s chosen to keep his family out of the public eye. “My son, he’s just a baby, you know? So, he hasn’t made the choice to be in the public eye, and that’s a choice that I would like him to be able to make when he’s older, when he can think about these kinds of things and make that decision for himself,” he explained during a 2015 interview with Kelly Ripa. “And so, for now, I’m just a protective dad, and I want to protect his privacy.”

After taking some time off to prioritize dad duties, Gordon-Levitt is back in the spotlight and promoting his upcoming film Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F opposite Eddie Murphy. During his CBS Mornings appearance on Wednesday, he gushed over working with the iconic comedian after idolizing him as a kid.

“My older brother was a huge Eddie Murphy fan,” he explained. “Everything your older sibling likes takes on a certain mystique. It’s kind of not allowed. You understand it to a degree, but maybe you don’t understand all of it. You just get wrapped up in ‘My older brother is laughing at this thing.’ That’s what Eddie Murphy was for me.”

While meeting a childhood hero could be disappointing, Gordon-Levitt said Murphy, 63, was nothing but lovely on and off set.

“He’s so iconic. I’ll tell you though, his vibe is very down to earth,” he said. “Some folks that are as successful as him kind of need to always prove who they are and how big they are. He’s not that way, in my experience. He’s kind of just chill.”

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F premieres on Netflix Wednesday, July 3.