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LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Many young men come to Hollywood to act, but former child star Joseph Gordon-Levitt had to leave to learn what it truly means to be an actor.

In the late 1990s, Gordon-Levitt co-starred as a wise-cracking teen alien on the NBC television comedy "3rd Rock From the Sun," and the 25-year-old's new film, "The Lookout," opened Friday.

Good early reviews for the crime thriller and for two of Gordon-Levitt's recent movies -- he was lauded for low-budget festival films "Mysterious Skin" and "Brick" -- have critics and filmmakers praising him as one of the best actors of his generation.

But plaudits like those might not have come had he not left Tinseltown, taken a bite out of the Big Apple, and attended Columbia University for a while, Gordon-Levitt told Reuters. He also credited his parents, who he described as "hippies back in the '60s," with keeping his mind off Hollywood fame and fortune and allowing him to grow into his own.

"About the time I came back to acting, it wasn't just for my own fun anymore, I had found that I cared about the rest of the world, instead of just myself, and wanted to find a way to connect to the rest of the world," he said.

"When I was a kid, I used to hate any sort of recognition. It would make me nervous," he added. "But now, when people say they saw 'Mysterious Skin' and it meant something to them, or 'Brick' and it inspired them, or even '3rd Rock' makes them laugh, that really means something to me."

Gordon-Levitt, who has been acting since age 6, said he now judges roles based on whether he enjoys the script, finds the characters intriguing, or will be working with people who are passionate about a project.

He said he found all three in the role of a brain-damaged young man named Chris Pratt who is lured into a bank robbery in writer/director Scott Frank's "The Lookout."

The movie gets close to a 90 percent positive rating on Web site rottentomatoes.com, which compiles reviews, and Richard Roeper, film critic for TV show Ebert & Roeper, has said Gordon-Levitt "joins the ranks of our best young actors," in the role.

"In many scripts, the characters are one-dimensional. If it's a hero, he's all good," Gordon-Levitt said. "But all the characters in 'The Lookout' are more complicated. I play the hero, but there's a lot you can blame him for."

His character, Pratt, was a star high school hockey player who severely injures himself and his friends in a car wreck.

Years later, Pratt works as a bank janitor but has problems with his short-term memory, and longs for the life he once enjoyed. This allows him to be lured into helping rob the bank.

Despite his flaws, audiences root for Pratt because Gordon-Levitt portrays him as an everyday guy who has lost his way in life.

"Besides the injury, there is also -- and I think it's more interesting and more damaging -- his shame, his guilt, his regret, his inability to live in the present and wallowing in the past," said Gordon-Levitt. "That is something I think all of us can identify with."