Yesterday we heard that Leonardo DiCaprio was producing a live action version of the much touted Anime Akira, today AICN claims to have a line on who may be starring in it.

They say Joseph Gordon-Levitt has the part. If you just thought “the kid from 30 Rock”, then allow me to smack you upside the head. He’s the kid from Brick and The Lookout, and if you’d bothered to get up off your ass and support either of those movies then you’d know he may very well be the next Brando. He’s that good.

Unfortunately this now means I have to be interested in Akira, a movie which I was ready to avoid because of it’s association with anime, and I’m smack dab in the middle of a lifetime anime boycott which I’m loathe to toss out the window. There aren’t many things which could get me watching anime. Nude pictures of Natalie Portman maybe (real ones, not that side boobage she did in Hotel Chevalier), or Tim Curry in drag. Other than that, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is about it. For him, I’ll sit through it. Damn you Japan, you win.

So word is my man-crush Levitt will play Tetsuo Shima, best friend of Shotaro Kaneda, leader of the movie’s teen biker gang. That makes him one of the movie’s two lead characters. No word on who the other is, but they could cast a an old shoe opposite Levitt and things would still be very good for Akira.