In his 33 years as an actor, writer, and director, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has done it all, from superheroes and sci-fi blockbusters to independent sleeper hits. In 2012 alone, he starred in both The Dark Knight Rises and Looper. (That’s right: He played Robin and Bruce Willis in the same year.) But it wasn’t until 2024 that the 43-year-old actor finally grabbed hold of his cinematic holy grail.

That movie? Beverly Hills Cop.

“When I was younger, my older brother introduced me to Eddie Murphy,” Gordon-Levitt tells Inverse. “If you have an older sibling, the stuff they like takes on a certain mystique. It’s a little forbidden. It’s a little over your head. The person who occupies that place in my psyche is Eddie Murphy. So to get the opportunity to play the sidekick in the new Beverly Hills Cop with Eddie was a lifelong dream fulfilled.”

In the cover story of Inverse’s Summer Blockbuster Issue, the self-described “jaded old Hollywood guy” reflects on a career of spectacles and indie surprises.

“The devil has come back. To make her pay for her greatest sin: the sin of living,” reads the theatrical poster for Maxine Minx’s Hollywood debut, a horror sequel that puts the defiant and rebellious lead of Ti West’s X trilogy in the big league spotlight for the first time.

After a harrowing dance with death in the 2022 film, Mia Goth’s Minx finally has what she wants — and in turn, the devil indeed comes back to make her pay for the sin of living beyond those she had to leave behind in X, and the ones she left years before that. With that interrogation of self-preservation at the forefront, Maxxxine becomes a fitting and exciting conclusion to an important franchise that, to the end, challenged the idea of what it means for women to be free to be who they are — no matter how messed up the person they unleash in the process might be.