Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt made an appearance today at the WonderCon 2012 panel his upcoming sci-fi/action flick Looper, directed by Rian Johnson.

In the film, Gordon-Levitt’s character is a “looper,” a time-traveling hit man, and he plays a younger version of Bruce Willis’s character.

The actor posted two photos today at are a first look at his character, see one of the photos here above, another here below.

During the panel, Gordon-Levitt revealed how he studied Willis to get to know his mannerisms and focused on the Sin City-era Willis for his character. He recalled moments when his mom visited the film set and was freaked out by how different her son looked from himself as a young Bruce Willis. The actor thanked the efforts of the makeup artist, Kazuhiro Tsuji, whom he called a mad genius, capable of makeup alchemy. He explained that Tsuji mocks up the makeup in Photoshop, but has an insane lab to make those concepts real. Gordon-Levitt said he loves watching an artist work, but it’s a little unsettling when the canvas is your face.

Check back here at Geeks of Doom soon for full coverage from the Looper WonderCon panel.

[Image Source: hitrecordjoe]