Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who will be portraying the role of the french high wire artist — Philippe Petit in “The Walk”, has been trained to walk on wire by the artist himself.

Petit, who shot to fame for his daring high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center of New York City in 1974, trained Levitt himself for the forthcoming film, which is based on Petit's real life events.

“Philippe actually insisted that he be the one to teach me to walk on the wire. And his partner Cathy set up this elaborate workshop. Philippe does everything elaborately so I just spent eight days straight, all day learning to walk on the wire,” Levitt said in an interview, read a statement. 

“He was insistent that at the end, I would be able to walk on the wire, which sounded ambitious to me. And then finally I was able to balance on the wire. And I didn’t want to stop even though it really killed my feet. I actually loved doing it,” he added.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Christopher Browne and Zemeckis, “The Walk” also features actors Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale, Ben Schwartz, and Steve Valentine.

The film is scheduled to release in India on October 9.