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I've Never Had Tastes Of People My Own Age. All Of My Friends When I Was 15 Were In Their 40s. I'm Not Actually Mature, Just Very Self-conscious Around People My Own Age Because I Feel Like I'm Supposed To Act The Same Way They Act And I Don't Know How.

-Jesse Eisenberg

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I've Never Had Tastes

Jesse Eisenberg

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I've Never Had Tastes Of People My Own Age. All Of My Friends When I Was 15 Were In Their 40s. I'm Not Actually Mature, Just Very Self-conscious Around People My Own Age Because I Feel Like I'm Supposed To Act The Same Way They Act And I Don't Know How.

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I Think The Most Important Thing For An Actor Is Reading The Script And Trying To Figure Out If You Can Play That Character Well. The Last Thing On My Mind Is If The Director Made Good Movies Previously. It's Not My Job To Know If That Director's Last Movie Was Any Good - It's My Job To Know If I Can Play The Role.

I Purposefully Isolate Myself From Anything That Has To Do With Any Press. I Don't Read Any Press About Myself.

I Cried Every Day Of First Grade. In Class. Which Meant I Ended Up Getting Comfortable Emoting In A Place Where It Wasn't The Norm.

I Have One Female Fan. But She Lives With Me. I'm Not Aware Of Any Others.

Actors Dread Working With Studios Because They Dictate What You Do In A Way That Independent Movies Can't.

Depression, If It's An Unconsciously Elected Experience, Is A Luxury.

I Live In New York City, So There's So Much Stimulation When You Walk Outside, It Does Not Require A Television In The Home.

I Get Very Homesick, But Otherwise It's A Great Privilege To Get To Travel For Work.

I Feel Equal Parts Lucky And Scared Anytime I Get A Job.

The Movies That Are Really Big, At Least In My Experience, Oftentimes Don't Have Characters That I Feel As Personally Connected To.

It's Really Hard To Copy Another Actor And Be Successful. In Fact, That's Usually The Reason People Are Not Good, Because They're Copying Something They've Seen, But, For Some Reason With Their Face And Their Body, It Doesn't Work.

I Don't Go To Movies, I Don't Own A Television, I Don't Buy Magazines And I Try Not To Receive Mail, So I'm Not Really Aware Of Popular Culture.

Everyone's A Geek In Some Way Or Other. Everyone's An Outsider.

I Write All The Time Because I'm Lonely. When You're Acting, You're Working Every Day All Day. But Then You Have Long Amounts Of Time Off.

I Like Driving; I Don't Drive Since I Live In New York. I Don't Have An Opportunity To Drive, Like, Ever.

Working In The Arts, You See People Who Come From Terrible Circumstances And Who, For Whatever Reason, Have Incredible Talent. But Of Course, With That Great Talent Comes Some Guilt Because, If You Come From Circumstances That Don't Encourage It, It Can Be Really Confusing.

The Ideal Way To Approach A Character Is To Find Something In Yourself That Relates In Some Way.

I'm Not Into Music - The Only Music I Like Is Musical Theater, But I Have Every Ween Album.

I Hate Watching Me. I Hate Watching Me. It Just Makes Me Feel Awful. I Think, 'i Look Stupid From That Angle. I Wish I Didn't Let Them Put That Shirt On Me.'

To Criticize Facebook Is To Criticize The Telephone.

Who Walks Around Proud Of Things They've Done? That's An Obnoxious Quality.

I Prefer Playing Characters That Are Going Through Turmoil. Most Movie Characters Are Just In Service To The Story.

I Think It's My Nature To - Every Time I Hear About An Award Or A Nomination, It Makes Me Realize How Much I Must've Been Losing Before, Because I Was Not Aware That Every Major City Had These Critics' Awards.

When You Are In A Live-action Movie, You Have So Many More Options To Express Yourself. You Can Use Your Body And Your Gestures And Facial Expressions. When You Are Doing An Animated Movie, You Really Only Have Your Voice.

I Can't Watch Myself In Interviews. I Feel Like I Look Like A Wreck. My Mom Is Always Calling Me And Going, 'stop Fidgeting,' And It's Like, 'you Have No Idea What It's Like, Mom.'

I Did Children's Theater When I Was Younger, And Then When I Was About 14 I Started Doing Theater In New York City.

A Lot Of Times The Character's Experience Is Not In Accordance With The Tone Of The Movie And It's Not Really My Job To Account For The Tone Of The Movie. That's The Director's Job.

When You're On Set You Don't Realize The Way Something Is Going To Look Since You're On The Other Side Of The Camera.

Look, I Don't Have A Facebook Page Because I Have Little Interest In Hearing Myself Talk About Myself Any Further Than I Already Do In Interviews Or Putting Any More About Myself Online Than There Already Is. But If I Wasn't In This Position, I'm Sure I Would Use It Every Day.

I Have A Job That Requires Me To Be In The Public Eye In The Way That Makes Me Extra Careful About Sharing Information.

And I'm Sure After Facebook It Will Be The Little Cameras That We Have Implanted Into The Palms Of Our Hands And We'll Be Debating Whether We Should Get Them, And Then We'll All Get Them.

I Made The Mistake Of Writing Something Very, Very Short About Obama For This Website That I Write Fiction For And My Father Told Me Never Do That Again. And He Was Right. I Have Nothing To Add To A Political Conversation Because It’s Not My Area.

There’s Something Strange About Theater. My Characters Consistently Demonize Elitism, But Of Course It’s Taking Place In A Theater Where Only So Many People Can See It. I’ve Been In Silly Popcorn Movies - The Kind Of Thing That As An Actor You Might Feel Embarrassed About - But Those Movies Reach Many More People.

No One Should Be Offended - That's Not My Style.

I Feel Things Can Always Be Funny, But That's Probably Because I Have Some Kind Of Leftover Childhood Need To Make People Laugh. For Somebody Like Me, That's The Thing You Excel At.

The First Rule Of Zombieland: Cardio. When The Zombie Outbreak First Hit, The First To Go, For Obvious Reasons ... Were The Fatties.

If You Look At The Movies That Come Out, Most Of Them Are Bad, So It's Not As If Achieving Some Level Of Success Means You Get Offered Better Roles, Because Frankly They Don't Seem To Exist.

As An Actor, You Are In A Unique Position Because You’re Not Only Memorizing Dialogue But Really Embodying It. You Naturally Feel The Rhythm Of Good Writing.

My Feeling Is... When You Show Up To A Movie Set Where There's, Like, 50 People Standing Around And Months Of Preparation Gone Into It, You Want To Be As Prepared As Possible, So You Should Make A Million Baguettes. That Might Not Actually Help In Any Explicit Way, But It'll Make You Feel More Prepared.

I'm Kind Of Shocked Any Time Somebody Hires Me And Even More Shocked Any Time Somebody Hires Me To Play A Character Like Lex Luthor, Which I Only Knew From The Public Consciousness Of Him Being A Bald, Brooding Villain Who Is Older Than Me.

I Think I Prioritize Other People's Opinions Of Me Very Highly, Which Is Not Necessarily A Good Thing - It's A Thing That Causes A Lot Of Anxiety.

When You Take On A Role You Try To Do As Much As Possible Beforehand To Get Your Mind Into It. Just To Prepare Because It's A Daunting Prospect To Go Six Months Or Whatever.

I Think It's A Room Full Of Insecure Actors, Which Is Ultimately Very Comforting.

I Don't Watch The Movies I'm In - Ever. Sometimes I Keep Pictures, But That's It. I Used To Watch My Movies, Because I Didn't Want To Be Rude To The People Making Them, But I Stopped A Few Years Ago. I Think It's Pretty Common Among Actors. It's Like Listening To Your Own Voice, But Multiplied By A Million.

I Grew Up In An Apolitical Household. I Never Left The Country. When I Became An Adult, I Started Traveling And Became Interested In Politics, And I Probably Talked About Things In A Silly, Ignorant Way.

I See Writing And Acting As Different Parts Of The Same Continuum. Writing Is Better For Intense Emotion. If You're Very Angry About Something, You Shouldn't Present It As Strongly When You're Acting. But If You're Really Angry And Writing About It, That's The Best Way To Get It Out And Across.

Intense Emotions

Don't Be A Hero, Live To Fight Another Day.

I'm Hardly The Most Notable Person In 'zombieland.' The Other Actors In It Are Way More Famous Than I Am.

It's So Nerve-wracking To Be On A Set. They're The Most Stressful Place In The World, Because You're Making Something Permanent, And There Are So Many People Relying On You In A Lot Of Ways.

I View Myself In The Narrowest Possible Terms, But I Don't Watch Anything I've Been In, And I Don't Read Reviews Or Analysis Of Movies I've Been In, Or My Plays.

I Don't Attribute An Actor's Great Success To Their Own Individual Performance When It's Something As Collaborative As A Movie.

Every Character I Play Has To Be The Hero Of His Own Story, The Way We're All Heroes Of Our Own Lives.

It's Very Hard To Be A Playwright Because It's Very Competitive.

Any Time You Play A Character For A Long Period Of Time, Regardless Of How Close It Is To You, It Infiltrates Your Life. It's Impossible For It Not To.

I Guess The More Serious You Play Something, If The Context Is Funny, Then It Will Be Funny And It Doesn't Really Require You To Be Necessarily, Explicitly Humorous, Or Silly.

I Write Plays Instinctively. I Don't Like Writing Movie Scripts.

I've Never Had Tastes Of People My Own Age. All Of My Friends When I Was 15 Were In Their 40s. I'm Not Actually Mature, Just Very Self-conscious Around People My Own Age Because I Feel Like I'm Supposed To Act The Same Way They Act And I Don't Know How.

The Joy Of Acting For Me Is To Be Able To Experience Emotions In A Safe Environment. You Can't Scream And Cry In The Street Because Everybody Will Look. If You Do It On A Movie Set, You Get Applauded.

Safe Environment

I Had Great Difficulty In School Interacting With Others, And I Took Refuge In The Contrived Setting Of Play Acting, Which Is What I Still Do.

When You Do A Play, You Have The Kind Of Nightly Feeling Of Accomplishment. But You Also Have The Daily Dread Of The Doing It Every Night. And Because You're Doing The Whole Thing Every Day, It's Like Climbing Up The Mountain Every Single Night. With A Movie It's Like Climbing The Mountain Very Slowly, Over Months Of Filming.

There Are Some Indications Of How The Character Should Behave Based On The Script, And Then As Actor Makes It His Or Her Own. I Got To Know One Of The Writers, Chris Terrio, And We Were Able To Discuss Things At Length And Figure Out Who This Person Is To Create A Real Psychology Behind What Is, Perhaps, In A Comic Book, A Less Than Totally Modern Psychology. I Can Only Say I've Been Asked To Play An Interesting Role. A Complicated, Challenging Person.

In Those Moments Where You're Not Quite Sure If The Undead Are Really Dead, Dead, Don't Get All Stingy With Your Bullets. I Mean, One More Clean Shot To The Head, And This Lady Could Have Avoided Becoming A Human Happy Meal. Woulda... Coulda... Shoulda.

The Truth Is People Are Very Nice. The Other Truth Is, It's Very Annoying To Be Constantly Interrupted. I Don't Love Myself Enough To Want To Share Myself With Everybody.

As An Actor, You Try To Bring As Much Of Yourself To A Part To Try And Create A Feeling Of Authenticity And Emotional Truth And Resonance.

As An Actor, You Have To Be Open To Doing Things Where You Look Stupid, To Be Experimental.

Devils Don't Come From Hell Beneath Us, They Come From The Sky.

I Don't Watch The Movies I've Been In. I Try To Stay As Little Aware Of The Final Product As Possible, Because My Job Doesn't Really Change.

When You Take On A Role, Even If The Character Is Somebody That You Are Dissimilar To, You Have To Identify With The Role And Look For An Emotional Connection Even If There Is Not A Biographical One.

Often Times, Being In A Popular Thing Means That You Have To Compromise Your Own Acting.

The Happiest Moments For Me, Creatively, Are Doing Readings Of A Play Around A Table Where There's No Audience.

People Ask Me What My Hobbies Are In Interviews, And I Always Say Biking. But All I Bike For Is To Get To Rehearsal More Quickly.

The Only Suggestions I Get On My Plays Is To Make Them More Of What They Already Are, And That's Wonderful.

I Grew Up In Queens And New Jersey. I Started Doing Children's Theater When I Was Seven To Get Out Of School Because I Didn't Fit In.

I Always Thought Woody Harrelson Is Quite A Persuasive Guy. He's The Kind Of Guy Who Can Call You Up In The Middle Of The Night And Tell You, 'let's All Go Get A Donut!' And You're Thinking, 'it's The Middle Of The Night,' But Somehow You Still Get Up And Go Get A Donut.

Society Will Decide After The Technology Is Created What We Will And Won't Accept.

I Always Think The Second Worst Thing In The World Is To Go On Stage At Night, And The First Worst Thing In The World Is Sitting At Home At Night. For Me, It's Scarier To Not Be Doing It Than Doing It.

The Only Way To Be Turned Off To Being Famous Is To Be Famous. And I Only Have Like A Tiny, Tiny Bit Of That, And I'm Already Disgusted By It. But I Realize That The Only Way To Be Disgusted By Fame Is To Be Famous, Because Otherwise It Looks Amazing. Then People Stop You On The Street, And It's Like The Most Annoying Thing In The World. The First Time It Happened It's Great, And Then The Second Time You Have To Shake Somebody's Hand.

I Grew Up In A Secular Suburban Jewish Household Where We Only Observed The Religion On Very Specific Times Like A Funeral Or A Bar Mitzvah.

Nothing Is Harder Than Working With An Actor Who Doesn't Take It Seriously Or Show Up In The Same Way That You Are.

The Frustrating Part Of Being A Movie Actor Is Waiting In Your Trailer To Do Two Takes Of A Scene You've Prepared For Two Months.

I Think I'm An Abstinence Symbol. If I Take My Shirt Off, People Will Not Have Babies.

Acting Is Kind Of Difficult To Intellectualize - It's A Far More Visceral Experience. It's Really Hard To Be Able To Think About And Then Employ These Kind Of Esoteric Notions Of This Person's Backstory And Try To Weave It In Somehow. It's Just Kind Of Impossible.

It's A Struggle For Me To Watch Things I've Been In Because I'm Just Distracted And Self-critical.

I Know Some Amazing Actors Who Are Not Mortified Every Moment Of The Day, So My Feeling Is That Maybe You Don't Have To Be A Wreck To Be Good.

As For Environmentalism, I'm Only An Environmentalist By Accident. I Live In New York, So I Bike, And The Closest Grocery Store To Me Sells Organic Produce. I Also Shop With A Book Bag Because I Ride A Bike, And It's Hard To Carry The Paper Or Plastic Bags.

It's A Very Strange Experience To Watch Yourself In A Movie Anyway. I Most Frequently Don't Do It, But If I Was Going To Do It, I Would Do It In A Private Way, Not At A Public Screening At A Film Festival, Which Is Just An Overwhelming Experience.

I'm No Good At Really Anything That Involves Motor Skills.

All Of My Pleasures Are Guilty, But That's Just The Way I'm Wired.

I Live In New York City, Where, If You're In A Movie At A Popular Independent Theater, You Think You're King Of The World, Because You're In A Bubble. So There's No Way For Me To Properly Conceive Of The Attention That The Movie Gets In A Way That Doesn't Make Me Confused.

If You Went To Harvard Medical School, Chances Are You'll Be A Doctor At Some Place. There's A Career Trajectory. Acting, There's Nothing. It's Constantly Trying To Procure Jobs - It's Very Disconcerting.

I Am Actually Going To Two Therapists Right Now. I Don't Know, I Actually Feel Like Therapy Has Just Made Me More Uncomfortable.

I Write Plays, And I Have A Musical That's Starting To Get Produced Now. That's What I Would Love To Do, But It's So Hard. The Only Reason People Are Reading My Plays And Musicals Is Because I'm In Movies.

People Think, 'you're An Actor, You Can Afford Clothes,' But I Just Try To Take The Clothes From The Movie, Which Makes The Selecting Of Film Projects That Much More Difficult, Because You Try To Play Characters That Might Wear Something You'd Want To Wear.

Where I Feel Something That I Had Written Was Misinterpreted In A Way That Made People Feel Bad, That Is Absolutely Horrifying To Me. I Feel So Embarrassed And I Feel Ashamed That I Should Make People Feel Bad.

The Old Cliché In Theater Is, If You’re Nervous, Pick Up A Prop, Which Will Immediately Take You Outside Of Your Mind.

I Meet People Who Are In Movies, And The Stuff That They Write Is Terrible, But Nobody Tells Them That Because They're Famous. So I Worry That My Stuff Might Be Like That, Too.

I Don't Concern Myself With Thinking Ahead To The Finished Product. I Focus More Specifically On What The Character Is Experiencing. Once You Relieve Yourself Of The Very Arbitrary And Always Punishing Pressure Of What An Audience Is Expecting You To Do, Acting Becomes A Lot More Fun And Pure.

I Personally Don’t Feel The Need To Be Radical For Its Own Sake, But I Probably Couldn’t If I Tried Anyway.

I Don't Follow Sports That Much Now, But I Was A Phoenix Suns Fanatic In The Early '90s.

When Cellphones Came Out, My Girlfriend Refused To Get One For Five Years, Because She Thought It Would Turn Her Into Somebody Who Couldn't Connect With Other People - And, Of Course, She Got A Cellphone.

I Find People Who Want To Help Other People To Be The Most Interesting. I Come From A Family Of Teachers, And My Friends Are Teachers, Often Times In Very Difficult School Situations.

Acting Is A Weird, Kind Of Alienating Job Because You're In An Isolated Place. Even If You're Working With A Lot Of Other People, You're Kind Of Alienated. Actors Say That A Lot, And I Kind Of Find That To Be True.

It's A Really Unique Acting Opportunity To Play Two Roles Who Are Not Only Interacting With Each Other, But Vastly Different.

Mother Teresa Was Asked What Was The Meaning Of Life, And She Said To Help Other People, And I Thought, 'what A Strange Thing To Say' - But Maybe It's The Right Thing To Say.

I Think There's Nothing More Wonderful Than Using Fiction To Reflect Real-world Cultural Ideas.

When Playing A Role, I Would Feel More Comfortable, As You're Given A Prescribed Way Of Behaving. So, Both Facebook And Theatre Provide Contrived Settings That Provide The Illusion Of Social Interaction.

I Find It Very Difficult To Do Normal Things Without Getting Approached.

I Tend To Be Pessimistic About Everything: If Things Seem To Be Going Good, I'm Worried That It's Going To End; If Things Are Bad, Then I'm Worried That It's Going To Be Permanent. It's Not A Very Comfortable Attitude To Have All The Time.

You Can Tell When You Watch A Movie, Usually, What The Actors' Experience Was On The Movie, Because Even The Smallest Of Roles Were Interesting.

My Job When I'm Acting In A Movie Is Very Limited To Playing A Role. I'm Not Evaluating Somebody. I'm Only Evaluating Them Insofar As They're Interacting With Me, But I'm Not Evaluating Their Skill Set And I Don't Watch The Movies, So I'm Not Aware Of The Way They're Putting Things Together.

I Just Can't - I Can't Exist In Normal Group Situations. A Classroom, Where You Have To Sort Of Jockey For Position, Compete For Attention - I Would Just Withdraw.

I Feel Very Guilty Doing Magic Because You're Deceiving Somebody.

I Often Think If You Have Time To Sit Around The House Feeling Bad For Yourself, You Have Time To Tutor A Child. I'm Guilty Of That Exact Thing. I Will Spend More Time Sitting Around Feeling Bad For Myself Than Actually Helping Somebody.

I Think There Are Probably A Lot Of Actors Like Me Who I Think Probably Struggle To Feel Comfortable In Their Own Lives, And Acting In Some Ways Provides A Safe Context For Them To Live Out Emotions That They Possibly Repress Or Live Out Experiences That They Are Not Afforded By Virtue Of Circumstance.

Acting Forces Me To Socialise, Which Is Good For Me, I Think.

In Acting Class, You're Trained To Express Yourself As Much As You Can.

Express Yourself

The Only Way To Be Turned Off To Being Famous Is To Be Famous.

My Hope Is To Never Act Again And Just Do Press.

[as An Actor] You're Looking To Crawl Into An Anonymous Fictional Person's Skin, But Then You Have The Ironic Obligation To Promoting The Movie In Such A Public Way That It Almost Undermines The Initial Intention Of Going Under The Radar.

In New York, Everybody Is Their Own Celebrity, So They're Not So Interested In Other People.

First Rule Of Magic? Always Be The Smartest Guy In The Room.

The Scariest People To Turn A Movie Over To Are Always The People Who Are Drawing Up The Poster, Because That's The First Impression It's Going To Make. And Very Often It's Portraying A Very Different Film From The One The Actors Actually Did.

First Impression

I Tend To Prefer The Smaller Movies Because They Shoot More Efficiently And So You're Are Able To Maintain That Momentum Of The Character A Little More Easily.

If I Get No Sleep The Night Before A Show, I Feel That Performance Is The Best One.

Actually, Acting In Bumper Cars Is Terrible, Because The Really Only Way To Film It And Get A Close Up Is To Literally Mount The Camera - This Heavy Thing On The Car And It's Just The Worst Because You Can't Act At All With A Thing On The Car.

When You're Acting In A Movie, You Never Consider The Reception Of It. It's Impossible To Predict How Something Will Be Received. Even If You Think It's The Greatest Thing In The World, Other People Might Not Like It. Or Agree With It.

In 'zombieland,' It Was Such A Freewheeling Plot It Almost Didn't Matter What The Characters Were Doing Scene To Scene As Long As There Was A Consistent Banter.

I Felt Self-conscious Going Out In The Street Prior To Ever Even Being In A Movie. That's Just Me.

Poor People Are Gross And They 'smell Bad

Everybody Feels Like They Need A Photograph Because We're In A Generation Where, If You Don't Document It, It Didn't Occur. So You've Got To Stop And Take A Picture With Everybody.

The More People Say Nice Things About Me, The More I Feel It's False.

I Have An Ipad And I Watch Three Things: 'the Daily Show,' '60 Minutes,' And 'meet The Press.'

If You're Acting, Then There's A Prescribed Way To Behave; Whereas In Life There's No Prescribed Way. So Acting Feels Like A Comfortable Way To Get Through The Day.

No Compliment Is Ever Sufficient And Every Insult, Of Course, Is True.

I Don't Understand Capri Pants. They Seem Like Neither Here Nor There.

I Feel Like When I Was 13 And I Had To Go To Bar Mitzvahs Every Weekend. This Is The Same Feeling. You Have To Put On A Suit Every Weekend To Go Meet With A Bunch Of Jews.

If You're Afraid Of Everything Out There, You Quit Going Out There.

Acting Is A Weird Profession. It's Very Disquieting, And At The Time It Just Made Me So Confused. It's Only When You Step Away From A Movie For Several Weeks Or Months That You Start To Put Things In Perspective.

Im Not On Page Six, Because I Dont Have Anything Salacious Happening In My Life Unfortunately.

As An Actor, If I Show Up Late Somewhere Or I Say Something That's Eccentric, It's Totally Acceptable - Not Only That, It's Lauded In Some Perverse Way.

I Give Credence To The Worst Things Somebody Writes About Me, And If Somebody Writes Something Nice, I Think They're Wrong Or False Or Lying Or Joking.

I've Never Worked During The Summer. I Take Summers Off.

My Mom Always Said That She Didn't Wear A Red Nose And Big Shoes Because That's The Reason People Are Scared Of Clowns. My Dad Is A Sociology Teacher, So He Probably Figured That Out With Her. Those Are The Things That Are Exaggerated, That Don't Give Off The Signals Of Humans. You Know, If You Draw A Picture Of A Circle And Ask Somebody To Feel Empathy With The Circle, They Won't. But If You Draw Literally Two, Three Dots Inside The Circle, Like Two Eyes And A Nose, You Immediately Feel Empathy.

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