Episode 1598 - Jesse Eisenberg

Summary

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast: Episode 1598 – Jesse Eisenberg

Release Date: December 9, 2024

Introduction

In Episode 1598 of the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast, host Marc Maron sits down with acclaimed actor, writer, and director Jesse Eisenberg. Known for his roles in The Social Network, The Squid and the Whale, and Zombieland, Jesse offers an introspective and revealing conversation about his personal life, creative process, and recent projects, including his new film A Real Pain.

1. Jesse Eisenberg’s Recent Work: A Real Pain

Marc begins by discussing Jesse's latest film, A Real Pain, which Jesse wrote, directed, and stars in alongside Kieran Culkin. Marc praises the film, stating, “I thought it was enjoyable. I thought it was good. I thought it was well-written. I thought it was well-acted. I like that Kieran Culkin guy and I like him and Jesse together. I will recommend the movie if that means anything to you” (04:30).

2. ADHD and Narcissism

The conversation delves into a transformative email Marc received from a coach named Cameron, discussing the intersection of ADHD and perceived narcissistic behaviors. Marc shares, “I didn't even know what I would do with a diagnosis. And I can't tell you that I'm going to go to a professional evaluator” (06:50). Jesse reflects on how societal misunderstandings around ADHD can lead to misconceptions about self-centeredness, adding, “We are attempting to orient ourselves to the new information, but what it looks like is self-centered behavior. In part because it is, but it's not because of narcissism” (09:35).

3. Personal Struggles and Mental Health

Jesse opens up about his own battles with anxiety and trauma, recounting his time in a mental institution at age 13 due to severe anxiety: “I was trying to kill myself in multiple different ways” (34:50). Marc relates by discussing his understanding of anxiety as a form of existential exhaustion, saying, “It's a type of existential exhaustion that I think could appear like depression” (35:30).

4. Family Background and Heritage

The duo explores their Jewish heritage and family backgrounds. Jesse explains, “My mom was a birthday party clown... kind of a hippie-ish clown and a Marxist kind of clown” (28:05), while Marc shares his own experiences growing up in a Jewish family, mentioning, “I was never taught how to use God... I'm certainly proud to be a Jew” (43:03).

5. Creative Process and Writing

Jesse discusses his evolution as a writer, transitioning from playwriting to filmmaking. He speaks about his fascination with trauma tourism, which influenced the narrative of A Real Pain: “I was like, trauma tourism. You know, what's the best way to take...” (44:25). Marc notes the depth of Jesse's characters, stating, “You both specifically have problems” (51:28).

6. Experiences in Acting and Directing

The conversation touches on Jesse's acting philosophy and his experiences behind the camera. Jesse admires actors like Kieran Culkin for their immersive approach: “He was so unbelievably unaware of anything he was doing...” (66:17). Marc shares his own experiences watching his performances, highlighting the discomfort and objectivity it brings: “I can honestly say that I never once went home thinking I should have done it differently” (67:21).

7. Future Projects and Ambitions

Looking ahead, Jesse expresses his desire to continue writing and directing, aiming to produce content that aligns closely with his creative vision: “This is the first thing I've written that people really love... I'm making my next movie in March” (57:52). Marc encourages Jesse's dedication, emphasizing the importance of staying busy to manage anxiety: “You've gotta stay busy or else, you know, what are you left crazy?” (58:45).

8. Reflections on Success and Industry Challenges

Jesse reflects on his varied roles and the unpredictability of the film industry: “It feels like I'm getting internships on these sets... It feels like I'm just trying to do everything” (71:36). Marc acknowledges the complexities of balancing creativity with industry expectations, underscoring the mutual understanding between host and guest regarding personal struggles.

Notable Quotes

• Marc Maron: “I thought it was enjoyable. I thought it was good. I thought it was well-written. I thought it was well-acted.” (04:30)

• Jesse Eisenberg: “I was trying to kill myself in multiple different ways.” (34:50)

• Jesse Eisenberg: “We are attempting to orient ourselves to the new information, but what it looks like is self-centered behavior. In part because it is, but it's not because of narcissism.” (09:35)

• Marc Maron: “I know why you had that feeling... It's very...” (78:35)

• Jesse Eisenberg: “I just try to do everything, and some of them happen and get made.” (58:07)

Conclusion

The episode provides a deep dive into Jesse Eisenberg’s multifaceted career and personal life. From his creative endeavors in writing and directing to his candid discussions about mental health and family, Jesse offers listeners an intimate look at the experiences that shape him both professionally and personally. Marc Maron’s empathetic interviewing style allows for a meaningful dialogue that resonates with both fans of Jesse’s work and those interested in the complexities of creative life.

Additional Resources

• A Real Pain is currently playing in theaters. Jesse Eisenberg invites listeners to watch the film to gain further insight into his directorial vision and performance.

• Previous Episodes: For those interested in Jesse’s co-star Kieran Culkin, Marc recommends Episode 1150, where Kieran appears as a guest. Listen here.

Stay Connected

To listen to Episode 1598 and other episodes of "WTF with Marc Maron," visit wtfpod.com or your preferred podcast platform. For an ad-free experience and access to full show archives, consider signing up for WTF Plus here.

Transcript

[Marc Maron]

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He's the writer and director of the new movie A Real Pain, which he stars in along with Kieran Culkin. I thought it was enjoyable. I thought it was good. I thought it was well written. I thought it was well acted. I like that Kieran Culkin guy and I like him and Jesse together. I will recommend the movie if that means anything to you. It's a good watch. It's a tight movie. I'll get this out of the way too. It's fine. This week I'm at Largo in Los angeles on Friday, December 13th for a comedy and music show. We're going to play some songs and have some comics and I'll do some comedy and some singing. Then I'm in Sacramento, California at the Crest Theater on Friday, January 10th. I'll be in Napa at the Uptown Theater Saturday, January 11th. I'm in Fort Collins, Colorado, Lincoln Center Performance hall on Friday, January 17th. Then Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on Saturday, January 18th. I'll be in Santa Barbara, California at the Libero Theater on Thursday, January 30th. Then San Luis Obispo, California at the Fremont center on Friday, January 31st. Monterey, California at the Golden State Theater on Saturday, February 1st. There's a lot of other dates coming. Oklahoma, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas. Just go to wtfpod.com tour and you can see the whole list. You can see it all. All right, okay, so look, a lot of things happened last week. Some of them fairly monumental. I can, I can list them for you if you give a shit. I know the world is a difficult place and there's a foreboding, a horrendous black cloud of dread at the hearts of many reasonable people. But I am trying to continue to live my life. I got an email from a guy and I think it's kind of a life changer. And this guy's not a pro, therapist or assessor of psychological things. I'll just read this to you, but this guy Cameron, he says, I want to comment on the ADHD narcissism thoughts that you've been openly sharing and your recent interview with Rosemary DeWitt where you commented that listeners are suggesting ADHD. It could be ADHD. Your stories often support this. I'm not about to suggest this, but speaking to a qualified evaluator is always an option. But on the idea of self centeredness and adhd, this idea of how one can be so focused on self and have so much doubt, you are right. Narcissists don't experience doubt. I'm a coach that works with super creative leaders and business owners, most having an ADHD diagnosis. I also have adhd. One consistent complaint from their life partners and employees is that they seem so self centered and the narcissism question can come up. So they could be narcissists and have adhd, but this is extremely rare. So why are these people with ADHD accused of being self centered? Now look, I know I'm reading this whole thing, but you gotta understand something. Personally, I don't even know what I would do with a diagnosis. And I can't tell you that I'm going to go to a professional evaluator. I don't know whether I care whether I have ADHD or not because I'm probably not going to medicate. It's just my nature. I'm a guy who is very cognitively oriented. Therapeutically. I believe in contrary action and acting as if and through repetition. I find that the new neural pathways are kind of opened up, plowed, carved out. That's just my belief. But let's get back to this because there's something about this may be helpful to you, but it was certainly an amazing breakthrough for me. Just the information here. He says the main dilemma with ADHD is getting access to our task network, the place we make decisions and identify, prioritize and execute tasks. We then spend a lot of time in the meaning making part of the brain the default mode network. I often say we are wired for context when we consider new information, the first thing we do is ask, how does this relate to me? So this in and of itself is kind of a mind blower for me because that is how I take in everything. And I never thought I was narcissistic and I actually made a decision to shift my comedy through that lens entirely, no matter what I'm talking about. And I think everyone kind of does this, but not with everything. So he goes on, we are attempting to orient ourselves to the new information, but what it looks like is self centered behavior. In part because it is, but it's not because of narcissism. Back to the incessant experience of doubt and dread. People with adhd, self concept or sense of self fades when we are not doing the things that matter most to us. People think of misplacing keys as the example of memory challenges. We misplace our sense of self. Holy fuck. That is like a key to the kingdom, man. So when you perform music at Largo, the experience is always better than the thoughts that led up to it. I teach and when I teach, I'm reminded of what matters to me. Our experience informs our sense of self, providing important feedback loops. Holy shit. This is also why it is hard to get present with an opportunity. We can play out all the different scenarios of how something could go wrong. Like you were sharing about the New York gig. Everyone's ADHD presents differently based on their lived experience. Someone with depression will present differently than someone with anxiety. I mean, the idea that we forget our sense of self, that we misplace our sense of self, that is so fucking fundamentally important to me. Look, I don't know how anyone else can relate to this, but I'm just sharing this because it blew my fucking mind. Because I think about this stuff all the time. Why am I not acting like the person I am? Why am I feeling so fragile and like I don't know anything or what I'm doing? Or you can say it's fear. But misplacing sense of self when you're not engaged with what it is that you find meaning in. How fucking good is that? This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. And if you're new to Squarespace, I've got good news for you. You're getting the best version of Squarespace there's ever been when you start using it today. Squarespace has always been the best platform to create your online presence, but now Squarespace is even better thanks to cutting edge AI technology that makes building your site even easier with better results. Design intelligence from Squarespace helps you a more personalized website tailored to your unique needs. There are also innovations when it comes to getting you paid. Squarespace Payments is the easiest way to manage your payments in one place. Get started in just a few clicks and start receiving payments right away while giving your customers more ways to pay. And all the standard Squarespace features are still there. The Squarespace video studio, email campaigns, Squarespace analytics and more. Go to squarespace.com wtf for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code WTF to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com WTF offer code WTF yes. So this ADHD thing again, doesn't matter if I have it. Doubtfully, I will find out. And I doubt that I would take medication for it because I have adapted in certain ways and it is kind of part of me. And I'm not saying that's right for everybody. Maybe it'd be nice to know. I don't know. But this misplaced self business. The misplaced self. Oh my God. I always thought that I was just, you know, well guarded and defensive and scared and all that. It may be that, but it is a very specific feeling this guy talked about. And that kind of leads into my experience in New York because, like heading into this gig, we did a rehearsal. It was me and Vivino, Adam Menkoff on bass, Sean Felton on drums, and we rehearsed. And then turns out Kevin Bacon was going to be at the gig. So we asked him if he wanted to sing one. He came down, did Run Run Rudolph, the Chuck Berry tune, and then Kingfish Christone, Kingfish Ingram. He came down, did a couple of songs. He didn't rehearse with us, but the next day we did a run through anyway. So we did the rehearsal. I felt pretty good about it. All I was thinking about is don't choke. Figure it out. You know these songs. Figure it out. Don't choke. Try to have a good time. Get in the pocket, dude. But more importantly, what happened the night after rehearsal is, look, I haven't gone to the Comedy Cellar much in the last five years. I don't know what it was. There's many reasons why I turned on it. 1. You know, it's a place where I started out and I never felt when I was younger that I was necessarily welcome there. I always felt that it was a difficult room. I always felt judged by Manny and Esty and I just. It's a little traumatic. And I also thought it got Kind of bro y. And I thought maybe I had some enemies there. You know, I've got an old friend that's there a lot, and, you know, we don't speak. And I was just like, fuck it, I'm not going there anymore. But I used to just like to go to, you know, to, you know, to hang out with the people, with the comics. And now they've got, like, four rooms. But anyway, so I'm walking with Minkoff and I'm like, it. I'm going over there. You know, it's like I. You know, I'm going over there. I'm Mark Marin. I found myself. I'm Mark Marin. I can go there. I'm not like some, like, marginal. Well, maybe a little. But I'm, you know, I. I paid my dues at that point. I'm just going to go, fuck it. I'm going to go hang out. And I get there, and it's kind of crazy. I'm just sitting there and I'm looking at all the four monitors, and for some reason, Bobby Lee was there, and that was great. Santino was there. Chris Rock is there. Ari Shafir is there. Darren Aronofsky's hanging out. A tell comes in, and they asked me if I wanted to do a spot. And I haven't set foot on that stage, I swear to God, in 10 years. And I just rose above all this dumb, weird shit from not being there for so long. And I'm going to use this misplaced self thing because I had to kind of reconfigure who the fuck I am. I've been doing this my whole fucking life. I went on stage for, like, 10, 15. I killed it, you know, things. I thought it was going to be tense as fuck, and it just. It was just normal. It was just people talking. It was just normal. We're all old fucks now, and I guess holding on to these resentments or fears and whatever or beefs. I don't know. It just. It was all just. It was like a fucking weight was lifted off of my goddamn back. I did, you know, I did the. I did the set. I saw old friends. I can't say I repaired any friendships, but everything was normal in terms of communicating and hanging out. And it was just sort of like, what a relief. What a relief. And then the gig the next day after that, the gig went great. I never played better than I played on Going, Going Gone, the Dylan song that night. And Maddie Weiner went on and killed it. Nimesh Patel went on Kingfish went on, bacon was there, Jimmy, Viviano, all those. It was just. It was great. And I felt really good about it for about a day. And then I saw the video and I'm like, I screwed up that lyric. Oh, man. I wasn't totally right on that song. And then it just started picking at it. But I did have a day or two of just feeling good about it. So that's nice. You don't always get second chances in life, but right now, I'm going to give you a second chance at Simplisafe's Black Friday deal. 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Head to SimpliSafe.com WTF to claim your discount and make sure your home is safe this season. Don't wait. This offer won't last long. Keep your home and your family and your peace of mind protected by going to simplisafe.com wtf. There's no safe like Simplisafe. Okay, so here we go. Jesse Eisenberg, a real pain. The film is now playing in theaters. Jesse is the writer, director, and costar of the film. And this is me talking to Jesse. You know, we're coming into this talking about animation, and he just texted me that we were both Lex Luthor. And it's one of those things, dude. Like, I don't know how connected you are to animation, but I'm doing that thing and I literally didn't even know really what it was. It was super pets or something.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right, right, right.

[Marc Maron]

And I certainly had no idea what the reach of it could possibly be, you know, And I'm just sort of like, you just go to a place and you record the thing and you go home, and then all of a sudden, people are like, oh, dude. I'm like, what?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, I know, I know. And. Right. It's such a disconnect because it's you.

[Marc Maron]

It's weird, right?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Totally. So I still, like, get asked to make, like, little happy birthday videos in the character I play a bird who can't fly in. And so, like, I'm asked which one. It's called Rio. And, like, I'm asked to make, like, little videos, like. And it's so interesting. Cause I so don't myself with that character. Yeah. It's just so hard, especially when you're an actor like us, who do regular things.

[Marc Maron]

But you're also detached from that process. The process isn't the same. I mean, I think, like, when you're in doing the voiceover, you can muster up the emotion. And, you know, some people are more natural than others. I'm having a hard time watching that, you know? Cause, like, I seem to be the only one that did a voice. Like, Sam Rockwell's just talking like himself. Craig's basically kind of like himself.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Got it.

[Marc Maron]

And I'm like, hey, what's going. You know. The whole time. Yeah. And I'm like, why the fuck today.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Did you just decide on that?

[Marc Maron]

Like, well, I thought I had to do something.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Got it. Yeah. That's nice.

[Marc Maron]

You know what I mean? Like, you know. But it is straining, of course. But, yeah, you don't feel connected to it because you're not even part of it. They're like, I went over there today, and they're like, everyone's excited. We've been working a year and a half on this. I'm like, I don't know. You just called me every few months.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, I know. Especially after, like, being on sets of things where it feels like, oh, my God, I'm, like, here for 14 hours a day.

[Marc Maron]

I. It's kind of crazy. So where do you live generally?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I live in New York.

[Marc Maron]

In the city?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, in Chelsea.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That's pretty nice. How long have you lived there?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, my wife and I, like, have lived actually there. Goodness. 20 years.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you've been through it all with New York. I mean, would you get that place for a nickel? I mean, 20 years ago, when that.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It was a different place. And it was. It was. Our first thing was really great for a while.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, and now we finally, you know, she. She won. Now she finally. You know.

[Marc Maron]

How long you've been married?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Eight years. But we've been together for a Lot since. I mean, I met her when I was 17. She was my first date.

[Marc Maron]

Come on.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I am coming on. She is. And she didn't date me for a year because she was older than me. She didn't date me for a year until, like, of age.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really? Is she older than you?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

She's older than me.

[Marc Maron]

How much? A bit.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

She's going to kill me.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, okay. Well, a bit older, yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

She's a bit older. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

She waited because she didn't want to break the law.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly. And also, she found me to be. I think my most attractive quality was just unthreatening. And then by the time I was 18, I had a little bit more of a adult.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Physique.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Like what you're looking at now.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's impressive.

[Marc Maron]

A strapping young man. I run off the sides of the table unthreatening. That's not threatening. That's kind of interesting.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because then, like. Because the assumption is you make assumptions, and now you've been together a long time, so I imagine you're still not threatening. But, you know, she's got the whole package now. I can't, of course, imagine that it's a walk in the park every day.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no, no. But at least she has, you know, somebody who can take care of her in any kind of natural disaster.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's good. You can step up.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You've got the emergency kit. You're ready to go.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I'm actually only good during emergency.

[Marc Maron]

I find that, too.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I'm bad every other time of life. Emergency. For some reason, I come alive.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I don't think it's come alive. I think, like, you know, because I'm like an anxious person and my brain's always going, and there's a certain amount of dread and panic and just a kind of, like, frenetic energy that happens kind of every day. And then when all of a sudden the situation matches that, you're like, oh, I live here.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yes, exactly. Right. You're built for a war zone in a time of peace. Sure.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. You're just like. Kind of like, oh, yeah, I can. This is. I can step up with this. I remember that with the. I think at the beginning of the pandemic where it was terrifying, but I'm like, all right, this is all we got to do.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, no. I felt more at ease than I've ever felt.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, of course.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It was just like things had to be taken care of. And also, I wasn't focused on the fantasies. In my head, which are all self.

[Marc Maron]

Destructive nonsense or just like, you know, foreboding doom of some kind.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right. But in such vague ways that they're probably never going to happen. And when something actually does concretely happened. Yes, I'm ready for it. Yeah, we met, but I know you. I know you have no recollection of it because it was one of the funniest interactions I've had in my life. Is it okay if I remind you or you hate this when people come on and say we met?

[Marc Maron]

Oh, no.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Okay. I am not. This is not an overstatement at all, but your book the Jerusalem Syndrome genuinely changed my life. I read it when I was 17 years old and I have to say it was like perfect timing for me and what I needed. And I talk about it all the time. I mean, for the past. God, I'm 41, so 24 years I've been telling the same story, which is a story you told. I haven't. I wanted to reread it before I came on, but I didn't. So forgive me if I mangle this story, but did you have a friend who worked for like the Pentagon?

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, yeah, Jim.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Jim.

[Marc Maron]

He worked for the president.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And the story you told in this book was so brilliant. You said you had all these conspiracy theories. And I was, again, I was 17. I was going through a period of like trying to figure out my own kind of like, like, let's say intellectual grounding in the world. And would I be the kind of fringy person that I definitely could have been or somebody who's like just kind of sees the world for what it is, not kind of trying to make myself feel bigger by having an ego about fantasy nonsense. So anyway, you talked about this guy that you were so manic and you visited him in D.C. and you had this kind of manic episode where you were telling him all this crazy stuff and said the conspiracy. Yeah, you said, mark, we're not that coordinated.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, people here aren't that organized.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Not that organized. I tell this story all the time because to me it sums up everything I feel about people who are on the fringes of, you know, intellectual thought, which is that, like, they suspect all this thing, all these things are happening in establishment circles. And I'm now in the establishment circle because I work for corporations now. You know, I'm on the artist side and I just see, yeah, it's all still individuals kind of trying to make a day go.

[Marc Maron]

Well, oddly that that whole section of the book was important to me because I had evolved. There was an arc to my. And it's all in that book, the drugs and whatever. And however I broke my mind open and however I was brought up, that there is something about. And now we're living in the time of those fictions, winning conspiracies and stuff. Because people wanna believe things, of course. But I like that story too because that was a real moment. And I, you know, and I, you know, I'm still friends with Jim. Yeah, I've known him for years. He still works in and out of politics and stuff. And he's sort of a go to person when there is a certain amount of panic. But now like, you know, the panic is real and we have no, no fucking idea what the fuck is going to happen. Right?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I guess. Yeah. That's interesting. It was a different time. Yeah, I guess so.

[Marc Maron]

So like, you know, and all those conspiracies, some of those ones that I was locked into are still part of the ones that are popular now. You know, whether it be Freemasons and this and that. But. But it was helpful.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

But then we met. Okay, so this is what happened. I was again, I was like 17. My friend Gabe and I went to see. I think we were seeing you at 78th Street. What is the, Is that the store?

[Marc Maron]

Oh, comedy. The Comedy Stand Up New York. I don't know what that's.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It's interesting, New York. And you were at the bar, you hadn't performed yet. I just finished your book and I was stoned and I. I had just finished my first screenplay and I went up to you and I said, I read your book. I'm a huge fan. Do you want to read my screenplay? And you looked up and you said, why? And I just remember thinking like, oh, I don't have a reason. I guess I just want you to think I'm funny. And it just also was like so funny because I get asked to read scripts. Well, actually I do. Out of judge. Yeah. But it was just such a funny, real response from a famous person who.

[Marc Maron]

But that was only famous to you because I wasn't that famous, I imagine. I don't think I was trying to be an asshole.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No. Just like, what would I do with it. Exactly. No, no. Yeah, you're right, you're right. I guess I just wanted you to know that I'm funny and that's why for years I've just been trying to get on your show. No, no, I just. No, I think that's what it was, just a kid wanting an adult to know he's funny.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no, no. What were you gonna do with it? What were you gonna produce?

[Marc Maron]

Well, what generally happens is if you enter that agreement, then all of a sudden, you know, I'm gonna have to give you feedback.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, of course.

[Marc Maron]

And then we're gonna.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

We have a lunch. I know, I know. It ruins a week, but I think.

[Marc Maron]

At that time, I mean, Jesus, like, what was that? Early 2000s. What year was that?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Before 9 11.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, so like summer before. Oh, yeah. So I wasn't. I was out of my mind.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, really?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, kind of. I mean, I was, you know, I was scrambling. I wasn't. You know, the Jerusalem syndrome, that book. I don't know if you would have read it though, because I think that book was sort of.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Was it after that?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it was just a few months after 911 that that book came out.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

So maybe then maybe my timeline's wrong. Then maybe then maybe I met you after 9 11.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, still, like, I was, you know, I was just trying to, you know, make something of myself, you know.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's interesting. Were you aware that people like me saw you as like a God amongst the New York?

[Marc Maron]

No, no, no, not at all. I mean, I think at that time, like, that was like. I'm not always totally aware of that, of that. And I'm always still kind of shocked when people are like, oh, you know, you, you really helped me out and all this stuff. Because when you, when you have a certain level of identification, you know, I know I have my people, you know, but. But it's. I used to do a joke about it that, you know, when you have this sort of mid level celebrity, you know, you can. You can walk down the street and then like three people be approaching you. One of them be like, oh my God, Marc Maron. And the other two will be like, no, I don't know who is this?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right, right, right, right, right. Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

So I know they're out there, but I don't think I would have known at that time. But thank you.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, yeah. No, thank you.

[Marc Maron]

Did you grow up in New York?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I grew up in Queens, so I was like four. So I didn't really grow up there. I don't remember. In New Jersey, in the suburbs. New Jersey, I was like 18. Yeah, yeah. In New Rutgers.

[Marc Maron]

Do you know New Brunswick?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

My dad went to Rutgers.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, really?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But I grew up. My parents, my whole family's from Jersey.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, that's right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jersey City, Pompton Lakes, so in New Brunswick. So you're in Jersey. You didn't go to Rutgers, did you?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no, I didn't. I. When I left New Jersey, like for my senior year of high school, I went to a performing arts high school in New York City and it was.

[Marc Maron]

What's the whole background? Like, how are you so, you know, kind of like. What, do you have brothers and sisters?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, I have sisters.

[Marc Maron]

How many?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Two. I have two sisters.

[Marc Maron]

Younger? Both.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Both.

[Marc Maron]

Both younger?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, both. Your middle.

[Marc Maron]

And what. What was your. What your. What's your old man do?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

My old man, he. He's a. Was a. He's a teacher. My. He's a college professor now.

[Marc Maron]

Really? Like, what does he teach?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

He teaches, well, his expert social psychology, but now he teaches healthcare management. So a lot of his students are people already working in healthcare that want to have an MBA in the field.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, in like, what does that encompass? Healthcare management.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You know, I mean, it's the most complicated systems in this country, so it would be, you know, navigating not just internal hospital systems, but also the healthcare industry.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, wow. So that's. So he was an academic when you were very young.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly.

[Marc Maron]

And social psychology.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And he had all those books around.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny, he had. We just. Actually, he just moved and we found all these dusty but like, great, great books that. Books that I was reading 30 years after him.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Isn't that wild? Yeah, like. But you didn't read them when you were a kid. You weren't.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, I mean, I read them in college because I studied a lot of similar stuff and so. Yeah, it was the same stuff. Yeah, I mean, like, it's interesting. All like, in social psychology, the experiments that were done were like, you know, the Zimbardo Stanford prison experiment, the shocking experiment. These things that were done were the, like, best of its kind because they were never redone because they were unethical.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

So. So in terms of like the Skinner.

[Marc Maron]

Box and that kind of stuff too. That's right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No one does this stuff anymore.

[Marc Maron]

No. You don't put your kids in a box.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's right. So like. Yeah, so we had the same text essentially because no one did anything after that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And I don't know, did those things get. Get. Get discredited eventually? The Stanford.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, actually, I think they were ultimately discredited.

[Marc Maron]

I wonder. I can't remember why, but I kind of remember that story. And what did your mom do?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Mom was a birthday party clown. So isn't that crazy? In Jersey, she Was. Yes. Yeah. Actually in Tri State area, she was a birthday party.

[Marc Maron]

But that was her gig.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That was her job. Yeah. I mean, not her job. It was her. It was her. You know, it wasn't like, employment.

[Marc Maron]

Did she do anything else?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no, no, no. She was busy. Like, she was busy. She did Tri State area. She was really good. She was kind of like. She's kind of like a hippie. Ish. Kind of clown and a Marxist kind of clown. So I think her biggest game was like, you have to lose to win. Which at the time was kind of cute, but in retrospect, I realized was just communist propaganda from her parents.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, well, she's. She's the reason that we, you know, we're in trouble now.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I know, I know, I know, I know. My mom was. She used to do a number about Jill Stein, and so I'm not sure.

[Marc Maron]

Jill Stein isn't a birthday clown, but. What? He's not going to touch that one.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

But. So you grew up in this environment. Like, were they kind of post hippie people?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. They were real progressive.

[Marc Maron]

Are they, like, how old are they? Are they my age?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

70.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, older. So they're real boomers. And they came from. They're both from New York.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly. My mom was, like, in a socialist Zionist organization with Bernie Sanders when she was younger. I think he's a little. He was ahead of her.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And, yeah, my dad grew up more kind of working classish in Queens. But my mom was really both Jewish. Yeah, Jewish.

[Marc Maron]

Full Jew.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, me too.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. Thanks.

[Marc Maron]

It's kind of.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I did my DNA. I mean, it's like, the most embarrassing.

[Marc Maron]

Mine's like, 99%.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I'm 94. Ashkenazi.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Leave it. Yeah. I mean, at some point, I mean, what is the number that's inbreeding?

[Marc Maron]

Well, I was hoping for a little Viking.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Of course. I was hoping for anything. Just something I can, you know, brag about or something. But also something to think that I'm not gonna die of some weird illness that is from inbreeding.

[Marc Maron]

Well, no, I think we test out for that. Other than, like, the basic, you know, heart disease and various cancers.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right, right, right.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, you gotta be really special to get Tay Sachs. I think that's true.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

My wife and I did test for everything.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And you're all right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I have three really, really bad things that are unexpressed, which means, like, I'm not gonna die for them. But I have something called, like, Usher's Syndrome.

[Marc Maron]

What is that?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It's a thing where you just bleed out randomly. But, like, I. But the doctor is.

[Marc Maron]

You have it or you have a genetic predisposition.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, I have these. Exactly. No, the doctor told me. You're. You're not gonna. It's not gonna happen to you. But, like, if my wife miraculously had it, our kids would bleed out.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You know, so that's the risk.

[Marc Maron]

What are the other ones?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

The other ones. I can't remember the name. Ushers had such a cute little name, so I remembered it. The others were probably more technical or Latin, but my wife didn't have anything.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, good.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Clean bill of health.

[Marc Maron]

Clean bill of health for not. Is she Ashkenazi?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, same thing. Same.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Same thing. Even closer. Her dad was born. Her dad's Polish. Born in Russia because they were escaping the war.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, did you find out? Have you ever. I did that show. You know, finding your roots. Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Where'd you find.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, my God, that guy Gates, you know the guy, he was so thrilled because I think they got further back with my patriarch. My dad's. My dad's dad's line. They got further back into the Pale settlement than they'd ever gotten before.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Are you serious?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Wait, how? Using what?

[Marc Maron]

I don't. They have a team of researchers. I don't know how they do it, but they got back like six or seven generations into, like. I have the whole chart, like, into just really Jewish names. And he was a tailor, you know, and I used to do a bit about it, but, like, it's pretty fascinating.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Do you know what the name was like, your last name?

[Marc Maron]

Well, it was always Marin.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Not longer.

[Marc Maron]

No, and we did find that out. And I don't know why that is. Why was yours different?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no, but mine is already the longest name you could.

[Marc Maron]

Eisenberg.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I mean, it's a regulation Jewish name. Yours. It seems like it's contracted.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Berg. That's the end of a Jewish name.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly.

[Marc Maron]

If you're missing a Berg or a witch.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, it was.

[Marc Maron]

There would be I. Or eyes and. Right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

My last name means Iron Mountain.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

How you holding up?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's the. That's as far as it goes in terms of the. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So. But were you brought up, like. So it was progressive. Were you brought up Reform?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, I was brought up reform, like, to appease, I think my dad's parents. And then my family became less and less religious.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just as the 90s went on and people became less religious in my area.

[Marc Maron]

And what's your sisters End up doing?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

My older sister changed her name.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

To seem, you know, she didn't want that. And my little sister is.

[Marc Maron]

But they're not in show business. They do.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no. Well, my little sister was an actor when she was young.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Now she's a therapist and my older sister. No.

[Marc Maron]

A therapist.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So when do you start? Like, when you're a kid? Because you're kind of wired, you know? Were you always wired?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I was miserable when I was younger, so I wasn't like wired. I was just panicked all the time.

[Marc Maron]

What about? Do you know?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, about everything. I mean, I was a terrified child.

[Marc Maron]

But were you hypochondriac?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Well, when I was in kindergarten, I had to carry two tissues to school in different pockets, one for crying and one for bleeding. And my sweet, sweet mom just perpetuated this horrible habit by saying like, wait, honey, do you have your tissue for bleeding? And I said, yes, and you have your tissue for crying. Like, the mom should have just said, oh, honey, you don't need those tissues. You're not gonna cry or bleed. But my mom made sure I had both.

[Marc Maron]

Did you bleed?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I don't think I bled. Oh, you know what? I used to have nosebleeds from anxiety. So. Yeah, maybe that was.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, my God.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I know, I know. It's sad.

[Marc Maron]

And you were crying all the time.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I was crying all the time for no reason. Yeah, I could. You know what? I always. You know, it's funny, the thing you said a few minutes ago about like being wired for an emergency. Yeah, that's what I was. I was like, wired for something terrible to happen. And now I'm also wired and in a similar way, but because of modern medication.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It gets transferred into something a little more productive.

[Marc Maron]

So you feel like this is all pre existing mental issues. You don't. Can you trace the foundation of your paralyzing anxiety?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, yeah. But I don't like the talk about it, but. Oh, yeah, Yeah. I had a very weird set of circumstances when I was young and Yeah, I was. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, so it's. It's trauma based?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And also wiring and that lovely mix.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But are your parents. Are they high strung?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, my parents are like normal. I don't know. I guess it may be sisters a little bit. Yeah. So like, I mean, and I was really just like basically terrified. I mean.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I mean, I have not really talked about this, but I. Oh, my movie that I made that's out now is like talking about how I used to, like, be sad As a kid, I mean, yeah, I had real emotional disturbance. I was in a mental institution when I was younger, and I was quite.

[Marc Maron]

What brought that on?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, trying to kill myself in multiple different ways. How old that was? 13.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, wow.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you just couldn't take the anxiety.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly.

[Marc Maron]

And it wasn't depression. Right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It was just relief, you know, it's so funny. I guess I would have said I'm depressed, but. No, it's not like. I guess it wasn't. Depression is kind of like immobilizing. Right?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I was. Because I differentiate. Like, I had this realization for myself that anxiety when. When it. When it runs away from you, when you get it, get, like, when you can't. When you're consumed with anxiety, you go into a paralysis, I think.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

That could look like depression, but it's really just your brain going, like, enough.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Like, it's not like bleak. It's just like. It's a type of existential exhaustion that I think could appear like depression.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yes. I've never had, like, when I see depression, like, sometimes depicted in movies or something, it looks like guys on his couch and he's watching all these TV shows or something. Like, I've never had that experience ever. I've been in, like, either a panic or the thing you just described.

[Marc Maron]

It's like a depression, like this profound hopelessness and despair. Right. But when you're anxious, eventually it's almost like your brain is just sort of like, fuck it. You enter this other zone where you want relief. I used to do a joke about that. I used to do a joke about how, like, you know, I think about suicide all the time, but it's not because I want to kill myself. I just find it relieving to know I can if I have to.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. The opportunity.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Just sort of like, you know, why does my life. Hey, I could always kill myself.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Back to work.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's funny and sad and true. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

For some people it is.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. I think at the time I was just, like, desperate for something and just hated everything. Yeah. I don't know. Do you think to be anxious requires, like, having bypassed depression? Not bypassed. Having already gone through depression.

[Marc Maron]

And I don't know, like, that the.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Worldview is bleak and therefore the anxiety.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think it's like, the worldview. I don't know if I could. I can identify bleakness now, and I think that I have a propensity to look at things in a bleak way, but I think it's more connected to dread. That if you have a core sort of dread drive or a shame drive, you know, everything's gonna run through that. So, you know, that informs your whole perception.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right, right.

[Marc Maron]

So that can get pretty bleak, of course. But I can dread, you know, just even talking to you. Of course, I didn't.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right. I did it. But many have.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I was talking to. Who was I talking to the other day? Josh brolin. And oddly, we get along very well, you know, But I know the topic came up about how, like, you know, he had some guy he kind of knew who invited him out to drink with him and his friend, and Josh wasn't drinking at the time, and he got to the bar, and the guy's like, you have a drink. And he's like, I don't feel like having a drink. And the guy's like, what are you talking about? I brought my friend, and he realized this moment where it's like, oh, you want to see me? I'm the clown. You want to see me go crazy with the boot? Right. And I said to him, I said, well, that's. I mean, that's at least something. I don't think I'm on the 1st. I'm on the list for anyone to invite to a party.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right, right, right.

[Marc Maron]

Let's get Marin over here.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. Yeah. You haven't even been the clown.

[Marc Maron]

Not really. I think, like, because of the. Like, you. I think there's an intensity that is contrary to a good time.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. Wow. An intensity. Yes. Yeah, that's definitely true.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, it's not that you're not engaged or you're interested in stuff.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no, you don't need to. Not a good time. That's been proven. I remember I was just at a. Yeah, I was. No, I was just at a wedding and on the very, very periphery of it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. Just sitting there, kind of waiting for the thing to end.

[Marc Maron]

Right. And you didn't engage with anybody?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no. But they were all dancing, so it was okay. I mean, I don't think anybody saw me. I was in the shadows.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think it's just. It's also that thing where my brother has it worse than me, and I. And I've been aware of this stuff for a long time, so I've kind of let go of things. But there is a component to, you know, people who are. Who are, you know, kind of keyed into whatever it is, themselves or, you know, they have a certain intensity when they. When they enter the world that it's a. It's. It's Just a little exhausting to people. It's too much.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Like, my brother, just like, you know, he doesn't, you know, after a certain point. And I'm sure you've learned on some level, it's like, hey, maybe there's some things I don't have to talk about at this particular place.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right, right, right, of course. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But that's a hell of a thing to learn for somebody who has a disposition like that. Like. All right. Do you have to bring up the thing and just.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Thank you. Nice to see you.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's right. Some kind of. Yes. Self control or something. Yeah. But I am in, like, in a moment of great fun. I'm manufacturing that kind of thing because I just have to not be there.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know what fun is. I don't think. Totally. I mean, I can do it on my own sometimes. I'll play a little guitar, whatever, But I'm not. I'm not water skiing, you know, I'm not like, I don't like, you know, like, I don't know who I was talking to. Maybe Bobby Lee. So sort of like, you know, these people that travel together as couples and stuff, you're like, we're all going to go to the thing. I'm like, I don't know what that is.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right. So my. Oh, couples that travel together. Oh, my God, no. I couldn't even imagine what that is. No, my wife and I travel, but we only visit. I mean, you know, we. We only go to countries that are like, not the tourist.

[Marc Maron]

Not beaches.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No. I mean, our last trip was to Romania. No, I mean, because I was curious about the.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, about the.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I mean, it's so nerdy. I don't know. I should say it.

[Marc Maron]

What?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, just like the revolution in Romania.

[Marc Maron]

Ceausescu.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. I went to the town where that. Where it started. That's the kind of travel I like to.

[Marc Maron]

You want to see where it all went wrong?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly. And we do. We get ice cream and everything, but that's where I feel comfortable.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean, you just made a whole movie about it.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's right. Yeah. This is the kind of travel.

[Marc Maron]

And you like. Well, I mean, I watched that movie.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, thank you so much.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, no, I enjoyed it. But, like, it's one of those things, because I'm not. I don't think we're essentially, you know, personality wise, we're not similar, but I know where you're coming from, of course. And you know, and I understand that sort of. And I understand Culkin's. Character too, you know, but there was a thing where I'm like, oh, my God, are these guys gonna ever feel better? Like there's a thing there. But it was very touching. And I think, like, in terms of now like that, you say you've traveled these places, and there is sort of a. It was interesting because it wasn't, you know, going to find where your grandmother lived when she was a kid. And even given, you know, her particular set of circumstances, it did not. It wasn't about reconnecting with Jewishness.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right. No.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no, no.

[Marc Maron]

Which is kind of interesting.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. To me, what you just said, connecting with Jewishness feels so vague to me. You know what I mean? I wouldn't even know what that means. I guess it means.

[Marc Maron]

But you wrote characters that were sort of seeking that. I mean, on some level.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right. But the. I guess just like, faith. I'm using my hand in quotes, to me, feels like just so far away from anything that I feel connected to, you know, the idea of faith or reconnecting to faith or.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean, I don't know. It's never. It's always been vague with Jewishness, and I was brought up Conservative, and I always. Yeah, I mean, you know, it wasn't reformed, but it would. It wasn't, you know, I. I did bar mitzvah thing, you know, and, you know, it was not, you know, Reform was always sort of like, do they have a guitar and stained glass windows? You know, like. So.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, we were called the church by the Conservative temple in town.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah. But. But nonetheless, I don't. The way I put it is, like, I was never taught how to use God.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right, okay.

[Marc Maron]

Right. So, you know, so the faith of it. Yeah, it's fairly complex, you know, in terms of Judaism, I mean, you know, and when I've investigated certain things, I still don't feel the drive to finding my faith. I'm certainly proud to be a Jew, and I don't mind it because I am one.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I don't mind it as the most Jewish reaction to being a Jew you could have. I don't mind it. You know, it's a little chilly, but listen, if you get a blanket, it's fine.

[Marc Maron]

But I always liked the cultural trappings of Jewishness.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, no, me too. Absolutely. No, no, I. Yes. For the most part, I love what the things I've been, like, given, like, you know, an interest in baseball and humor and philosophy and social justice and all the stuff I, like, I realized as an adult are basically things that we Would consider Jewish virtues or interests.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Did you have a relationship with your grandparents?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah. And truth be told, they were also not. Not religious.

[Marc Maron]

Mine weren't either. But it was of a sort, you know, culturally they were.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yes, yes.

[Marc Maron]

Do you know what I mean?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Sorry. Yes, to your point, yes, I had a relationship with them that I would call something particular to our culture, but I would probably also attribute to like Italian culture. Just like culture where it feels like you were probably part of an enclave at one point. And so the extended family was like more familiar.

[Marc Maron]

The food and everything else was all kind of.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, but that there was like a familiarity with like that generation.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Whereas if maybe I lived in more, I don't know, you know, mainstream American culture or something, you'd have a separation.

[Marc Maron]

So how long did you work on this story? What provoked you to do this movie?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, I came from a bunch of different things. Like my background as a writer is playwriting. And so when my wife and I went to Poland to visit the towns that all these characters visit in the movie, we came back and I had written my first play.

[Marc Maron]

What was that about?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It was about this kind of self centered version of me. It was like a young writer going to visit his second cousin. Vanessa Redgrave actually played my second cousin, my real second cousin, Marie.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. And she.

[Marc Maron]

Off Broadway.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. It was at the Cherry Lane, I think.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's a nice one.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

My first place at the Cherry Lane. Yeah. And it took place in Poland. And I'd always kind of like. I'd always like setting something in Poland. And it gave me kind of like an otherness that made me feel, why Poland? Oh, so my family's from there. In the movie, the characters actually visit this house and we use the actual house my family is from.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

1939.

[Marc Maron]

My grandmother's line is from Poland, but I think it was Ukraine. Then Galicia.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, oh, wait, I know Galicia. And I wish I had time to look at a map. Cause I know what that is.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I think it was kind of one of those areas where it was. Sometimes it was Ukraine, sometimes it was Poland. Right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

So like the city Lvov, which is a big Ukrainian city. Like, one of my family survived there and it was Poland at the time.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

But anyway, so like then. So I had written. I'd written that play and I always wanted to, like, adapt it as a movie. And I could never figure out, like, what story would be good to adapt, but I always wanted to shoot something in Poland. I had written a short story for Tablet magazine. About these two guys who go to Mongolia to meet a friend of theirs. And again, it's actually very similar to Jerusalem syndrome. It was. One character is full of conspiracy theories. And my character who I was going to play was not. And they go to see a guy who I think they think is the most conspiracy minded guy, the pure guy from high school I've seen in a while. And he's actually just explains to them the world he's grown up and it just destroys them in Mongolia. And so I was like 30 pages into this Mongolia script and it was not going well. But I had these two great characters, this fun rapport. And an ad popped up on the Internet for Auschwitz Tours. And then in parentheses with lunch. And I realized that's the story. Like these guys have to go on a Holocaust tour. Cause it's just fascinating. And I'm fascinated with this idea of trauma tourism. You know, like, what's the best way to take.

[Marc Maron]

My buddy Jerry Stahl wrote a book, 999.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yes, I did. You know, somebody gave it to me, I think, while we were in production or something. Oh, yeah, I didn't finish it. Yes, I started it. No, he's great and I love his work. I should read it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, that's good.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, I know, but I didn't want to read anything that felt like, oh, this is kind of close to.

[Marc Maron]

Right, sure, sure, sure, sure.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

But no, I will, I will. And yeah, that kind of tourism is fascinating. And I know his was also about Jewish. Jewish tourism. But even, like there's all the camps, right? Oh, that's right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. But what is it that's fascinating about trauma tourism?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Well, because there's no perfect way to do it. You know, you want to go there and, you know, you're going with the idea that you're trying to connect to that thing in a way to, I guess, grow as a person, to maybe build up your.

[Marc Maron]

If it applies to you. Because, you know, you could argue that in, you know, any, you know, half of this country.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

In terms of the civil war, there's those are, you know, monuments to trauma tourism.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

But somehow it's different.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Well, that was a war, not a genocide, you know.

[Marc Maron]

No, no, no, I know, but.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

But like, I'm not correcting you. I just mean it's not exactly the same thing.

[Marc Maron]

So you're speaking trauma tourism essentially revolving around the Holocaust. Holocaust.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, I mean, yeah. But I also, I traveled to the killing fields in Cambodia and to Rwanda, to the genocide museum in Rwanda. Like, there are these Places that you go. And I, as an American, don't have a connection.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you also, like, there's the slavery monument in Alabama, which was probably one of the most, you know, moving and horrendous things I'd ever seen.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Really? I haven't been there.

[Marc Maron]

Oh my God. I don't know if they. I don't know. I always forget the full name of it. But it's basically, it's about the lynching and all the lynching that took place over time. And it's an art piece and it's part of the museum in I think Montgomery or somewhere that has to do with remembering this suave experience. But that was of similar kind of thing.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly. And I guess my question for you is, like, you probably ate a nice breakfast before you went there and you probably ate dinner at night. And so like, we're trying to like connect to these places, but we're also, especially if you go on like a tour overseas, you know, you're still like kind of maintaining the cliffs.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's why the whole tour thing, I mean, it was a smart movie in the sense that like, you're very specific about the size of the tour.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Because you know, those tours can be much bigger than that.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, of course.

[Marc Maron]

And for some reason as a device and it was smart to just be like, well, this is a very small.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Group and oh, these are the tours I've been on, though, not Holocaust tours, but I've been on these eight person tours.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah. Not. Not to Poland, but to other places.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Because I went to Israel once and it was a busload.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, yeah, that's a different thing. And it's hard to make a movie about something like that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Especially now. But yeah, it's not gonna be a fun trip.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Permits alone.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, but so this was driven by a lot of your personal experience. But the, the character that Kiran plays, your cousin, was that, you know, is that something. Is that another manifestation of your experience, do you think?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, kind of like. Yeah, his character, like my character, who I play, I think probably people who are watching it would think that's me, you know, Cause I'm, you know, maybe similar to that character. But no, the Kieran character is also inside of me. I was originally gonna play that part too.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, and I've done that.

[Marc Maron]

Who is going to play your part?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I was going to cast another person. Oh, yeah. But you know, that's in me too. This character is on edge. He also can be funny in a group and like a raconteur which I maybe occasionally can be if the group is very specifically tailored to my strengths and.

[Marc Maron]

But also a lot of requirements.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

For you to be charming, it has to be the exact right group of people. And they all have to not be listening to me. But, you know, but yeah, but that's like me too. But he's also in some ways, like the thing I admire in other men, you know, people who are like, very comfortable saying what they want.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And don't give a fuck.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And it's the thing I envy. And then it's interesting because I envy it so much and adore those people so much and in a way, kind of like just fall in love with people like that so much. You know, I think about them all the time and I get to this point where in my thoughts about them that actually maybe there's something missing there. You know, this with them.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, there is.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And I. And I. And I think it's like the way those two characters play together, explored it. I mean, you know, that ultimately it was sort of a battle to challenge strangers. Empathy.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly.

[Marc Maron]

And that the way you kind of played that out with yourself and with that character is that you both specifically have problems.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And because you're the more codependent one, you know, half of his problems become your problems.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

Because of your own fear and attachment.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And then. But through that monologue that you had, you know, you kind of reveal your own sort of issues and then it just becomes, you know, both of these guys have problems, but the Zero fucks guy somehow is more palatable.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Wait, palatable how?

[Marc Maron]

Well, just that you feel for him. Right at the edge of him losing everybody, you reveal this thing. I don't want to spoil it for anybody. And all of a sudden the entire lens of how people look at him change.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Of course. Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

And they're willing to forgive of almost everything.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's right.

[Marc Maron]

Whereas your character is harder to forgive because there's a brittleness to it.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's right. Yeah. He's too kind of self conscious to open up.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And you know, Benji Huron's character, for all of his flaws, is being honest in a way that is appealing, I think is.

[Marc Maron]

But it's also like, in general, though, it's off putting and there is a. You know, you're sort of defying people. I mean, yeah, sure. Like, you know, you played it so, you know, the tour guide got something out of what he said, and that might have been important, but there's still like the level of need for attention and need to disrupt.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

You know, which is sort of interesting because you get the feeling that he's kind of a solitary character.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Because, you know, he's not capable of relationship.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's it. There's no, like, long term or sustainable relationship that he can have.

[Marc Maron]

And he's gonna fuck everybody off eventually.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly. That's exactly it. So, you know, you meet him at the beginning and. And leave him at the end at the airport. And there's a feeling of like, this guy can only exist in these transient places where he can have quick relationships. So he's really good. Like on a first meeting, like when you first introduce him, he's great and like. And then he just slowly turns into the thing that he is, which is just. He can't get outside of himself. He can't get over himself to kind of meet people on their level or.

[Marc Maron]

Manifest a life for himself.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, certainly not. No, it's moment to moment living.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Because like, your character is a lot more transparent just by nature of the vulnerability of it.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Whereas him, you know, there's really no sort of way to understand why he did what he did.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

And you know, and then you kind of threw in the piano thing to be like, well, these gifted people are so troubled kind of.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, no, no, not really. That more kind of thing, like he just lives moment to moment, you know, and like, he doesn't have a sense of other people's civility.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Not great.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But I understand why those people are attractive.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly that. No, that's really what they're like.

[Marc Maron]

You know, how do they. Like they're so able to live with themselves.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But not other people.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Like, that is the shortcoming of it.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

So. But what's interesting too is that like, you know, ultimately the journey or even the dynamic, the relationship with the grandmother, everything becomes sort of secondary to, you know, the character's, you know, concern, your character's concern for him and the idea that this, however, it's gonna help you. You pulled him out of a hole and, you know, he doesn't travel much. But ultimately the whole journey is really towards, you know, your character having some sort of ability to maybe let go of whatever this spell this guy has on you.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. Wow, you are so astute. That's exactly it. But most people don't frame it like that, but yeah, that's what it is for me is that, like, this thing from my childhood has so much power over me, even though my life seems like kind of fine and this and this trip and this kind of like. Yeah, intense emotional experience with my cousin, like, allows me to kind of grow up, grow out of it a little bit.

[Marc Maron]

Right, yeah. Because, you know, you were jealous of him your whole life.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And he's kind of a bully.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

You know, that's the downside of that personality is they're going to expose you through their need for attention.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. And kind of antagonize you in really specific ways. Like, he knows I'm just, like, physically uncomfortable, so he's constantly throwing his arm around me, pretending to stab me, even commenting on my feet. Just this need to co op my body.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But then you get obsessed with your feet because you're like, I never notice my feet.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also he's like, it looks like grandma's feet and it reminds me of my.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. And then all of a sudden, he's showcasing his unique relationship with the grandmother that you didn't have.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly.

[Marc Maron]

So when you go into a process of writing something like this. So do you do read throughs? Do you have. What is the process? Because the cast of characters is specific and interesting. To have a victim of real genocide with the Rwandan guy and then the sort of classic kind of middle to upper class Jewish couple who are now retired, and then the divorced Jewish lady. So it was very specific. And they all met certain, you know, ends as characters and how they wove into the story. And the guide himself as well, who was not Jewish. That was an interesting thing. But I mean, it feels like it took a lot of time to refine something like this.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, no. I mean, so as I said, my background's playwriting, so my comfort zone is writing big scenes, long scenes with lots of characters. So that stuff was fine. If anything, I had to kind of like trim down some of the scenes. Cause in plays, the scenes could be 25 pages, but in a movie, that's boring. So. No, that's stuff I liked. We didn't rehearse.

[Marc Maron]

You didn't?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No. Because Kieran came out the day before shooting.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You know, and so we were gonna rehearse for like a few hours, and then we did something for 15 minutes and realized it doesn't matter. No. And then. But it was just like, you know, it was just. The trick is in the casting, you make sure you cast people who seemingly understand the tone, but the script was.

[Marc Maron]

Tight from once you started. Like, you didn't.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I couldn't change a word because of. It was during the writer strike. So is this actually great benefit because, you know, writers don't want to change.

[Marc Maron]

So do you see yourself really, in terms of your passions, as, like, a writer?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, I've been doing everything kind of equally. This is the first thing I've written that people really like love. So I'm hoping that it will allow me to make my next things more easily. I mean, I'm making my next movie in March.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. And so I'd like to do that once a year.

[Marc Maron]

Is it the same movie but with a woman?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

What do you mean? On a tour?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's not. It's a. It's actually a couple.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly. It's a couple. And it's not Poland, it's Romania. Yeah. And no, I want to, like. I want to do this forever. I mean, I'm like you. I just try to, like, I'm doing. I do as many things as possible because they're all unstable. You know what I mean?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, I do know.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You mean, I don't want to attribute that to you, but, like, for me, at least, it feels like, oh, this is an industry that just does not give a shit if you do anything tomorrow.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

So I just try to do everything, and some of them happen and get made.

[Marc Maron]

Well, it's also, you got to stay busy or else, you know, what are you left crazy?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I know. I would go nuts. I would go nuts if I wasn't busy.

[Marc Maron]

But when. So. But you didn't. Were you. Did you, when you started acting? Like, when you went to. Where you went to a theater High school?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Just my senior year. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And was writing always part of it?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yes, when I was in high school, I was. Yeah, I was 16 that year, and I wrote a script about the one.

[Marc Maron]

You wanted to give me.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, that was. That was. Oh, my God. I just realized it was definitely after 9 11, because the script that I wanted to give you, I wrote, like, right after. Anyway, that doesn't matter. Yeah, but no. While I was in my senior of high school, everybody knew that I would spend lunches in the library because I was writing a movie script, and it was about Woody Allen, and it was called Woody, and it was about him at 16, changing his name. And I wanted to make this movie, and the kids at school all knew about it and knew the jokes in it and everything. And then he threatened to sue me once we finally got the script to him.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really? He sent it to him, hoping again, like, me.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah. He didn't. I'm sure he doesn't know about it. It Was just, you know, his lawyer sent me a cease and desist letter.

[Marc Maron]

So when do you start acting professionally?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I did my first movie right after high school or at the end of my senior year. Yeah, before that I was on a short lived television series when I was 16. So I was acting at that time.

[Marc Maron]

Did you go to college?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I went to college. I graduated during the pandemic though it took me 18 years because basically what I was doing was I would like act those incomplete.

[Marc Maron]

So hang over you.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You know what? No, I never got an incomplete. I basically would go for a semester and I would take the next semester off and work for 18 years.

[Marc Maron]

Wow. And what did you get your degree in?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Like anthropology.

[Marc Maron]

Really? Last two years ago?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

20. 20. Yeah. Four years ago. Yeah. And now I'm an official anthropologist. Yeah. If you need anything, if you want me to explain any kind of culture to you, I can't write prescriptions, but I can tell you why people do certain things.

[Marc Maron]

So that's an undergraduate degree in anthropology?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's right.

[Marc Maron]

And when you go back, like when you finished your last semester, were you locked in? I mean, were you still interested?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, no. By the end I was writing essays that they were counting for credit. So by like the tail end I was writing about, I'm writing this play and this is what it's about and it's taught me this thing that's tangentially related to anthropology. Yeah, I think they were eager to get rid of me.

[Marc Maron]

So the experience of acting, what you learned in terms of acting, you learned primarily in high school.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly. And from just doing it, I mean, you know, it's. I was doing plays and I was doing like, I had just great stuff. I still know, I do these like Greek plays. I'm always trying to get better as an actor and I.

[Marc Maron]

You do? You are?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I am.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's good.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Of course.

[Marc Maron]

Do you do Shakespeare?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No.

[Marc Maron]

Okay. But Greek, you'll do Greek, I'll do Greek.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And then my, you know, easier.

[Marc Maron]

The language is easier. It's a translation. It's old.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly.

[Marc Maron]

It's not written in pentameter.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

To be honest, I actually, I mean, I prefer Greek theater to Shakespeare. Yeah. I don't know why, because it's a.

[Marc Maron]

Little more stripped down.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It's stripped down. It's not using language as like language isn't the star. It's these kind of brute, very blunt emotions and it's visceral base. Whereas, you know, Shakespeare I just find to be more performative because it's literary.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Interesting. So when you say you keep trying to get better as an actor, what challenges you the most? Oh, like in terms of, you know.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I finished a movie last week, now you see me three. I know it sounds probably like, oh, it's a Hollywood movie. What can it be challenging?

[Marc Maron]

What is that one about? I don't know.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Magician. There's three of them. You have your work cut out for you.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

But basically, like the character in that movie is this incredibly like confident magician who has the biggest ego and he's blunt and he's obnoxious and I mean, I know it sounds like, oh, I'm in a Hollywood movie. What could there really be for me to get better as an actor? But I mean, it's the most challenging role I play. It's so. It's so cocky and I just love it. I love living in that space. I'm so happy I got to do another one. And like, so, yeah, that's what I'm. That's what I like to do.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, so you can really like, the challenge for you is to act as far from yourself as possible.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. I mean, the movie I did before that, I played a bodybuilder who is like harboring his sexuality and he joins a male cult. It's called Manadrome.

[Marc Maron]

Oh my God. What happened in that movie?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It's good.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know about it.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Well, I don't know. You probably don't know about a lot of movies. I mean, you know, they make a thousand movies a year. No, I'm in like two of them.

[Marc Maron]

Well, no, you work constantly.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You're always working as an actor.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. I mean, but a lot of things, most, I mean, probably most things I've been in, people haven't seen.

[Marc Maron]

Do you, do you, do you watch the movies?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, I never watch them because, you know, I don't want to like. I want to like be in the moment and not think like, I'm going to have to look at myself. I'm a self conscious person, but I love performing.

[Marc Maron]

I too, I just watched myself do a voice of a snake and I was like, could have done a little bit.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You know, it's interesting you were telling me that earlier. I was gonna ask you, did you ever consider just not going well after a certain point?

[Marc Maron]

You wanna be a team player. You know, it's animation. These people have been working for two years. Right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Animation's a little different. Yeah, I find. Cause I never watch the movies I'm in. Except this movie. Cause I directed it. But whatever I Don't watch em. And so I find that interesting.

[Marc Maron]

Cause I will watch only.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Does that make you really uncomfortable?

[Marc Maron]

Well, for me, in terms of like. Cause it's not. It wasn't really my life actually. You know, comedy was my life. And you know, doing this and whatever. And I've always wanted to do acting and I've done more of it lately. But for me to feel like, I think that after years of being a comic and watching myself do that to, you know, sometimes it's awful, sometimes it's not. But I think I'm objective enough to go like, well, that's why that didn't work and this is why. So it's sort of helpful to me.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Of course. No, if you're a comic, you have to, because you're your, your solo show kind of.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, you know, it's just seeing myself on TV and stuff. Sometimes I'm happy with it and sometimes I'm not. And I. And I think with acting too, you can watch yourself and sort of go like, well, that, that was not the, you know, I remember that take. That was not the choice, whatever, that kind of stuff. But I don't think I'm doing it to beat the shit out of myself or to feel like I'm not doing a good job. But it does make me uncomfortable.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Sure. Do you ever experiment and like not watch something like, I'm actually going to skip this thing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I've missed things that I've done. You know what I mean? And I think it's gotten more lately. But there are like, the last. That last movie I did or the one I did during the Pandemic. That too. Leslie movie. Because I'm like. I'm like, well, if I'm going to act and somehow it's going to become worthwhile to do it, even with the waiting, which drives me nuts, I should try to do something like. And that guy had a little accent. So who's going to see this? I'll just try to make those choices and do that. So I wanted to see how it came off.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. You know, that is healthy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, I think so.

[Marc Maron]

But you've like, you've never watched the Social Network.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, I had to watch that once. It was excruciating. It was like we were sitting there at a public screening and I was not allowed to leave and I've never sat in one since.

[Marc Maron]

So I guess that's why theater is probably more compelling in some way.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly.

[Marc Maron]

Because it's gone.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

It's gone. But also you're on stage, never thinking I'm gonna have to look at me. You know what I mean? If you're acting and that's even crossing your mind, you're out of it a little bit. I like to feel like I'm just there. And not that I'm gonna have to contend with it in a year from now. And then I start thinking about my face, and it just distracts me in a bad way.

[Marc Maron]

But isn't that part of the job of film acting is to be aware of these things because you're on camera?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I will say that this movie I did that Kieran Culkin is in. Kieran was so unbelievably unaware of anything he was doing to the point where I would say to him, like, hey, let's do one more take. Can you try this? And maybe. And maybe bring the rage in earlier, whatever, Some general note. And he would say, I have no idea what I did. Don't tell me what to do. But if you want to do another take, I'm more than happy. And he was brilliant. And it was just an example of somebody who's so living in the spirit of the character that they're not. They don't have that super ego thing watching them.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And I just found it amazing.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I don't know. I find that, like, I found, like, in this movie I just shot where, you know, if the guy would be, you know, like, I would know in a scene, you know, my tone. And if he said, could you, like, you know, take that in a little bit? Yeah. He said, I'm the first guy he's ever really met or worked with. That was aggressive agreement.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop.

[Marc Maron]

Exactly.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fun. Aggressive agreement. You know, Kieran was like that a little bit, too. Like, the last shot of the movie is kind of like an emotional big shot on him. And I asked him, like, do you want to talk about it? He's like, no, no, no, go away. I got it. It's great.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You know, basically, like, I know what I'm doing here a minute.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, let's go.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I mean, I love that. I find that so refreshing. I mean, I like the actors, too, that are also, like, you know, I was up all night with this scene, you know, but, yeah, yeah. I mean, I get it, too. But, like, you know, and that's fine, too. But the Kieran thing was just, like, kind of magical.

[Marc Maron]

But it's interesting that you bring up this idea of not watching it because, like, I just shot this movie and it was the first movie I've ever been a lead in. And like, I can honestly say that I never once went home thinking I should have done it differently.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's a great feeling.

[Marc Maron]

Right? So on some level, it kind of. Kind of makes an argument for what you're saying is like, why watch it?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Well, yeah, that's fairly. Think that's less than ruin that feeling. May I ask why you had that feeling? Because I've had that sometimes.

[Marc Maron]

What the. That I didn't. That I couldn't have done it like that I felt good about it. Yeah, you've had it sometimes. Yeah, well, because, like, again, like, it was a situation where I'd never had to. You know, I've never been offered the opportunity to be the lead in the movie.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And I thought the movie was beautifully written and it's very funny and it's very dark and I just really felt that I gave it all I got.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's great.

[Marc Maron]

You know, so, like, if I fell short, I couldn't have done it in differently.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Okay, that's great.

[Marc Maron]

Do you know what I mean?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, of course. That's really great.

[Marc Maron]

And so are you.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Is there a part of you that thinks, actually, you know what, I'm not going to watch this one. I left it there?

[Marc Maron]

Well, there's like. But no, because there's scenes in it where I'm like, I really was like in it, and I felt connected. And I'm curious to how they play in relation to how I was feeling in them. Do you know what I mean?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I'm so scared of being disappointed that, oh, yeah, I don't want to. I don't even want to, you know, do the experiment, though.

[Marc Maron]

But have you. I mean, it sounds like you don't. Do you generally have a good experience doing films?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I. With rare exceptions, I walk away not feeling like it could have been better. Really?

[Marc Maron]

With anything or just with movies?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, yeah. With movie acting. Yeah. Except because it's just like, you know, like, you know what's weird? These now youw See Me movies that I was telling you, the magician movies that you said were your favorite. The, like, the character I play is so confident and cocky, really, that actually I walk away from those movies every day going, that was great. Because I'm in the spirit of like somebody who enjoyed himself during the day, but mostly I'm playing emotionally kind of fraught people. And so I just. I'm in that posture all day and I feel bad about myself.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, so that might just be about, like, kind of bringing the work home with you.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Maybe that's what it is. Yeah, maybe that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I watched you in that. Like, I'm a huge Kelly Reichardt fan.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And that movie was interesting.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. Yeah. I really liked that.

[Marc Maron]

Did you like it?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I haven't seen it, but I like. I love doing it. And I love her. She's pretty amazing.

[Marc Maron]

Night moves.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Night moves. Yeah, she's pretty great because, you know, she. You know, she just works in an entirely different, you know, not only a different style, but even, like, on a time horizon or. I don't know what the right word is. She just has her own pacing and everything. You know what's funny about Kelly is that, like, she's genuinely one of the funniest people I know. She's so funny, and yet I always ask her, like, could you put some jokes in your movies? And she's like, no, it would undermine everything else about that.

[Marc Maron]

But that last movie she did was pretty funny.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Last movie was pretty funny.

[Marc Maron]

Like, even if it wasn't on purpose. But, like, I cannot.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, it was good satire and artists.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I cannot unsee that guy digging that hole. That, to me, was the best fucking thing I ever saw.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

She's uproariously funny and cutting and explicitly funny. And so that's the thing I thought, you know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it definitely came through in that movie more.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

So what is that one called? It's called Showing Up.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But did you have fun? Like, do you. I mean, you do these kind of, like. You do some pretty big fun movies.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And do you have a good time? Do you have directors that you liked a lot?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That you learned from?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. I mean, this new now youw See Me movies, directed by the guy who did these Zombieland movies that I did those. Yeah, yeah. And no, he's great. And he has this, like, crazed, big vision for these things. And it's fascinating to watch because it's so far afield from the thing I think I can do.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And so, yeah, it's fascinating to watch. I really will say. Like, I've had, like. I think of myself, like, as, like, a writer kind of, but I feel like I've had just the weird, weird luck of being on sets of movies I never would have thought to write.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You know, I've been in, like, superhero movies and, like, stuff I never would have thought I would place me on the set of.

[Marc Maron]

Well, how do you think you get cast for that stuff?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, I don't know how anybody would cast me in anything, but I just mean, like, it's just so weird. It feels like I'm. It feels like I got, like, internships on these sets. You know what I mean?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You get to spend the next six months on the set of a superhero. And I just watch how it's being made and I see the artistry, the prop people making, like, oh, my God, you know, they have, like a $10 million prop budget and you just see the artistry, and it's just fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I thought that you were very decisive in your directing of the real painting.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Like, I thought that, like, you. You knew the parameters of what your vision was and you honored it.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, of course. No, no, no, it was a pretty clear. I had a pretty clear rubric. I mean, I know the movies I wanted it to look like, and I gave them to, like, who were that. Well, I mean, I gave. My cinematographer is Polish and he's brilliant, you know, but he actually, he never saw any Woody Allen movies. I had given him Crimes and Misdemeanors, which is.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's interesting. That's what it was, the way you establish shots.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, My favorite movie is Crimes and Misdemeanors. I've given it to him and he watched.

[Marc Maron]

It's one of my favorites too.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Dude, I think it's the greatest thing ever.

[Marc Maron]

It's like one of the best movies ever. You know, despite the horrible fact that, you know, the reality of Woody Allen is much different than what we grew up with. But that movie, and I always cite it too, the balance of. The moral balance of that movie is brilliant. It's baffling. But like. But also even, like, I can see it the way, you know, when you're setting up, you know, the way you establish location, you're very sensitive to architecture and to, you know, the kind of framing of shots. Like, you know, the shots of a city, which is something he did a lot.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly. I used. Well, actually, we kind of used the beginning of Manhattan just because it was a montage of Manhattan and this. We're in Poland, so it felt appropriate to do, but.

[Marc Maron]

But it's very straightforward.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly. I love it. To me, it's. If you're making a character driven movie, that's like the thing I like to look at at least. I just love the kind of traditional approach that they were taking, which is like, kind of unfussy, beautiful looking. Like, we have a beautiful looking movie and it Shows the vistas. And it's all pretty. Yeah, but it's like kind of not so fussy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, no, exactly. And it serves a purpose. It doesn't become a distraction. It kind of weaves in.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And the main thing I really would learn from maybe like a movie like Crimes and Misdemeanors is there are so many great funny lines and they're thrown away, you know, And I just wanted as much as possible to have basically jokes that were like off camera. Never like a close up on a joke and the reaction to the person. So we can milk the joke. Sure, sure, sure. You know, so stuff like that just gives it an air of lack of obsequiousness that is trying to make the audience, you know.

[Marc Maron]

Right, right. Well, you want the audience to trust you and you have a tone that you're honoring that. And even I imagine you've had this experience with stuff you're acting in where, you know, the written material diminishes the character and the service is something that is not character.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You put it exactly. Exactly how I've been thinking about it for such a long time, which is like I've been in so many movies where I feel like the things I'm tasked with saying would never come out of my mouth.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And I just.

[Marc Maron]

Or the characters mouth.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's what I mean. Yeah, that's exclusively what I mean.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, I'm happy if something's not out of my mouth. No, it's just like that. It would never be the character. Say it's like that. It's the writer writing a joke that they thought of.

[Marc Maron]

It looks good on the page.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah. Or it's the plot of the movie. And so they have to get to. And I hate that stuff so much. So.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's partly why I was writing plays for years because basically it was like I didn't have to do any of that because you could just be in service of the character, require the plot or real fireworks or anything like that.

[Marc Maron]

And I don't know how you managed to find the most intimate feeling concentration camp in Poland.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Because it's five minutes away from where. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. This camp is. So in 2008, my wife and I went to this camp, Majdanek. And it's. So Majdanek is on the eastern part of Poland. And so the Russians got there first. And so when the Russians. Because the Russians got there first because they were coming from the east, the Germans didn't have time to burn it down. So the thing kind of exists as it was, whereas the other camps were destroyed because the Germans were, you know, trying to destroy the evidence.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

So this camp is, like, as you described. It just feels like this eerie, intimate thing. It feels like it was liberated the day before.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But also, like, it doesn't have the expanse that, you know, it just. It feels like, you know, a small operation, comparatively speaking.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, exactly. To, like, Auschwitz or Birkenau or. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. Where train tracks are running from.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, this one is. It's. It's big, but the feeling is really small. Like, the feeling is like, oh, there were these rooms, and this is where people went. And it didn't feel. It didn't feel industrialized in the same way as other places. No, definitely not.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, And I thought you shot that real well, too.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, thank you.

[Marc Maron]

So what's this new one you're working on?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

The new one takes place in the world of community musical theater, which is, like, my other love besides, you know, the stuff in this movie, which is grief and history.

[Marc Maron]

Do you sing?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

No, but I write music, so I've written musicals. And so they haven't been produced. Well, some short musicals were produced.

[Marc Maron]

Is this a comedy?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And so, yeah, it takes place in the world of community theater, and it's about. Yeah, it follows a. It's a. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So who's in it?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I think they're supposed to leak it next week, but I was told not to say it.

[Marc Maron]

I don't think this will be up, but. All right. You don't have to.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

I'm so sorry. I wish I could. I feel so infuriated that I can't say the thing, but I can't wait to start. And it gives me the opportunity to write music because the musical that is in the movie is not great. So I can write, like, to the best of my abilities.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And it doesn't have to be great.

[Marc Maron]

You got it. Like some wiggle room.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly, exactly.

[Marc Maron]

So that's going to take up most of your time for the next year.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, that's next year.

[Marc Maron]

And so no other acting for now?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, no, that'll be. Basically, we shoot March. I finish in November. It's long post production.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you did a great job. Thank you so much on that movie and a lot of your work.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Thank you so much.

[Marc Maron]

I can't say all of it. I haven't seen all of it.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Sure, but you will tonight. I'm so honored to be on this. Your podcast is obviously amazing, and I'm so honored to get to talk to you, because I really do mean this. You've had, like, such a very specific impact on my life.

[Marc Maron]

I'm so glad.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And I appreciate you telling me that because it is those things, you know, you don't like, the things you hold onto as you get older that really changed your perception of something are usually fairly small things. Do you know what I mean? It's not like exactly. It's very.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Exactly right. No, I remember that story. I didn't remember it was Jim.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know why.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

For some reason I thought of Paul. But basically that story has just structured my adult thinking in such a specific.

[Marc Maron]

Way to minimize anxiety.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Yeah, I guess so. But also to see how adults think. Because I think the anecdote really just showed you kind of growing into an adult.

[Marc Maron]

Yes.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

And that's. And it did the same thing for me.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I am happy that you had that experience.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

Oh, yeah. Thanks.

[Marc Maron]

And it was great talking to you.

[Jesse Eisenberg]

You too. Thanks a lot.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. There you go. Intense guy. I enjoyed it. A Real Pain is now playing in theaters. Hang out for a minute, people. We're getting ready to turn the page on 2024. And you know the old saying, new year, new you. But I bet there's some guys listening who would love to hear this New year, new hair. Look. Hair loss is very common, but with hims, hair growth is very simple and you can start seeing your hair grow back in as little as three to six months. HIMS gives you a range of hair loss solutions with clinically proven ingredients and treatments that are trusted by doctors. Just answer a few questions and a medical provider will determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your treatment is sent directly to your door. Start your free online Visit [e-mail] WTF that's H I M S.com WTF for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Hiss.com WTF results vary based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride. Prescription products require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information. Hey, folks, you can check out my talk with Jesse's co star in A Real Pain, Kieran Culkin. He was on episode 1150 back when we were still doing talks over Zoom. Have you been watching wrestling since your show? Not really. You know, I've talked to wrestlers over the years. Like, you know, I've interviewed, you know, we used to have Mick Foley. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, because he used to when I used to do political radio over at Air America. You know, he's a very active guy. He does a lot of causes and. Real sweet guy, but, you know, he walks in, he's huge. He lumbers in. He's just beaten, he's almost disfigured. Most of the time, he's hobbled, but he was the real deal. He's missing an ear and a few teeth. But in terms of the show, in terms of research, it was never my thing as a kid, but I did learn from these guys. And I also talked to Colt Cabana, who does that kind of old school, kind of retro independent wrestling, which is like no frills. Colt Cabana, oddly enough, we'll probably have to change it after this podcast, but Colt Cabana is actually mine and my wife. Safe Loop. Is that true?

[Jesse Eisenberg]

That's actually true. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That's episode 1150 with Kieran Culkin. And you can listen to it for free on whatever platform you're using right now. To get every episode of WTF ad free, sign up for WTF Plus. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by acast. Here we go. SA Boomer Lives Monkey and lafonda Cat Angels Everywhere.