Jesse Eisenberg

“In New York, everybody is their own celebrity, so they're not so interested in other people.”

“Acting is a weird, kind of alienating job because you're in an isolated place. Even if you're working with a lot of other people, you're kind of alienated. Actors say that a lot, and I kind of find that to be true.”

“It's a struggle for me to watch things I've been in because I'm just distracted and self-critical.”

“Nothing is harder than working with an actor who doesn't take it seriously or show up in the same way that you are.”

“If you're acting, then there's a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life, there's no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day.”

“Any time you play a character for a long period of time, regardless of how close it is to you, it infiltrates your life. It's impossible for it not to.”

“I grew up in an apolitical household. I never left the country. When I became an adult, I started traveling and became interested in politics, and I probably talked about things in a silly, ignorant way.”

“I meet people who are in movies, and the stuff that they write is terrible, but nobody tells them that because they're famous. So I worry that my stuff might be like that, too.”

“I hate watching me. I hate watching me. It just makes me feel awful. I think, 'I look stupid from that angle. I wish I didn't let them put that shirt on me.'”

“I don't go to movies, I don't own a television, I don't buy magazines and I try not to receive mail, so I'm not really aware of popular culture.”

“I find people who want to help other people to be the most interesting. I come from a family of teachers, and my friends are teachers, often times in very difficult school situations.”

“I had great difficulty in school interacting with others, and I took refuge in the contrived setting of play acting, which is what I still do.”

“I have a job that requires me to be in the public eye in the way that makes me extra careful about sharing information.”

“I feel equal parts lucky and scared anytime I get a job.”

“The happiest moments for me, creatively, are doing readings of a play around a table where there's no audience.”

“The movies that are really big, at least in my experience, oftentimes don't have characters that I feel as personally connected to.”

“Acting forces me to socialise, which is good for me, I think.”

“I've never had tastes of people my own age. All of my friends when I was 15 were in their 40s. I'm not actually mature, just very self-conscious around people my own age because I feel like I'm supposed to act the same way they act and I don't know how.”

“I know some amazing actors who are not mortified every moment of the day, so my feeling is that maybe you don't have to be a wreck to be good.”

“In acting class, you're trained to express yourself as much as you can.”