As an actor, you are in a unique position because you're not only memorizing dialogue but really embodying it. You naturally feel the rhythm of good writing.
Jesse Eisenberg
Mother Teresa was asked what was the meaning of life, and she said to help other people, and I thought, 'What a strange thing to say' - but maybe it's the right thing to say.
The only way to be turned off to being famous is to be famous.
I'm not into music - the only music I like is musical theater, but I have every Ween album.
I made the mistake of writing something very, very short about Obama for this website that I write fiction for, and my father told me never do that again. And he was right. I have nothing to add to a political conversation because it's not my area.
I guess the more serious you play something, if the context is funny, then it will be funny and it doesn't really require you to be necessarily, explicitly humorous, or silly.
I did children's theater when I was younger, and then when I was about 14 I started doing theater in New York City.
All of my pleasures are guilty, but that's just the way I'm wired.
People ask me what my hobbies are in interviews, and I always say biking. But all I bike for is to get to rehearsal more quickly.
When you're acting in a movie, you never consider the reception of it. It's impossible to predict how something will be received. Even if you think it's the greatest thing in the world, other people might not like it. Or agree with it.
As an actor, if I show up late somewhere or I say something that's eccentric, it's totally acceptable - not only that, it's lauded in some perverse way.
I grew up in a secular suburban Jewish household where we only observed the religion on very specific times like a funeral or a Bar Mitzvah.
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.'
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 personally don't feel the need to be radical for its own sake, but I probably couldn't if I tried anyway.
My feeling is... when you show up to a movie set where there's, like, 50 people standing around and months of preparation gone into it, you want to be as prepared as possible, so you should make a million baguettes. That might not actually help in any explicit way, but it'll make you feel more prepared.
People think, 'You're an actor, you can afford clothes,' but I just try to take the clothes from the movie, which makes the selecting of film projects that much more difficult, because you try to play characters that might wear something you'd want to wear.
I often think if you have time to sit around the house feeling bad for yourself, you have time to tutor a child. I'm guilty of that exact thing. I will spend more time sitting around feeling bad for myself than actually helping somebody.
I write plays instinctively. I don't like writing movie scripts.
When you take on a role, even if the character is somebody that you are dissimilar to, you have to identify with the role and look for an emotional connection even if there is not a biographical one.
In 'Zombieland,' it was such a freewheeling plot it almost didn't matter what the characters were doing scene to scene as long as there was a consistent banter.
In New York, everybody is their own celebrity, so they're not so interested in other people.
Nothing is harder than working with an actor who doesn't take it seriously or show up in the same way that you are.
Everyone's a geek in some way or other. Everyone's an outsider.
When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you're given a prescribed way of behaving. So, both Facebook and theatre provide contrived settings that provide the illusion of social interaction.
I can't watch myself in interviews. I feel like I look like a wreck. My mom is always calling me and going, 'Stop fidgeting,' and it's like, 'You have no idea what it's like, Mom.'
I grew up in Queens and New Jersey. I started doing children's theater when I was seven to get out of school because I didn't fit in.
The scariest people to turn a movie over to are always the people who are drawing up the poster, because that's the first impression it's going to make. And very often it's portraying a very different film from the one the actors actually did.
I cried every day of first grade. In class. Which meant I ended up getting comfortable emoting in a place where it wasn't the norm.
I think the most important thing for an actor is reading the script and trying to figure out if you can play that character well. The last thing on my mind is if the director made good movies previously. It's not my job to know if that director's last movie was any good - it's my job to know if I can play the role.
If you went to Harvard Medical School, chances are you'll be a doctor at some place. There's a career trajectory. Acting, there's nothing. It's constantly trying to procure jobs - it's very disconcerting.
I live in New York City, so there's so much stimulation when you walk outside, it does not require a television in the home.
I 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.
As for environmentalism, I'm only an environmentalist by accident. I live in New York, so I bike, and the closest grocery store to me sells organic produce. I also shop with a book bag because I ride a bike, and it's hard to carry the paper or plastic bags.
It's so nerve-wracking to be on a set. They're the most stressful place in the world, because you're making something permanent, and there are so many people relying on you in a lot of ways.
The movies that are really big, at least in my experience, oftentimes don't have characters that I feel as personally connected to.
To criticize Facebook is to criticize the telephone.
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 don't watch the movies I'm in - ever. Sometimes I keep pictures, but that's it. I used to watch my movies, because I didn't want to be rude to the people making them, but I stopped a few years ago. I think it's pretty common among actors. It's like listening to your own voice, but multiplied by a million.
I don't understand capri pants. They seem like neither here nor there.
I am actually going to two therapists right now. I don't know, I actually feel like therapy has just made me more uncomfortable.
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.
I write plays, and I have a musical that's starting to get produced now. That's what I would love to do, but it's so hard. The only reason people are reading my plays and musicals is because I'm in movies.
Every character I play has to be the hero of his own story, the way we're all heroes of our own lives.
Look, I don't have a Facebook page because I have little interest in hearing myself talk about myself any further than I already do in interviews or putting any more about myself online than there already is. But if I wasn't in this position, I'm sure I would use it every day.
And I'm sure after Facebook it will be the little cameras that we have implanted into the palms of our hands and we'll be debating whether we should get them, and then we'll all get them.
Society will decide after the technology is created what we will and won't accept.
The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can't scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded.
There's something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it's taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I've been in silly popcorn movies - the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about - but those movies reach many more people.
As an actor, you try to bring as much of yourself to a part to try and create a feeling of authenticity and emotional truth and resonance.
