I've always liked Jesse Eisenberg. The guy oozes intelligence just in the way the guy speaks. After the interview I realized that it's not just outstanding acting, the guy is actually really smart.
I am an actor so I know the difference between a scene that't actable and a scene that is well written. Those are two different things. Of course, the best kind of scenes overlap and have both. But oftentimes there will be a scene that's really well written, or a play that's very poetic and interesting, but totally unactable. There's no way to get behind the psychology of the illusion of the creation of the character on the page.He carves up the world into categories the way every smart person I've ever met would.
Jesse on Donald Trump:
I'm impressed by his flow in public speaking. It's a hard thing to do. He's able to speak in public in a way that feels natural, irrespective of the content, and that's really important. What I do as an actor is try to make fictional things seem real and natural. So I understand the difficulting with the nuance in that. Politicians can do it really well, and he does it well.Jesse on work ethic:
As a Jewish person who feels like, "well I could have assimilated into the white hegemonic culture, and be totally comfortable, and go out to the hamptons and go golfing, I don't want to do that. Because I feel like I will, to quote Woody Allen, "Ripen and then Rot."How does he keep himself from growing to comfortable and assimiliating into the "white hegemonic culture?
Making myself miserable occasionally. We don't go to country clubs, my family doesn't even go on vacation. It's just not in us to go to a place that's warm and sit down for a day. It would never occur to us.Ezra Klein observes that Jesse absorbs the world cerebrally, and it really shows in the interview. Listen to the whole thing.
