Jesse Eisenberg: the go to geek

Eisenberg plied his trade in quirky indie films and teen comedies before making the A-list for his Oscar-nominated role as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. He has become Hollywood’s go-to intellectual geek, thanks to his rat-a-tat delivery and self-effacing mannerisms.

I meet Eisenberg in the foyer of the off-Broadway theatre where his latest play is mid-run. The Spoils tells the tale of a privileged young film-maker and the awkward, near-abusive relationship he has with his Nepalese flatmate. The critics loved it. Eisenberg doesn’t just play the lead, he wrote the play too. A book of his writings, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, is published next month. This is Jesse Eisenberg the playwright and author I am meeting, not just Eisenberg the film star.

He emerges from backstage, barely noticeable in a grey hoodie, chinos and New Balance trainers — his mop of curls a little shorter and more tamed than usual (he had to shave his hair off to play Lex Luthor).

Eisenberg has a reputation as a prickly interviewee. He has struggled to hide his disdain for the vacuous questions that go hand in hand with Hollywood film promotion. One reporter labelled him a “jerk” in her blog in 2013, claiming he mocked her in a television interview for reading notes written on her hand. A feeding frenzy erupted on social media, with the website Gawker asking “Dick or not a dick? Jesse Eisenberg.” But the man I meet is achingly polite, with a keen interest in me, this newspaper and social issues.

Laid back: Jesse Eisenberg in his dressing room at the New York theatre where he stars in his own play, The Spoils

Chatting to Eisenberg is a bit like wrestling a salmon; you have to keep a tight grip to stop him slipping off in different directions. Once he is focused on a topic that interests him — whether that be the “visceral experience” of acting or his outrage at the shooting of members of a black congregation in a church in South Carolina in June — he lets himself spiral deeper and deeper down an intellectual wormhole. Yet he’s aware that he does this, and seems relieved when I change the subject for him.

He counts off the fingers on one hand, then the other as he speaks, then circles his wrists with his fingers. Many people assume he has obsessive-compulsive disorder. “I probably have it as much as other people,” he says. “I have no diagnosis or anything like that. I speak quickly, so people assume things and end up attributing things to me.”

He’s enjoying success this summer off the back of two hit movies, The End of the Tour, a lyrical tale about the cult writer David Foster Wallace, and American Ultra, a ridiculous comedy with Kristen Stewart about a marijuana-smoking shop assistant who turns out to be a CIA sleeper agent. Eisenberg never watches his own films as he knows he’ll torture himself dwelling on the things he could have done better. At least with the theatre, he always has a chance to improve; to try again until the end of the run.

He shouldn’t worry. Vanessa Redgrave, who starred in his previous play, The Revisionist, has compared him to the poet Shelley. Others like to namecheck Woody Allen, who is usually spotted in the crowd at Eisenberg’s performances.

Eisenberg leads a double life. It is Hollywood that pays his bills and permits him to live in a smart Manhattan apartment, but I suspect the films are just a necessary evil to let him write, and it’s the writing that provides his intellectual stimulus. Yet when I put this to him, he objects. “I love it as much! To play in the Batman movie?! That’s one of the greatest parts I’ll ever play.”

What about the impact of his film success on his plays? Would they have been produced if he didn’t have the big-screen profile? He insists he’d have found a way.

A common theme of his plays is the economic inequality in the world. He likes to parody the blissful ignorance of America’s privileged classes. Yet for someone who hobnobs with the Clintons (he’s backing Hillary in her bid to be president) and gets paid a hefty sum for his film work, this jars slightly.

He acknowledges the hypocrisy of a Hollywood star preaching about poverty. “Maybe in 10 years I won’t write about it any more. Right now, it seems more potent than anything else. My current play has been referred to as a moral play. I didn’t intend it to be that way, but I’m still young, so I have a lot of angry thoughts. I’m sure they’ll start to settle with antidepressants and age.”

His collection of short stories has a different feel to his plays. It reads like half-written material for a stand-up comedy show, or skits for Saturday Night Live. It is all infused with the cadence of old-fashioned New York Jewish humour — stand-ups like Joan Rivers and Jackie Mason formed the cultural staple of Eisenberg’s upbringing in East Brunswick, a commuter town in New Jersey. He started out writing short skits, modelled on Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller films. Their influence shines through in some of the silly stories in the book, such as one positing that Alexander Graham Bell got into a row over a woman in the first ever telephone conversation, or another imagining an encounter with New York Knicks basketball star Carmelo Anthony.

Supervillain: Eisenberg as the devious CEO Lex Luthor, at LexCorp, the ‘Google-type’ conglomerate he runs in his new film Batman v Superman (Capital Pictures )

There’s a string of character portraits, written in the first person, which show off Eisenberg’s flair for writing dialogue. A sequence of stories about a nine-year-old boy writing restaurant reviews after his parents’ divorce is strangely wistful — and may be developed into a television series.

“I like the character a lot — that’s how I felt when I was younger. I didn’t like being a child, but I couldn’t foresee enjoying being an adult. I was worried about everything. I could foresee all the problems I could have by leaving the house. This boy has that kind of foresight, but with a bit more maturity than I had. He’s a child of the modern era. I was a child of the 1980s — I was nowhere near as sharp or savvy as that kid.”

Eisenberg’s childhood in East Brunswick was interrupted by the theatre. He started on Broadway aged 13 when he got a part as an understudy in the Tennessee Williams play Summer and Smoke. He comes from a funny family, he says. Growing up, his mother performed as a clown at birthday parties. His father, a college professor, is also a wit. But he had a desire to escape the white-picket-fenced suburban utopia of home. “I didn’t like the play. I had to do it to get out of school, get to the city. I was a pretty resourceful kid. I had to find a way to have that life. I had sweet, supportive parents who didn’t stand in my way, but I had to find a lot of that on my own.”

His performance in the cult 2002 hit Roger Dodger, filmed when he was 18, gave him a sufficient glimpse of fame for him to drop out of his anthropology degree at the New School in New York City. At the time, he had some comedy-film scripts optioned by big studios, but nothing got off the ground. He has written other film and TV projects that have stalled on the runway — he always pulls the plug after fall-outs over script changes. “I hate it,” he says. “There’s an industry that seems founded on paying people to request lateral moves. I am asked to make dozens of lateral moves — lateral in terms of quality — to appease a system that perpetuates itself. I know I sound like a cynical old person, but it’s true.

“In theatre, it doesn’t work that way. The writer is given the tools, the resources — not financial, but time and actors — to make the changes he or she wants to make. Then the play is produced from the vision of the writer. Then it’s performed by actors, who are usually wonderful.

“Anyone working in the theatre is dedicated; they don’t get paid as much [as film actors]. And the actors don’t change lines. It’s ideal. The next movie I am doing is a Woody Allen movie. Aside from Woody Allen, nobody can make movies like that.”

When he’s not writing or working on a play or a film, he’s hanging out with his Australian actress girlfriend, Mia Wasikowska. They met in 2012 on the set of British comic Richard Ayoade’s film The Double. Isn’t it time he popped the question?

“I can’t say! Not in an interview. Nobody cares about that!”

Yes they do.

“I wish they would stop.”

They seem to do a good job of outrunning the paparazzi. Barring occasional shots of them holding hands in a park or coffee bar, they only seem to be pictured together passing through airports. Eisenberg says it’s unusual for him to be hassled in the street. “My life is not scrutinised. If anything, I get to reap the benefits of having more exposure for something that would normally have less exposure, like doing this play. I ride a bicycle — it’s pretty hard to stop someone on a bicycle. In an urban setting like New York, I can live my life. The thing people care least about here is stopping. Who is going to stop on the sidewalk in New York City, when everyone is permanently late for something?” At which point he slips out unnoticed onto the crowded street.

Raw fish, raw deal

In an extract from his book of short stories, Jesse Eisenberg’s character, a “Privileged Nine-Year-Old”, reviews a sushi restaurant

Last night, Mom took me to Sushi Nozawa. I had to leave in the middle of my favourite show because Mom said we would be late for our reservation and that I didn’t know who she had to blow on to get the reservation.

At the front of Sushi Nozawa is a mean woman. When I asked Mom why the woman is so angry, Mom said it’s because she’s Japanese and that it’s cultural. The woman at school who serves lunch is also mean, but she is not Japanese. Maybe it’s just serving food that makes people angry.

Sushi Nozawa does not have any menus, which Mom said made it fancy. The sushi chef is very serious and he stands behind a counter and serves the people whatever he wants. He is also mean.

The first thing they brought us was a rolled-up wet wash-cloth, which I unrolled and put on my lap because Mom always said that the first thing I have to do in a nice restaurant is put the napkin in my lap. But this napkin was hot and wet and made me feel like I peed my pants. Mom got angry and asked me if I was stupid.

The mean woman then brought a little bowl of mashed-up red fish bodies in a brown sauce and said that it was tuna fish, which I guess was a lie because it didn’t taste like tuna and made me want to puke right there at the table. But Mom said that I had to eat it because Sushi Nozawa was “famous for their tuna”. At school, there is a kid named Billy who everyone secretly calls Billy the Bully and who puts toothpaste on the teacher’s chair before she comes into the classroom. He is also famous.

Mom said they have eggs so I asked for two eggs, but when the mean woman brought them, they didn’t look like eggs; they looked like dirty sponges and I spit it out on the table in front of Mom, who slammed her hands on the table and so I got scared and Mom yelled at me, saying that the only reason she took me to the restaurant is so that Dad would pay for it.

Mom said that I had to eat it because Sushi Nozawa was “famous for their tuna”. At school, there is a kid named Billy the Bully who is also famous

The mean woman brought me and Mom little plates of more gross fish bodies on rice. I asked Mom to take off the fish part so I could eat the rice. I like rice because Mom said it’s like Japanese bread but it has no crusts, which is good because I don’t eat crusts anyway.

When the woman brought the bill, Mom smiled at her and said thank you, which was a lie, because Mom hates it when people bring her the bill. When Mom and Dad were married, Mom would always pretend like she was going to pay, and when Dad took the bill, which he always did, she said more lies like: “Are you sure? OK, wow, thanks, honey.”

Now that Dad doesn’t eat with us any more, maybe I should pretend to take the bill from Mom and say a lie like, “Oh, really? OK, thanks, Mom,” but I don’t.

The mean woman took the bill back without saying thank you. She is definitely angry. I understand why the people who work here are so angry. I guess it’s like working at a gas station, but instead of cars, they have to fill up people. And people eat slowly and talk about their stupid lives at the table and make each other laugh, but when the waiters come by, the people at the table stop laughing and become quiet like they don’t want to let anyone else know about their great jokes.

And if the waiters talk about their own lives, they’re not allowed to talk about how bad it is, only how good it is, like, “I’m doing great, how are you?” And if they say something truthful like, “I’m doing terrible, I’m a waiter here,” they will probably get fired and then they will be even worse. So it’s probably always a good idea to talk about things happily. But sometimes that’s impossible. That’s why I’m giving Sushi Nozawa 16 out of 2000 stars.

Jesse Eisenberg 2015 Extracted from Bream Gives Me Hiccups and Other Stories, published by Grove Press on September 10 at £14.99. To buy it at the ST bookshop price of £13.49, inc. p&p, tel 0845 271 2135 or visit thesundaytimes.co.uk/bookshop