Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in “Café Society”; Sabrina Lantos/Lionsgate (NEW YORK) — You might say Jesse Eisenberg is a workaholic. And, it appears, you’d be right.
“If I don’t have about ten things on the stove, then I’m worried that nine of them might not happen,” Eisenberg told ABC News in an interview with correspondent Alex Marquardt.
Eisenberg has enjoyed a busy and varied career as an actor, playwright, author and comedian. Best known for roles such as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network and, more recently, super villain Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, he’s also written numerous short stories and four plays.
Right now, Eisenberg’s in London because of his play The Spoils, which is enjoying its second run at Trafalgar Studios.
“I wrote it based on a fictionalized version of a relationship I have with a young man in Nepal,” Eisenberg said. It touches on issues of race, immigration and xenophobia, all through the lens of comedy. During the interview, Eisenberg also casually mentioned the 6,000-word essay he’d written that morning for Tablet magazine.
Growing up in a Jewish family in New York and studying anthropology in college triggered Eisenberg’s interest in the mixing of cultures. “I associate myself with the plight of immigrants in a country that was not necessarily thrilled to have them,” Eisenberg said.
It was partly this interest that led Eisenberg to take part in Café Society, directed by Woody Allen. The movie, which opened this year’s Cannes Film Festival, is about the experiences of the Jewish diaspora in 1930s New York City.
Eisenberg says he greatly admires Allen for his work ethic. “I’ve never met somebody who dwells less on themselves and more on their work. I’m in an industry that by virtue of there being some kind of vanity attached to the whole thing people become kind of solipsistic, and he seems to do the opposite.”
Eisenberg describes Café Society as “colorful, extravagant, beautiful, funny,” a combination of “sweet romance” and an “important, interesting anthropological document.”
Café Society is set for a limited U.S. release July 15, going into wide release July 29.
Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
