Jesse Eisenberg
Don't be a hero, live to fight another day.Collection: Hero
I think I'm an abstinence symbol. If I take my shirt off, people will not have babies.Collection: Baby
Poor people are gross and they 'smell badCollection: Smell
I think there are probably a lot of actors like me who I think probably struggle to feel comfortable in their own lives, and acting in some ways provides a safe context for them to live out emotions that they possibly repress or live out experiences that they are not afforded by virtue of circumstance.Collection: Struggle
I think there's nothing more wonderful than using fiction to reflect real-world cultural ideas.Collection: Real
The only way to be turned off to being famous is to be famous. And I only have like a tiny, tiny bit of that, and I'm already disgusted by it. But I realize that the only way to be disgusted by fame is to be famous, because otherwise it looks amazing. Then people stop you on the street, and it's like the most annoying thing in the world. The first time it happened it's great, and then the second time you have to shake somebody's hand.Collection: Hands
Often times, being in a popular thing means that you have to compromise your own acting.Collection: Mean
I feel things can always be funny, but that's probably because I have some kind of leftover childhood need to make people laugh. For somebody like me, that's the thing you excel at.Collection: People
My mom always said that she didn't wear a red nose and big shoes because that's the reason people are scared of clowns. My dad is a sociology teacher, so he probably figured that out with her. Those are the things that are exaggerated, that don't give off the signals of humans. You know, if you draw a picture of a circle and ask somebody to feel empathy with the circle, they won't. But if you draw literally two, three dots inside the circle, like two eyes and a nose, you immediately feel empathy.Collection: Mom
I give credence to the worst things somebody writes about me, and if somebody writes something nice, I think they're wrong or false or lying or joking.Collection: Nice
I find it very difficult to do normal things without getting approached.Collection: Normal
The truth is people are very nice. The other truth is, it's very annoying to be constantly interrupted. I don't love myself enough to want to share myself with everybody.Collection: Nice
A lot of times the character's experience is not in accordance with the tone of the movie and it's not really my job to account for the tone of the movie. That's the director's job.Collection: Jobs
Everybody feels like they need a photograph because we're in a generation where, if you don't document it, it didn't occur. So you've got to stop and take a picture with everybody.Collection: Needs
It's a really unique acting opportunity to play two roles who are not only interacting with each other, but vastly different.Collection: Unique
Working in the arts, you see people who come from terrible circumstances and who, for whatever reason, have incredible talent. But of course, with that great talent comes some guilt because, if you come from circumstances that don't encourage it, it can be really confusing.Collection: Art
When you're on set you don't realize the way something is going to look since you're on the other side of the camera.Collection: Cameras
I tend to prefer the smaller movies because they shoot more efficiently and so you're are able to maintain that momentum of the character a little more easily.Collection: Character
It's a very strange experience to watch yourself in a movie anyway. I most frequently don't do it, but if I was going to do it, I would do it in a private way, not at a public screening at a film festival, which is just an overwhelming experience.Collection: Watches
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.Collection: Writing
There are some indications of how the character should behave based on the script, and then as actor makes it his or her own. I got to know one of the writers, Chris Terrio, and we were able to discuss things at length and figure out who this person is to create a real psychology behind what is, perhaps, in a comic book, a less than totally modern psychology. I can only say I've been asked to play an interesting role. A complicated, challenging person.Collection: Real
When you take on a role you try to do as much as possible beforehand to get your mind into it. Just to prepare because it's a daunting prospect to go six months or whatever.Collection: Mind
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.Collection: Acting
Acting is a weird profession. It's very disquieting, and at the time it just made me so confused. It's only when you step away from a movie for several weeks or months that you start to put things in perspective.Collection: Confused
I just can't - I can't exist in normal group situations. A classroom, where you have to sort of jockey for position, compete for attention - I would just withdraw.Collection: Groups
I think I prioritize other people's opinions of me very highly, which is not necessarily a good thing - it's a thing that causes a lot of anxiety.Collection: Thinking
No one should be offended - that's not my style.Collection: Style
If I get no sleep the night before a show, I feel that performance is the best one.Collection: Sleep
I don't watch the movies I've been in. I try to stay as little aware of the final product as possible, because my job doesn't really change.Collection: Jobs
I live in New York City, where, if you're in a movie at a popular independent theater, you think you're king of the world, because you're in a bubble. So there's no way for me to properly conceive of the attention that the movie gets in a way that doesn't make me confused.Collection: Kings
I feel like when I was 13 and I had to go to bar mitzvahs every weekend. This is the same feeling. You have to put on a suit every weekend to go meet with a bunch of Jews.Collection: Weekend
Where I feel something that I had written was misinterpreted in a way that made people feel bad, that is absolutely horrifying to me. I feel so embarrassed and I feel ashamed that I should make people feel bad.Collection: People
I think it's a room full of insecure actors, which is ultimately very comforting.Collection: Insecure
The old cliché in theater is, if you’re nervous, pick up a prop, which will immediately take you outside of your mind.Collection: Mind
In those moments where you're not quite sure if the undead are really dead, dead, don't get all stingy with your bullets. I mean, one more clean shot to the head, and this lady could have avoided becoming a human Happy Meal. Woulda... coulda... shoulda.Collection: Mean
The first rule of Zombieland: Cardio. When the zombie outbreak first hit, the first to go, for obvious reasons ... were the fatties.Collection: Zombie
First rule of magic? Always be the smartest guy in the room.Collection: Guy
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.Collection: Silly
If you're afraid of everything out there, you quit going out there.Collection: Going Out
Actually, acting in bumper cars is terrible, because the really only way to film it and get a close up is to literally mount the camera - this heavy thing on the car and it's just the worst because you can't act at all with a thing on the car.Collection: Car
I've never worked during the summer. I take summers off.Collection: Summer
My hope is to never act again and just do press.Collection: Presses
I view myself in the narrowest possible terms, but I don't watch anything I've been in, and I don't read reviews or analysis of movies I've been in, or my plays.Collection: Views
I'm kind of shocked any time somebody hires me and even more shocked any time somebody hires me to play a character like Lex Luthor, which I only knew from the public consciousness of him being a bald, brooding villain who is older than me.Collection: Character
[As an actor] you're looking to crawl into an anonymous fictional person's skin, but then you have the ironic obligation to promoting the movie in such a public way that it almost undermines the initial intention of going under the radar.Collection: Ironic
Im not on Page Six, because I dont have anything salacious happening in my life unfortunately.Collection: Pages
Devils don't come from hell beneath us, they come from the sky.Collection: Sky
I personally don’t feel the need to be radical for its own sake, but I probably couldn’t if I tried anyway.Collection: Needs
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.Collection: Mistake