Photography By Jared Ryder The only thing even half as big as social networking in 2010 is The Social Network, director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin’s highly anticipated new movie about how Mark Zuckerberg and three other Harvard students founded Facebook in 2004 and developed it into a billion-dollar, life-altering empire. Jesse Eisenberg, who’s best known for The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland, and Zombieland, plays the entrepreneur who changed the way people communicate. A year ago, when Complex featured him in the October/November “My Complex” page, the soft-spoken 26-year-old stage and screen actor expressed uneasiness with being recognized, doing publicity, and talking about himself. As he’s on the brink of really blowing up and having to wear shades and cap everywhere he goes, those thoughts resonate now more than ever. Keep reading for Jesse Eisenberg’s inner contradictions…
#1: I go to The New School [in NYC]. With acting, you work for two months somewhere, then it’s over and you have nothing to do. You just get complacent and bored, so night school is a great outlet. Some people recognize me… But I never talk about it. If people ask me what I do, I’ll never say it because I want it to be a separate thing.
#2: The only associations I have with California are going there for work or an audition. It’s always a stressful experience, so I have troubled associations with it… But luckily, I don’t go there that often. The movies don’t really film there anymore because the taxes are absurd, so they film almost everywhere except for California now.
#3: The one thing I don’t like about movies is publicity. I don’t like talking about myself… But with theater there’s a lot less publicity. It’s a quieter way to be creative. Movies are the loudest thing to do. But you can’t make a living in theater. The last Broadway play I did was an amazing play and we were all making like $300 a week.
#4: I wrote an entire song with [Apple’s] GarageBand. You could do so much and it sounds so good because the technology is so advanced… But it’s like that with movies, too. Movies used to be made by very few people, and now everyone can make movies on their little camera. Ultimately, it’s better—it makes it more democratic.
(via complex)#5: I really don’t get cast often enough to get typecast. If you’re in things you like doing, what’s the difference?… But if somebody has a problem with that, that’s their own thing. I’ve just gotten lucky to be in good things. I don’t think about the role I’m playing as much as feeling like I’m involved in something that’s worthwhile.
