From meeting his cousin, a Holocaust survivor, to acting in "Vivarium," actor Jesse Eisenberg talks 4 moments that changed his life.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Yeah, it was a very important moment in my life.
00:02Do people need to know about that?
00:03Sure.
00:04Okay, why not?
00:05Maybe they can think about an important moment
00:07that they've had in their lives.
00:17Before that, I didn't do anything.
00:20I was just sitting in a stomach of a small woman in Queens.
00:24She was carrying me around.
00:26She was tired.
00:27She had a craving for dirt and pickles.
00:31She's mentioned it over the years, but usually with anger.
00:35Like, do you know what I did?
00:36I gave birth to you.
00:37You're never going to understand how painful that is.
00:40I hope one day you find a way to give birth
00:43so you understand the pain I went through for you to be here.
00:46I imagine she resents me for doing such damage, you know.
00:54Really, my first act was one of great violence.
00:57And then the next day, I was suddenly here.
01:00I had my own food.
01:01I had a name.
01:03People didn't like me.
01:03I had a sister.
01:04She didn't like me.
01:05He's taking my attention.
01:06My father feels unconsciously competitive.
01:08Here's this new man in the house I have to compete with.
01:10So I would say that was the biggest difference for me.
01:17You know, you don't want to pry with somebody
01:18who survives a genocide.
01:20You know, it's not exactly like you don't open with that.
01:22But, you know, I knew her story from my family, you know,
01:27and it's just an unbelievable story.
01:28My goal with her was not to try to, you know,
01:31hear the details of a trauma that she probably
01:34doesn't want to dredge up.
01:35My goal with her was to try to have a connection with somebody
01:38who deserves a connection.
01:41Like a lot of Jewish Americans, you know,
01:43you have some, like, vague notions about what
01:46happened during the war.
01:48And I say vague because, you know,
01:52you feel more American than you feel, you know, European,
01:54obviously, even if your roots are from Europe.
01:56It's because American Jews assimilate so well.
01:59And, you know, that's important for them to assimilate, rather.
02:03And so a lot of people, you know, at that age,
02:06I was 22 or 23 or something, you know,
02:08you kind of get curious about your past.
02:10And if you have any link to your past, like in my case,
02:13I have a cousin, you explore it partly
02:19because of the fascination and narcissism,
02:22looking at where do I come from, who am I,
02:25but also partly out of a feeling of sympathy
02:28for what happened, you know.
02:30And for those who are still living
02:33and who've been through horrific trauma,
02:36you want to try to, you know, you have sympathy for
02:38and you want to try to, in some ways,
02:41make their lives feel nice or connected,
02:42which is what I wanted to do.
02:48I met my wife, like, 18 years ago.
02:50And she had been working at the shelter since she's a kid
02:53because her mother ran the Middleway House.
02:55It's a great domestic violence shelter.
02:57I tried to, like, you know, if possible,
03:00use my, like, movie fame to help out.
03:05We're doing an event next week to raise money for it in Indiana.
03:10And we raised, like, half a million dollars a few years ago
03:13to pay off the mortgage of the shelter.
03:16So it's great.
03:17I mean, you know, you can feel oftentimes
03:19as somebody in, like, the popular arts
03:23that your work is, like, you know,
03:28is lacking in social value.
03:32And one of the ways to mitigate that discomfort
03:35is to actually do work that you think has social value.
03:40So my wife is, like, involved in all these wonderful causes
03:43since she's born.
03:44And so I'm lucky that I'm in a position
03:48to be able to mitigate my own narcissistic discomfort
03:53any time I want.
03:58Vivarium is, like, a kind of nightmare version
04:01of all of the things we aspire to.
04:04You know, you want to have a family or buy a house
04:08or, you know, have a stable relationship.
04:11And Vivarium is, like, the kind of, you know,
04:15terrifying version of accomplishing those goals.
04:19You know, you buy a house, but it's
04:21in a place that has no character.
04:24In fact, every house is exactly the same.
04:26You have a child, but the child is, like, a parasite,
04:28literally sucking the life out of you.
04:30You have a relationship with a woman,
04:32but she is going through some kind of, like, you know,
04:36Freudian, Oedipal trauma with this boy,
04:39who is kind of trying to turn her against the man.
04:45This movie was made in Europe.
04:47And when you do a movie in Europe,
04:50there are different financial considerations
04:53because it's being produced by, like, the state, you know?
04:59And so they don't have the same requirements for the movie
05:03to make, you know, money back.
05:06When you do an American independent movie,
05:08it's usually paid for by a rich person,
05:11and that rich person wants to get their money back.
05:13That's why they're rich in some ways,
05:15because they have this kind of desire for money.
05:19And so they produce movies that have
05:21some more commercial appeal.
05:23What's great about Vivarium is that it's not a really,
05:27is that it's a really wonderful art film,
05:31and it's a fever dream.
05:32And it's kind of abstract and terrifying, you know,
05:35rather than, you know, kind of a hero's journey.
05:39So maybe it wouldn't be made in America.
05:41I don't know.
05:41I mean, America also makes movies that are good sometimes.
05:45It's like 3,000 movies that come out every week.
05:47I'm sure some of them are fine.