Jesse Eisenberg Interview, Adventureland

It’s a mad, mad world of Whack-A-Mole, Root Beer Pong and Horse Derby, but for James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), the sweet, smart but strung-a-bit-too-tightly hero of “Adventureland,” his mortifying summer job at Adventureland amusement park is about to become a full-scale initiation into the sublime oddities and wonders of adult life. For even as he is propelled through a gauntlet of paltry paychecks, awkward situations, public humiliations and young lust, James gets an exhilarating first taste of true love that will give him something to believe in and finally kick his adulthood into high gear.

Jesse Eisenberg was most recently seen in Richard Shepard’s “The Hunting Party,” starring opposite Richard Gere and Terrence Howard. He also starred opposite Jason Ritter, Chris Marquette and Evan Amurri in Fred Durst’s “The Education of Charlie Banks,” which premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and won the “Made in NY” award. Eisenberg gained recognition for his role in “The Squid and the Whale,” in which he starred opposite Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels. His other credits include “Rodger Dodger,” in which he starred opposite Isabella Rossellini, Campbell Scott, Elizabeth Berkley and Jennifer Beals.

MoviesOnline sat down recently with Eisenberg to talk about his new movie, “Adventureland,” the semi-autobiographical comedy about an uptight, overeducated young man whose lowly new “career” leads to the wildest ride of his life. Written and directed by Greg Mottola (“Superbad”), “Adventureland” also stars Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader.

Eisenberg gives James Brennan, lit major turned Horse Derby operator, a mix of awkward fretfulness and erudite charm that evokes both his stuck position in life and his underlying romanticism. The role was a perfect match for the rising young actor who garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his breakout role as a kid trapped in the middle of his parents’ separation in Noah Baumbach’s “The Squid and the Whale.”

Jesse is a super nice, bright guy with a wonderful comedic gift who turns in a very different and original performance in “Adventureland.” We really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about his new movie:

Q: Can you talk about playing the director, as it were? It's his life and his story. Is that an extra responsibility?

Jesse Eisenberg: I mean, it was fictionalized a little bit, but no. If anything, it was wonderful and nice to have him there to discuss all the situations and it just meant that the script had a more personal quality to it. You could tell by reading it once that it came from something more real than most scripts that you read. It felt more authentic, all the characters did.

Q: Did Greg [Mottola] have any mannerisms that you tried to pick up on at any point?

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah. Greg is extremely, extremely earnest, extremely careful about what he says. It's all in the script. It's self-explanatory. If you read the script, you'd probably know something about him even before you met him. But that all came from him, his over explaining and his over sincerity.

Q: Did you feel any pressure playing a real person?

Jesse Eisenberg: A little bit. I feel more pressure myself because I also feel similar to the character. The pressure with that, I feel, is that you have more of a hyper awareness of what you're doing if the character feels very personal to you. I feel that you just personally have a greater sense that if something doesn't feel exactly right or accurate or honest you're much more aware of that. Whereas if the character is something that you don't have any basis for, then nothing feels terribly wrong.

Q: You've done this before with 'The Squid and the Whale'.

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, but that guy, that character was kind of this arrogant, petulant kid.

Q: But it was based on the director, too, right?

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, it was based on the director. It came more easily to me because I don't feel like that. He's kind of an arrogant, obnoxious kid and so that felt like I wasn't as aware of what felt right or wrong.

Q: Is there anything movie wise, pop culture wise, music wise from the 1980's that you gravitate towards or love?

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, I've loved Lou Reed for a while before the movie. I was so happy to see that he would be included in the movie, in the music and in the script obviously because it's a part of the plot, but yeah, not much else from the movie. I didn't really know so much of the music, but Greg had made us some mix CD's of the music and I loved all the one's that the characters were supposed to like.

Q: Did this feel like a period piece to shoot?

Jesse Eisenberg: It had a quality of that, but I think that even if it was made now it would still have this kind of nostalgic quality. Maybe that's because it was being made by someone who lived through it, even if you set it in the now. It had a nostalgic quality, but again I think that just exists because of the tone of the movie and not necessarily even because of the period.

Q: Were there any character traits with which you particularly empathized?

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, what I was saying before, I always feel like I say something stupid and then I have to explain to somebody what I meant. That constant thing.

Q: What makes you want to be involved in a film after you read the script?

Jesse Eisenberg: Well, usually if they choose me to be in it.

Q: Have you ever had an unusual job outside of acting or have you always been acting?

Jesse Eisenberg: I've had unusual acting jobs. I did musicals when I was fourteen which is the strangest possible thing that you could do and disappointing to fathers [laughs]. But nothing really eccentric.

Q: What was the most fun scene you shot with Kristen [Stewart]?

Jesse Eisenberg: We got to go on the bumpers, but I feel like I'm just supposed to say that. It wasn't fun at all. It just seemed like something you say in an interview.

Q: Is acting in bumper cars different from acting on dry land?

Jesse Eisenberg: It is. It's terrible because really the 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 the moments. Of course there's no easy way to act that and then they re-cut it that we go on the bumper cars because we ate pot cookies. But in the original script it wasn't at that point and I thought it would have been a little funnier if we were supposed to be stoned to be driving extremely cautious. Just paranoid about where you're going. But it was in the script in a different order and they do that all the time.

Q: When you weren't shooting did you get to play around on the rides at the theme park?

Jesse Eisenberg: No. Insurance didn't allow it. I don't even know what my whole mind is turning into right now. It's like those snakes that eat themselves. We didn't go on any of the rides until it ended for fear of us dying.

Q: Kristen said that you rode the roller coaster at the end of the shoot like fifteen times.

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah. They just let it go and go and go. It was fun.

“Adventureland” opens in theaters on April 3rd. Eisenberg will be seen next in Brian Koppelman & David Levien’s “Solitary Man,” George VanBuskirk’s “Camp Hope”, and Kevin Tyler Asch’s “Holy Rollers” which are in post production. He is currently filming “Zombieland” directed by Ruben Fleischer.