Jesse Eisenberg's Quotes

I grew up in an apolitical household. I never left the country. When I became an adult, I started traveling and became interested in politics, and I probably talked about things in a silly, ignorant way.

I guess the more serious you play something, if the context is funny, then it will be funny and it doesn't really require you to be necessarily, explicitly humorous, or silly.

I hate watching me. I hate watching me. It just makes me feel awful. I think, 'I look stupid from that angle. I wish I didn't let them put that shirt on me.'

I meet people who are in movies, and the stuff that they write is terrible, but nobody tells them that because they're famous. So I worry that my stuff might be like that, too.

I often think if you have time to sit around the house feeling bad for yourself, you have time to tutor a child. I'm guilty of that exact thing. I will spend more time sitting around feeling bad for myself than actually helping somebody.

I tend to be pessimistic about everything: If things seem to be going good, I'm worried that it's going to end; if things are bad, then I'm worried that it's going to be permanent. It's not a very comfortable attitude to have all the time.

I think it's my nature to - every time I hear about an award or a nomination, it makes me realize how much I must've been losing before, because I was not aware that every major city had these critics' awards.

I write plays, and I have a musical that's starting to get produced now. That's what I would love to do, but it's so hard. The only reason people are reading my plays and musicals is because I'm in movies.

I've never had tastes of people my own age. All of my friends when I was 15 were in their 40s. I'm not actually mature, just very self-conscious around people my own age because I feel like I'm supposed to act the same way they act and I don't know how.

If you look at the movies that come out, most of them are bad, so it's not as if achieving some level of success means you get offered better roles, because frankly they don't seem to exist.

If you went to Harvard Medical School, chances are you'll be a doctor at some place. There's a career trajectory. Acting, there's nothing. It's constantly trying to procure jobs - it's very disconcerting.

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.

It's so nerve-wracking to be on a set. They're the most stressful place in the world, because you're making something permanent, and there are so many people relying on you in a lot of ways.

Mother Teresa was asked what was the meaning of life, and she said to help other people, and I thought, 'What a strange thing to say' - but maybe it's the right thing to say.

People think, 'You're an actor, you can afford clothes,' but I just try to take the clothes from the movie, which makes the selecting of film projects that much more difficult, because you try to play characters that might wear something you'd want to wear.

The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can't scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded.

The scariest people to turn a movie over to are always the people who are drawing up the poster, because that's the first impression it's going to make. And very often it's portraying a very different film from the one the actors actually did.

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.

When cellphones came out, my girlfriend refused to get one for five years, because she thought it would turn her into somebody who couldn't connect with other people - and, of course, she got a cellphone.

When you are in a live-action movie, you have so many more options to express yourself. You can use your body and your gestures and facial expressions. When you are doing an animated movie, you really only have your voice.

When you do a play, you have the kind of nightly feeling of accomplishment. But you also have the daily dread of the doing it every night. And because you're doing the whole thing every day, it's like climbing up the mountain every single night. With a movie it's like climbing the mountain very slowly, over months of filming.

When you take on a role, even if the character is somebody that you are dissimilar to, you have to identify with the role and look for an emotional connection even if there is not a biographical one.

When you're acting in a movie, you never consider the reception of it. It's impossible to predict how something will be received. Even if you think it's the greatest thing in the world, other people might not like it. Or agree with it.

Look, I don't have a Facebook page because I have little interest in hearing myself talk about myself any further than I already do in interviews or putting any more about myself online than there already is. But if I wasn't in this position, I'm sure I would use it every day.

When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you're given a prescribed way of behaving. So, both Facebook and theatre provide contrived settings that provide the illusion of social interaction.

I am actually going to two therapists right now. I don't know, I actually feel like therapy has just made me more uncomfortable.

Acting forces me to socialise, which is good for me, I think.

All of my pleasures are guilty, but that's just the way I'm wired.

As an actor, you have to be open to doing things where you look stupid, to be experimental.

As an actor, you try to bring as much of yourself to a part to try and create a feeling of authenticity and emotional truth and resonance.

Depression, if it's an unconsciously elected experience, is a luxury.

Every character I play has to be the hero of his own story, the way we're all heroes of our own lives.

Everyone's a geek in some way or other. Everyone's an outsider.

I cried every day of first grade. In class. Which meant I ended up getting comfortable emoting in a place where it wasn't the norm.

I did children's theater when I was younger, and then when I was about 14 I started doing theater in New York City.

I don't attribute an actor's great success to their own individual performance when it's something as collaborative as a movie.

I don't follow sports that much now, but I was a Phoenix Suns fanatic in the early '90s.

I don't go to movies, I don't own a television, I don't buy magazines and I try not to receive mail, so I'm not really aware of popular culture.

I don't understand capri pants. They seem like neither here nor there.

I get very homesick, but otherwise it's a great privilege to get to travel for work.

I grew up in a secular suburban Jewish household where we only observed the religion on very specific times like a funeral or a Bar Mitzvah.

I grew up in Queens and New Jersey. I started doing children's theater when I was seven to get out of school because I didn't fit in.

I had great difficulty in school interacting with others, and I took refuge in the contrived setting of play acting, which is what I still do.

I have a job that requires me to be in the public eye in the way that makes me extra careful about sharing information.

I have an iPad and I watch three things: 'The Daily Show,' '60 Minutes,' and 'Meet the Press.'

I have one female fan. But she lives with me. I'm not aware of any others.

I know some amazing actors who are not mortified every moment of the day, so my feeling is that maybe you don't have to be a wreck to be good.

I like driving; I don't drive since I live in New York. I don't have an opportunity to drive, like, ever.