Todd Hubler
Jesse Eisenberg — the actor best known for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network — is coming to Madison.
As a late-breaking entry to the Wisconsin Book Festival, the actor/playwright/humorist will read from his collection of essays, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, on Oct. 28. Eisenberg’s odd and touching pieces have been appearing in The New Yorker and McSweeney’s for several years. He experiments with form, to hilarious effect, often writing in dialogue or experimenting with twisted versions of history.
In addition to writing three off-Broadway plays, Eisenberg has acted in such noteworthy films as The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland and Zombieland. He plays a super-villain son of Lex Luthor in the 2016 Batman vs. Superman flick.
Eisenberg, who was born in Queens, N.Y., and grew up in New Jersey, is in the middle of shooting a Woody Allen film (untitled). He took time out of his weekend to speak to Isthmus.
What Sunday morning ritual did I take you away from?
I’m reading Purity, by Jonathan Franzen. It’s good. It’s taking my life away.
Some people are surprised to hear you write as well as act. Do you feel pulled more in one direction than the other?
I don’t see them as different. Woody Allen asks us in every scene to make up dialogue, not because he hasn’t written it, but because he likes to shoot scenes in a way that has the actors fill up spaces. These are overlapping things. If I was mining ore during the day I could see the transition to writing would be different. But it’s like mining ore during the day and copper at night.
How did you come up with the idea for the essays that start your book: “Restaurant Reviews from a Privileged Nine-Year-Old”?
My girlfriend and I went to a fancy restaurant for our anniversary, and sitting at the table nearby was a mother with some kids, one of which one was hers. The daughter kept asking the mom, ‘Do I like hamachi? Do I like tamago?’ I thought it was strange to see a child in this fancy environment, and I thought it would be funny to write a restaurant review from the perspective of a rich kid. When I started to write, it became populated with sad ideas.
You are really good at getting inside the heads of young people.
Yes, I don’t have a real job, so I’m expected to go to a set and, if possible, act like a child. The younger I behave the more wanted I am. I am unconsciously and purposely suppressing any emotional growth. I can write young people because that’s how I am trained and encouraged to think.
TheaterMania said you are an “acute chronicler of millennial misery.” Do millennials have a special type of misery?
Well, probably all generations have misery, but what’s funny about this generation is that especially for the privileged, misery is increasingly unfounded and unwarranted. My grandparents were all Eastern European immigrants, so I’m paraphrasing Woody Allen: “My grandmother didn’t have any time to be depressed; she was too busy being raped by Cossacks.” We have the luxury to be self-involved. In the plays I write, the characters are desperate and miserable, but it’s entirely optional.
You’re really good at writing and playing jerks. When did that start?
I was cast in some roles that allowed me to play characters that were not nice. Then the floodgates opened because I realized that it was more interesting to do that. The character I play in the Batman movie is the pinnacle of playing a not-nice person.
Why do you like to write in dialogue?
I love writing in the first person because it’s similar to how I think as an actor. You’re kind of exploring hidden motivations and ulterior motives. With first-person narrative you can really take that to a comedic extreme, characters that are neurotic to the point of ugliness.
In “An Email Exchange with My First Girlfriend, Which at a Certain Point Is Taken Over by my Older Sister, a College Student Studying the Bosnian Genocide,” a banal conversation gets hijacked. How did that evolve?
I like to use modern forms of communication. The way we communicate now can be seen as so silly: My dad has a Ph.D. and uses the letter “u” for “you.” You necessarily become juvenile, even if you are a person of substance. I am very interested in the war in Bosnia, and I use my interest in that to juxtapose it with a juvenile relationship — and it creates a funny dynamic.
Do you have certain essays that you like to read aloud on your book tour?
Oh, there’s one that I think works for Madison: “A Post-Gender-Normative Man Tries to Pick Up a Woman at a Bar.”
Jesse Eisenberg will read from Bream Gives Me Hiccups on Wed., Oct. 28, at 7:30 pm on the third floor of the Central Library.
