Jesse Eisenberg explains why he started acting and how he uses his anxiety on screen.
Jesse Eisenberg is probably most known for playing Mark Zuckerberg in the hit movie Social Network and most recently, playing Lex Luthor in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, but did you know Eisenberg suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?
In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Jesse Eisenberg gave intimate details behind his acting process and how why he started acting in the first place. Eisenberg explains that he suffered from anxiety as a kid and struggled through school until he discovered acting, which gave him a more structured way to interact with other kids. That intense anxiety still persists in his life and he revealed he still suffers from OCD, and occasionally insomnia. However, Eisenberg reveals he uses the anxiety to his advantage.
“This is just the nature of my mind mixed with live theatre. But that’s also what makes it really exciting; you know, I discovered that I do my best when I’m worried about something. This is not a very healthy way to live necessarily, but it’s a nice rubric for me to know when I’m doing something that’s worthwhile; that means I get worried about it, it means I’m scared, it means I don’t feel like I’ve perfected it yet.”
When it comes to acting, Eisenberg says he prefers to play the bad guy and that he relates to evil people, because he can relate to them. “I’m not really in a position in my life where people are really horrible to me. I’m a kind of recognizable movie actor so just by virtue of that people seem to be kind of nicer to me,” he said. “Maybe because I don’t have that feeling of being oppressed in some way, maybe that’s why I don’t see people who are seen as oppressors as pure evil, because—I’m not a victim.”
You can read the full interview here.
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