On the Scene w/Jesse Eisenberg

Hi, how are you

Hi, Chrissy. Yes. We actually spoke for a minute, you know. I know

Yes, you do, yes. Yes. How are you? I'm good, thank you so much

How are you? Good. Congratulations on the movie. Thank you. Very exciting

I remember we talked and you mentioned writing characters that you wanted to play. Yeah. So, tell me a little bit about the inspiration for this particular story

Yes, in this movie I wrote two characters that I wanted to play. I wanted to play the character I play in the movie, and I really wanted to play Kieran's

character, and as people will see in the movie, my character is the less challenging one

Kieran's really kind of runs the gamut between emotions, anger, and everything, and he's

so brilliant in the movie, and I thank my lucky stars I didn't play it, because he's

better than I would have been. But my goal is to basically write characters that I think actors would all like, because

as an actor the worst thing you feel is when you go onto a set and you have nothing to do

So, I wrote the ensemble in this movie of the tour group that goes on this Holocaust tour, and they all have something that they're there for

It's all different and varied. There's a character who's based on my friend, who is a Rwandan genocide survivor who converted

to Judaism and went on this tour. That's based on one of my good friends, Alois, who actually converted to Judaism from Rwanda

and went on this tour. And so, all the ensemble, and that's just the nature of I think writing with a background

as an actor. Right. Yeah. Now that you're wearing so many hats, do you have a favorite

Do you have a job that you really love the most as far as writing, directing

When I'm doing a job that's going well, it's my favorite thing. So I've been struggling with my new screenplay for like a year, and I finally finished it

and that last slide down the mountain of the last half of it is the most exhilarating feeling

in the world. But then you're on a set, and maybe you're not feeling it as an actor, and that feels

awful, and then you get a scene and it feels magical, and you feel like you transcended whatever idea that you had pre-planned, and that's also the greatest feeling in the world

And directing, when I'm watching an actor like Kieran through the monitor, I can't think

of a more exhilarating feeling than that, too. That's a perfect answer. Thank you. Congrats again

Good to see you.