Quotes from Jesse Eisenberg

I find people who want to help other people to be the most interesting. I come from a family of teachers, and my friends are teachers, often times in very difficult school situations.

The truth is people are very nice. The other truth is, it's very annoying to be constantly interrupted. I don't love myself enough to want to share myself with everybody.

I think the most important thing for an actor is reading the script and trying to figure out if you can play that character well. The last thing on my mind is if the director made good movies previously. It's not my job to know if that director's last movie was any good - it's my job to know if I can play the role.

I don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure.

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.

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

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

My feeling is... when you show up to a movie set where there's, like, 50 people standing around and months of preparation gone into it, you want to be as prepared as possible, so you should make a million baguettes. That might not actually help in any explicit way, but it'll make you feel more prepared.

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 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 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 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'm hardly the most notable person in 'Zombieland.' The other actors in it are way more famous than I am.

I don't watch the movies I'm in - ever. Sometimes I keep pictures, but that's it. I used to watch my movies, because I didn't want to be rude to the people making them, but I stopped a few years ago. I think it's pretty common among actors. It's like listening to your own voice, but multiplied by a million.

As for environmentalism, I'm only an environmentalist by accident. I live in New York, so I bike, and the closest grocery store to me sells organic produce. I also shop with a book bag because I ride a bike, and it's hard to carry the paper or plastic bags.

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.

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.

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

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.

I see writing and acting as different parts of the same continuum. Writing is better for intense emotion. If you're very angry about something, you shouldn't present it as strongly when you're acting. But if you're really angry and writing about it, that's the best way to get it out and across.

It's a struggle for me to watch things I've been in because I'm just distracted and self-critical.

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

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

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.'