Jesse Eisenberg put his health ‘on the line’ filming new thriller The Hummingbird Project
by George GriffithsMonday
14 Oct 2019 1:29 pm
Jesse Eisenberg is well known for starring as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2010 critical darling The Social Network, but his new film The Hummingbird Project tackles a different kind of technology; the high-stakes world of wire fraud in Wall Street. In the film (directed by Oscar nominated auteur Kim Nguyen), Eisenberg stars as Vincent, a Russian-American immigrant sucked into a world where the pressure is high, but the rewards are even greater. For Vincent, his ambition and determination to ascend up the corporate ladder and the class system is a driving factor for his actions, which spiral increasingly out of control, something which Eisenberg relates to.
‘I think we all at times can relate to what it feels like to be so invested in a particular project that it can ruin your life,’ the Oscar nominated star reveals exclusively to Metro.co.uk. It turns out, striving for success and compromising yourself and your life is something the actor is also well-versed in. ‘I don’t have as much interest in money [as Vincent],’ the Zombieland star says. ‘It sounds pathetic but when I’m working, I write these plays and then perform them and I become so myopic I compromise my own health. I can understand certainly what it feels like to immerse oneself into a project at the expense of everything else.’
The actor – who has worked with the likes of Kristen Stewart and Emma Stone – was convinced to take the role due to seeing similarities (and contradictions) in him and the character. ‘[Director Nguyen] was willing to hear my take on what it means to be an American, what it means to come from a Russian immigrant family, which I do,’ he says. ‘To understand the ambition and greed that feels particularly American.’ There’s also an eerie parallel between Vincent in The Hummingbird Project and Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network; both are men who try to manipulate technology to their own ends; for success, for money.
Eisenberg can see the similarities between the two, but says that both Vincent and Zuckerberg are ‘two very different characters.’ Yet, he says, both The Social Network and The Hummingbird Project have a similar approach to the power technology now holds in our society. ‘I imagine a lot of people in the arts – including me = are suspicious of those in great power and suspicious of those with exorbitant wealth,’ the star continues. ‘I guess a lot of stories are told about those people and I think increasingly they’re becoming cautionary tales rather than celebrations. And so there’s possibly a parallel [between the two films] like that.’ Ultimately, for Eisenberg, he took away a valuable experience from the film, namely both the upsides and the downfalls of striving so extravagantly for success. ‘[The film] made me reflect on the dangerous commitment we make to things that are not virtuous,’ he said. ‘The characters are doing something with no real social value – they just create wealth for themselves. It made me reflect on the myopic dangers of a commitment to something; they’re both less successful than they want but far more hurt too.’