Scene: Strange times find Jesse Eisenberg promoting new film Resistance while helping out at a domestic violence shelter
by James Mottram
Published June 16, 2020
JESSE EISENBERG is a New Yorker who’s spending lockdown in Indiana but right now he’s full of questions about London. ‘What’s it like over there?’ he asks from his seat on a leafy park bench, birds twittering in the background. ‘Is everybody OK? Are people walking around outside? Was there a big difference when Boris was in the hospital?’
The fast-talking 36-year-old actor spends six months a year in Indiana with his wife Anna Strout and their young son Banner, so escaping his virus-struck city was on the agenda anyway. Stalled movie shoots mean he can’t act but Eisenberg — who has four plays and a short story collection to his name — has also found it difficult to write new material.
‘I have a very specific routine in New York and if I don’t have that routine I can’t get anything done,’ he says. ‘So I’ve been volunteering every day at a domestic violence shelter run by my mother-in-law. It feels like the world is burning so it would be strange to write something.’
He’s more than happy to chat movies, though. Recently he has been drawn to quirky independent productions such as oddball comedy The Art Of Self-Defense and the ‘unintentionally prescient’ Vivarium, in which he and British actress Imogen Poots play a couple unable to leave their new home.
‘Vivarium was written three years ago about the 2008 housing crisis in Ireland and it’s coming out now during a pandemic where everybody is locked inside their homes,’ he says.
This week, he can be also be seen in Resistance, a remarkable true-life tale. He plays Marcel Marceau, the French mime artist who became synonymous with the silent art form. But what many don’t know is that Marceau was in the French Resistance in World War II, defying the Nazis and helping hide scores of children.
‘The fact he was a part of that effort, it was just extraordinary,’ says Eisenberg.
Eisenberg also had family from Poland — where Marceau’s folks originated — who were similarly affected by the war.
‘When I read the script and I realised Marceau was not only Jewish but came from the same area of Poland, I was shocked,’ he says. ‘That he was part of this heroic movement of saving children was just that much more resonant with me because I had family who survived the war.’
A further reason for Eisenberg to take the role was his immediate family background. His mother Amy was a professional birthday clown for years, working in East Brunswick, New Jersey.
‘My mother took her job very seriously, even though to an outsider what she was doing was very silly,’ he says. ‘To be able to have grown up with somebody who didn’t feel guilty or anxious about taking their fun job seriously was very helpful.’
To prepare for Resistance, Eisenberg spent six months learning mime, including with a former student of Marceau’s.
‘It was just this wonderful education as an actor,’ he says. ‘You’re often studying something for two weeks and then immediately forgetting it, and with this, it was just that perfect experience of having enough time and enough interest to be able to indulge in something you would never have pursued otherwise.’
Now the mime’s been packed away Eisenberg is about to release When You Finish Saving The World, a six-hour audiobook for Audible that he has written and performed about three different characters across three decades. He’s also planning to turn the story into a feature film starring Julianne Moore.
‘Everything was going along so perfectly,’ he sighs, ‘and then the lockdown started.’
Eisenberg is looking to make his directorial debut with the story with a little help from Emma Stone, his co-star in Zombieland.
‘Well, she’s great,’ he says. ‘I mean, God, everybody knows her. She’s their favourite person. She was sent the script from somebody and she asked me if she could produce it.’
Now, that’s a dream team.
SOURCE:https://www.metro.news/scene-strange-times-find-jesse-eisenberg-promoting-new-film-resistance-while-helping-out-at-a-domestic-violence-shelter/2046853/