Top 150 Quotes & Sayings by Jesse Eisenberg - Page 2

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 often think if you have time to sit around the house feeling bad for yourself, you have time to tutor a child. I'm guilty of that exact thing. I will spend more time sitting around feeling bad for myself than actually helping somebody.

I personally don't feel the need to be radical for its own sake, but I probably couldn't if I tried anyway.

You can tell when you watch a movie, usually, what the actors' experience was on the movie, because even the smallest of roles were interesting.

In New York, everybody is their own celebrity, so they're not so interested in other people.

Actors dread working with studios because they dictate what you do in a way that independent movies can't.

I write plays instinctively. I don't like writing movie scripts.

Who walks around proud of things they've done? That's an obnoxious quality.

I'm not on Page Six, because I don't have anything salacious happening in my life... unfortunately.

I tend to be pessimistic about everything: If things seem to be going good, I'm worried that it's going to end; if things are bad, then I'm worried that it's going to be permanent. It's not a very comfortable attitude to have all the time.

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

Acting forces me to socialise, which is good for me, I think.

I don't go to movies, I don't own a television, I don't buy magazines and I try not to receive mail, so I'm not really aware of popular culture.

Acting is a weird, kind of alienating job because you're in an isolated place. Even if you're working with a lot of other people, you're kind of alienated. Actors say that a lot, and I kind of find that to be true.

I felt self-conscious going out in the street prior to ever even being in a movie. That's just me.

Nothing is harder than working with an actor who doesn't take it seriously or show up in the same way that you are.

I write all the time because I'm lonely. When you're acting, you're working every day all day. But then you have long amounts of time off.

I made the mistake of writing something very, very short about Obama for this website that I write fiction for, and my father told me never do that again. And he was right. I have nothing to add to a political conversation because it's not my area.

It's very hard to be a playwright because it's very competitive.

In 'Zombieland,' it was such a freewheeling plot it almost didn't matter what the characters were doing scene to scene as long as there was a consistent banter.

I have one female fan. But she lives with me. I'm not aware of any others.

I'm no good at really anything that involves motor skills.

The only suggestions I get on my plays is to make them more of what they already are, and that's wonderful.

I feel very guilty doing magic because you're deceiving somebody.

The happiest moments for me, creatively, are doing readings of a play around a table where there's no audience.

It's really hard to copy another actor and be successful. In fact, that's usually the reason people are not good, because they're copying something they've seen, but, for some reason with their face and their body, it doesn't work.

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.

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

I always think the second worst thing in the world is to go on stage at night, and the first worst thing in the world is sitting at home at night. For me, it's scarier to not be doing it than doing it.

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.

Any time you play a character for a long period of time, regardless of how close it is to you, it infiltrates your life. It's impossible for it not to.

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 ideal way to approach a character is to find something in yourself that relates in some way.

I don't attribute an actor's great success to their own individual performance when it's something as collaborative as a movie.

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 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.

My job when I'm acting in a movie is very limited to playing a role. I'm not evaluating somebody. I'm only evaluating them insofar as they're interacting with me, but I'm not evaluating their skill set and I don't watch the movies, so I'm not aware of the way they're putting things together.

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 feel equal parts lucky and scared anytime I get a job.

The only way to be turned off to being famous is to be famous.

As an actor, you are in a unique position because you’re not only memorizing dialogue but really embodying it. You naturally feel the rhythm of good writing.

I feel things can always be funny, but that's probably because I have some kind of leftover childhood need to make people laugh. For somebody like me, that's the thing you excel at.

Acting is a weird profession. It's very disquieting, and at the time it just made me so confused. It's only when you step away from a movie for several weeks or months that you start to put things in perspective.

Poor people are gross and they 'smell bad

There are some indications of how the character should behave based on the script, and then as actor makes it his or her own. I got to know one of the writers, Chris Terrio, and we were able to discuss things at length and figure out who this person is to create a real psychology behind what is, perhaps, in a comic book, a less than totally modern psychology. I can only say I've been asked to play an interesting role. A complicated, challenging person.

When you take on a role you try to do as much as possible beforehand to get your mind into it. Just to prepare because it's a daunting prospect to go six months or whatever.

If you're acting, then there's a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life there's no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day.

Don't be a hero, live to fight another day.

The only way to be turned off to being famous is to be famous. And I only have like a tiny, tiny bit of that, and I'm already disgusted by it. But I realize that the only way to be disgusted by fame is to be famous, because otherwise it looks amazing. Then people stop you on the street, and it's like the most annoying thing in the world. The first time it happened it's great, and then the second time you have to shake somebody's hand.

I give credence to the worst things somebody writes about me, and if somebody writes something nice, I think they're wrong or false or lying or joking.

I just can't - I can't exist in normal group situations. A classroom, where you have to sort of jockey for position, compete for attention - I would just withdraw.

I find it very difficult to do normal things without getting approached.

I think there's nothing more wonderful than using fiction to reflect real-world cultural ideas.

Often times, being in a popular thing means that you have to compromise your own acting.

My mom always said that she didn't wear a red nose and big shoes because that's the reason people are scared of clowns. My dad is a sociology teacher, so he probably figured that out with her. Those are the things that are exaggerated, that don't give off the signals of humans. You know, if you draw a picture of a circle and ask somebody to feel empathy with the circle, they won't. But if you draw literally two, three dots inside the circle, like two eyes and a nose, you immediately feel empathy.

I think I prioritize other people's opinions of me very highly, which is not necessarily a good thing - it's a thing that causes a lot of anxiety.

I think I'm an abstinence symbol. If I take my shirt off, people will not have babies.

No one should be offended - that's not my style.

No compliment is ever sufficient and every insult, of course, is true.

I think there are probably a lot of actors like me who I think probably struggle to feel comfortable in their own lives, and acting in some ways provides a safe context for them to live out emotions that they possibly repress or live out experiences that they are not afforded by virtue of circumstance.