Jesse Eisenberg

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1:05Hello and welcome to Table Manners. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everybody. Lenny's looking fab. Hair's on point. My New Year hair. It's really good. Big hair don't care. Big hair don't care. We are sitting in Clapham. The fire is on because it's so cold. And it's an afternoon affair. It is. For somebody we're really excited about. I can't wait. I've loved him ever since I saw him in The Squid and the Whale We have Jesse Eisenberg coming on who is not only an incredibly gifted actor you've seen him in kind of every brilliant director's film and also playing fantastic roles whether it's Toby Fleischman in Fleischman's In Trouble or Mark Zuckerberg in Social Network He's amazing but he's not only an actor He is a writer, a director, and that is why he's coming on today, because he's talking about his new film, A Real Pain, which he wrote, he directed and starred in with Kieran Culkin.

2:11It's a lovely film. It's a really touching film, and it's kind of based loosely on his family. I think they're calling it a buddy. A buddy. What do they call it? It's like a road trip, a buddy road trip thing. he's going to visit the area his relative came from but it does include the holocaust and what i thought that was so brilliant about the way they did that the silence it didn't exploit the the drama of the holocaust that we all know about but just the silence of that particular scene was so moving the film is really beautiful and touching and gentle and funny and heartbreaking King and Kieran Culkin is bloody great in it.

2:58And it's up for lots of awards already. It's already up for four Golden Globes. Yeah they're both up for Best Actor and Best Supporting. Yeah Best Screenplay. And Best Picture. Yeah. And this is a very I think probably quite a low budget film. I don't know. Independent film. It's beautiful. We are so excited to have Jesse Eisenberg on. What are we cooking for him today mum? So I have made mushroom volivons. Yeah. So I bought the volavon cases and i've made them the where do you get volavon cases from marks and spence or yeah so they're little mini volavon i've done blinnies which i made you did make from the cookbook um yeah from our own cookbook darling so i've made blinnies with smoked salmon and some caviar i've got fish balls and i've made chopped liver because i don't know if he likes chopped liver but and i brought it all up it is quite divisive i'll never forget when poor loyal carna I had to look at that chopped liver when we were doing a Hanukkah special.

3:55Would you like chopped liver? Well, I've grown up with your chopped liver. Well, I'm hoping that he's grown up with it. And it's better than, what's it, a deli on Second Avenue. Because it is good chopped liver. I can tell you that now. Yeah, Jessie lives in New York, doesn't he? Yeah. Let's see. I've also made a clementine cake. Nigella. Nigella. But I thought I, well, this was very odd. I thought that I wanted to have little clementines on the top kind of decorative and then I thought can I just put them in raw but you don't, you have to candy them slightly in some sugary water then I put them in the bottom then I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought they're not going to be on the top of the cake they're on the bottom of the cake anyway I've turned the cake upside down which I think is ok so I've turned it over so it's like an upside down cake and the little oranges are right there They look very pretty.

4:49Okay, great. I'm very pleased about that. I'm thrilled with you. And I've also bought some mince pies. Do you think he's had a mince pie before? I don't know. The Americans don't really know what a mince pie is. I don't get it, but... We'll find out. We are thrilled to be kicking off 2025 Table Manners with Jesse Eisenberg. Starting the new year with a bang.

5:16Jesse Eisenberg, you're in our kitchen. Yes, I am. We're so thrilled. Yeah. Congratulations on quite a big week. We're recording this. Thank you so much. You've just found out about the old Golden Globes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you've been up for many before, but this is your film. This is your baby. You're up for screenplay, picture, actor, best supporting actor. I mean, it's mazel tov. Oh, thank you. I always wanted to say thank you in Hebrew. What is the Hebrew thing of it? I don't know either. Tadarabah. Oh, is that right? Is that the correct way to say it? Oh, maybe that's good morning.

5:45No, that's bokatav. I think tadarabah. That does sound familiar. I've heard this before. You think tadarabah. Yeah, but I don't know what context I heard it in, but that sounds familiar. Or bokatav is good morning, yeah. Only I know that from Gheida. Did you go to Gheida? What is Gheida? Hebrew classes. Oh, I did, but we didn't call it that. You didn't? What do you call it? Hebrew school. Hebrew school, yeah. American. We called it Keder. That sounds more serious. Let's go back to the beginning then. Okay. You grew up, where did you grow up? I grew up in Queens, New York until I was five, and then we moved to the suburbs in New Jersey.

6:16And who was around your dinner table? And what were you eating? My parents and my sister. I have a younger sister, but she was born much later. And what were we eating? I don't know. my mom used to joke that she didn't know how to cook and I never thought about it or cared until I met my wife and she had dinner with my family and said the same thing um no but my mom was so funny and she was cool so it was great sitting around the dinner table was like you know humor was the currency you know it was like if you were funny you can get a word and you could tell your story but it had to be funny yeah so food was less important yeah exactly exactly that's exactly right actually yeah we should work it out it jesse instead of fighting and giving delicious food.

6:58But you're probably also funny. You managed to find both, right? Oh yeah. Well, not sure. Definitely. So you were laughing around the dinner table. So not particularly a memorable dish or is there something that your mum would try and make for you that you loved? No, but I once got on a cooking kick and I was like, I'm going to pour orange juice on chicken. And so for like two weeks, she let me do that. And I got to make dinner a few times. Just I poured orange juice on chicken well i mean otolenghi does a really good clementine and chicken and fennel so maybe you were ahead of the i suspect maybe he was yeah there was probably nuance there that i was missing were you bar mitzvahed no i dropped out of hebrew school or hi wait say it again hi when i was like 11 right before or maybe 12 right before because i was really you know i don't know what it's like here but in where i lived these bar mitzvahs were like these kind of extravagant celebrations of a bratty kid.

7:52With a theme. Yeah, with a theme. And I just, I hated them so much. I was like, not a happy kid. I didn't like going to these parties. And basically like, these things just turned me off so much. Like the celebration of a, oh no, I don't deserve pity. I just remember thinking like, I hate these things. Like, you know, there's like karaoke and the kids, it's always like all the popular kids were like, you know, and I just hate it so much. I dropped out of Hebrew school and I got bar mitzvahed when I was like 25 because I was like doing a movie where I was playing a Hasidic Jew. And for research for the movie, I started going to this Jewish Hasidic kind of school and they gave me a bar mitzvah.

8:23So I was bar mitzvahed by Hasids, like 30 Hasids standing around me. What, you two? No, no, no. But that's really interesting. Did you ask them if you could have a theme? That's really great. No, no, their theme is the Bible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, they're a themeless bunch. They're not going to watch this, so it's okay. They were really nice to me. I told them what I was doing there. I was like, I'm here. I'm playing a Hasidic Jew in a movie. What movie was it? Oh, it was called Holy Rollers. I played a Hasidic Jewish ecstasy dealer. That sounds great. Yes, it's a genre. And no, they were super like cool with me and everything.

8:57But like, they're like a themeless group of people, if I can say that. So you didn't have a theme, but you did have a bar mitzvah. Did you feel more Jewish at that point? Or did the kind of ecstasy dealer kind of eradicate that too? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a wash. I think like maybe just like playing a Jew that was so extreme, I, in some ways, maybe, as you're kind of implying, like, maybe made me feel even more like a secular American, you know, because I was like, wow, this is like a version of Jewishness that I'll never understand. Really, I became, like, maybe more interested in my faith when, I mean, my in-laws passed and my wife became more interested in going to temple more.

9:31So that was part of it, so that she can feel more of a connection to her parents. And then, like, doing this movie was really about kind of connecting to my history. And it's interesting. I'm really disconnected to, like, the faith. I think I speak for a lot of people, maybe my age, maybe New Yorkers. I can't speak for what the experience here in England is, where it's just like my life is like an entirely Jewish experience, but that has nothing to do with like God. And so like everything I do all day, I mean, I'm writing jokes all day and eating bagels in the morning. Like it's entirely Jewish life.

10:01It's a cultural. Yeah, but it's entirely cultural, entirely like secular. And that seems okay. And I know my grandparents would probably not be happy with what I've turned into, you know because for them relationship with god was the thing that was like linking them to their history and it's just not that way anymore but i'm no less you know jewish than they are it's just manifesting in a kind of different way do you have children yeah um my son is really funny um he's always trying to do stand-up comedy does he tell jokes yeah yeah he's going through a weird phase of telling jokes that are really non-jokes come on give us one how long does he he's a he's so goddamn cute But basically the new thing is like wants to do stand up comedy.

10:39And so like the jokes are basically this goes on stage and says like, everybody, what is your favorite food? And then somebody raises their hand and they said like the other day he did it with our friends and the friend said chickpeas. And he goes, chickpeas, chickpeas. Well, you know, sometimes I fry them and sometimes I eat them. Is that even a thing? And that was his joke. It's like not a joke. It's the sweetest thing in the world. He gets like the rhythm of comedy. It's like, you know, this kind of thing. And like, but not the content of comedy. Does he remind you of yourself? Yes, it was humiliating when he did that.

11:07I just literally, I just had this flashback of me just being like that as a kid and like trying to do jokes and like that I didn't know what I was saying. But I just loved commanding the attention of the room with that humor. So Jesse, you were on this podcast, Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. It was like a therapy session between both of you. And he knew everything about you. I definitely don't know as much about you as him, but it was really, it was an amazing conversation. but from what I listened to on that podcast where you were talking about your childhood and about the two tissues that you needed to go to school with yeah yeah yeah the the crying hanky and the bleeding hanky yeah yeah and and you know from what I gather you you were anxious and yeah yeah and then it seems like jokes became a bit of a I don't know like yeah exactly survival thing of course yeah doing like theater I grew up doing like community theater that was like life-saving as well as, yeah, humor.

12:00You know, it's so interesting though, because like, and we're talking about kind of like Jewish culture and looking back and stuff. Like I didn't realize like all the stuff I was interested were kind of like Jewish things. Like, you know, of course other people write jokes. The things I was interested in were like self-deprecating humor. It's like this very Jewish thing. And only when I became an adult did I realize like, oh, all the things I'm interested in are like just very culturally specific. I just assumed that everybody, that's how everybody deals with the world. But no, the things I was doing and interested in were just very Jewish things in retrospect, but unconsciously knowing that, you know.

12:30What was one of your memorable jokes from when you started out as a comic when you were younger? I mean, that worked or didn't work, Jesse? Yeah, I mean, I recently found a joke that I had written on a post-it note, and I found it because my parents just moved houses, and so I was cleaning out my old bedroom. And I found a joke that I wrote when I was like 13, and it was about sex, something I wouldn't know about for six years. and the joke was I had sex in every room in my apartment. Unfortunately, I lived in a studio apartment. You know, unfortunately, I live in a studio. I had sex in every room in my house.

13:00Unfortunately, I live in a studio apartment. That was a joke. It's not a bad joke. It's a great joke. Good joke. I didn't know what sex was. Yeah, and I didn't know what sex was. All I was doing is I was watching a lot of stand-up comedy and they would talk about sex and I didn't know, like, I really was a late bloomer with all this stuff and so, like, I just heard that's, like, a funny thing to mention in a joke and now I guess I would think it's kind of a cheat, You know, to talk about sex in a joke sounds like a cheat. So we're just waiting for your son to do the first sex joke. He's like, he's doing Willie and Pooh jokes all the time.

13:28That's what Jesse's children do. Oh, interesting. They like talking about Pooh and Wee and Bums. I sometimes do that in order to curry favor with him, but that's not his style. Yeah. I'd love to hear about, like, do you cook for your wife? Does your wife cook for you? Is she a good cook? My wife grew up in a very, like, interesting family in a college town. And her mom, who ran a domestic violence shelter for 35 years, also is an incredible cook, or was, rather. And so my wife grew up eating very spicy Indian food, very experimental, you know, cuisines, especially in the 70s and 80s, grew up eating, like, just very unusual foods, especially in Indiana, where she grew up.

14:07And so my wife now cooks very eclectic foods. My kid has been saying his favorite food is curry. And now gimbap, which is a kind of Korean rice ball. And so my wife is really exposed. The opposite of me was really exposed to unusual cuisines from a young age. And so she cooks, and she cooks these unusual stews and za 'atar and cumin and all this stuff that to me is just overwhelmingly too flavorful for me because I have such bland taste buds. And so our kind of running joke slash fight is that I sometimes will come to dinner having eaten. Did you do that today, Jessie? Well, she's in New York, so she has no idea what I'm doing now.

14:45No problem. What? I want to know what you're eating. No, no, no, no. I'm also on a different time zone. For me, it's like three in the morning or whatever it is. Oh, God. When did you arrive? Well, I got here yesterday. Oh, shame. But I'm on a weird time thing. So I'm so happy to do this. No, in fact, I purposefully didn't eat in an attempt because I wanted to come here. We're just having little picky bits. That's fine. So it's kind of no pressure. That's great. And we have kind of gone with a theme of Jewish bits. Well, that's great. Because I can't see that. Yeah, no, I do. I love Jewish food.

15:13So you come from what you describe as a cultural Jewish background. Yeah. And then the film, it is culturally Jewish, but it is also about your journey as a Jewish man. And all the people on the trip are all Jewish. And it's a Jewish heritage trip in a way. Yeah, but the interesting thing about that tour is like a lot of those people on this tour group that our characters go on, you know, this heritage tour of Poland are based on people I know. And there's a character played by Kurt Eguon, the brilliant British actor Kurt Eguon. And he plays a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who converted to Judaism.

15:48He was lovely in the film. He's based on a friend of mine. Yeah, he's based on a friend. The same name, same storyline and everything. And really, Eloj is the most religious person I know. Like the real Eloj is the most religious person I know. On a Jewish holiday, Eloj will send me some email in Hebrew wishing me a happy holiday that I have to go on Google Translate. And Eloj is Rwandan. But he's the most Jewish person I know, religious person I know. And so really, I don't really know religious Jews. and again with the exception of Eloge who is Rwandan and converted to Judaism and that to me he converted yeah so what happened to Eloge oh my gosh did you not I yeah I know that he converted in the yeah but I know he's based on it's based on a real yeah the real guy survived the genocide in in Rwanda and moved to Winnipeg as a refugee and the only people he felt comfortable talking to were Holocaust survivors so he became like very close with Holocaust survivors and then converted and found how did you meet each other we met at a wedding in canada my wife was friends with like one of his friends he's amazing guy he now like works high up in the canadian government he's like a truly brilliant brilliant like unbelievably overachieving man but i just found it fascinating that he had more knowledge about my faith than i did because sometimes you know it's like converts often do my mom was converted so yeah my father was jewish right and she had more yiddish than anybody she used to say what's the word in english like she didn't know No, she only knew the Yiddish word to describe something.

17:12Really? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. So did you have to ask permission for all the different characters that were based on people you knew? Only Eloge, because it was so specific and his story is so sensitive. So I said, I'm making this movie. It's kind of comedic, but it's going to be incredibly respectful and reverential to your history. And I sent him the script and his wife and him read it. And they loved it and ended up helping me cast. You know, Eloge cast Kurt Eguon. and his wife sent me all the costumes that she thought we should put the character in. So it was really sweet. Yeah, it was very nice.

17:44So you cast, you were involved in the casting as well? Yeah, I mean, I directed the movie, so the casting is up to the director and the casting agent. They're all fabulous. Oh, thanks. Yeah, it really is lovely. It's a really nice group. You must be thrilled with all these nominations. Yeah, it's weird. Like I made a movie that came out last year that like no one saw. What was that called? It's called When You Finish Saving the World. It starred Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard. And it's good. But like I was expecting the same experience, which is like you write something and it just turns into thin air.

18:14So this has been very unusual, like very, very unusual. So touching, though. Oh, thanks. It's beautiful. It's just beautiful. Thanks a lot. But it's also like a lot of luck. You know, there are amazing movies that came out this year that are not getting attention. It's just a lot of luck. I don't know how all these things work. There's probably 20 ,000 movies I made a year. And like, so I just feel like I'm kind of just like pinching myself. I kind of can't believe how lucky I got. I know the movie's good, but like a lot of movies are good. So we got lucky or it hit at a nice moment or whatever.

18:39I don't know. On the podcast, you talked about trauma tourism. And the fact that you, part of when you go on a, I don't even know if you call it a holiday, but when you go for a trip, you, that fascinates you. History and that you, where's your next trip that you're taking, where you're going to visit? The next trip I want to take is Moldova. It's where my mom's side of the family comes from. It's where my family left because of, they were kicked out or there was a pogrom or something, you know, so it's not, it wasn't a happy ending there. I've been working in Budapest for the last few months.

19:06I've been trying, I've been trying to go there, but I couldn't fit it in with my schedule. Yeah, those are the trips I like. Luckily, I married somebody who like also was really into that kind of thing. How did you two meet? She worked on like three movies when she moved to New York from Indiana. And one of them was a movie called The Emperor's Club. She was an assistant to the producer. And that was like the first movie I was in. I was just about to turn 18. I'm 17. And we met and I asked her. She's such an unusual person. I'd never been on a date in my entire life. But she has such like an open quality.

19:30So I was like, will you date me? And she was like, no, no, of course not. Not at all. And I was 17 or whatever. And then we kept in touch over the summer and she still wouldn't date me, you know. And then finally we went on what felt maybe to me like a date and probably to her not like a date. And that was my, in my mind, that was my first date I ever been on. Where was it? Well, that was the weird thing. I took her to see this movie called Secretary. What, the Maggie Gyllenhaal? Yeah. Oh yeah, oh my God. And my wife, I didn't know what it was about. I just knew it was like feminine. It's like dominate, isn't it?

20:00Yeah, exactly. She likes to be kind of, you know. Submissive. Yeah, submissive. and we were sitting there it was a full it was friday night it was like a full theater and my wife put she took her jacket off and she put it over her head and sat there with the move with and i was like oh my god this person's so weird i want to marry this person because she was sitting she didn't see any of the movie because it was disturbing and i was like i just kept pushing me i was like do you want to leave she's like no no no no let's stay let's stay but she didn't see a frame of it or maybe like after the 10 10 minutes of the movie she put the jacket over anyway so weird how did you see you were more concerned about how you found her weird rather than oh my god I've made the worst mistake of my life bringing her to this you were like this is great I had no idea what she was doing I didn't know I didn't know that she was like you know it was very uncomfortable for her to watch you know I didn't know that I mean I was an idiot I'd not been on a date I thought maybe this is what women do and they don't like you I don't know they put their jacket above your face or maybe when they do like you they can't show how much they love you so they have to put their jacket over you know so let's talk about your Last Supper It doesn't have to be As bleak as you think Okay yeah You can just be Going somewhere On a desert island Oh you mean Literally where I'm dying No No we hate that You don't have to die Okay great So why is it the last one It's the last one Before you go away For six months We used to call it Death Row meal And then it was like Everyone got offended So we didn't do that And then Last Supper We kind of now Do it not about dying Got it It's just been a whole Journey with this Favourite meal So we've got An appetizer main a dessert and drink of choice where are you gonna go is it like you can go you can eat out you can have a homemade thing yeah i got it yeah so my child has just created a restaurant that we're now working on in our in our house and it's called jafon j-a-f-o-n and the day i flew out here which was yesterday yeah i picked them up from ballet and we went to kinko's and we've printed out the menus and laminated them so we have a full menu a drink menu and a dessert menu for jaffan and my kid created the logo for it and we did the menu together oh my god and so where are the tables where the tables they're going to be inside it's invite only invite oh yeah yeah it's like a supper club yes it's a supper club and the funny thing is my kid takes it so seriously that he decided to um give so we i want to get a gift for my agents for the holidays you know my talent agents who have access to everything in the world you know they're high-powered talent agents and And he's forced me to now give a$100 gift card to Jaffan for them.

22:30And I keep trying to tell him, like, they're not, that's not what they want. These people go to, like, you know, Snobu or whatever. And he's like, no, they're going to love it. They're going to love it. And I think the$100 is fair. You know, so that's... You don't get much for$100. Well, we're, you know, we're in beta mode. So actually, we're having discounts. So, okay, if I had, so if I'm ordering from Jaffan, is that okay? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. What style is Jaffan? Japanese and Chinese farm to table. Oh, Jaffan. Jaffan. No, stop. This is your eight-year-old child? Yes. He's brilliant, though.

23:00He's quite brilliant. He's obsessed with asking people. He loves talking to adults, so his opening question is, what's your favorite cuisine? And then they tell him, and they're like, and what specifically in that cuisine would you go for? That's what his new two questions are. I want to go to Jaffan. Jaffan? Please, can you get me that? It's a very interesting restaurant. Okay, so what's on the menu? Okay, so it's Japanese-Chinese farm-to-table. How does he know what farm-to-table is? Because he's like a kid in New York with parents. They always say farm-to-table on all the menus. They love it.

23:25And he's an only child and we take him wherever we go. Like he's with us all the time. So he speaks kind of like an adult, you know, whatever. So, I mean, it's a weird life that he's having. I know. You know, he's the only child in New York City. So he like goes to with my wife and I to like everything. So, okay. I would start with a seaweed salad of wakame seaweed salad, which is in the appetizers. And then for my main entree there, I would have an okonomiyaki, which is a Japanese pancake that he and I make sometimes. It's cabbage and it's like a kitchen sink Japanese pancake. So what do you put in it?

23:56So the base is like flour and cabbage. Yeah. So it's not just like a regular pancake of flour. It's mostly cabbage and flour as the binding. It's almost like a kind of bubble and squeak without the mashed potato. Do you know what bubble and squeak is? No, I do. It's like cabbage and potato. Cabbage and potato and you kind of, it's like the leftovers and you fry it up. And you fry it up. That's right. Your one is like, it's more like a pancake. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And you could put anything in a lot of times Japanese, like in Japanese restaurants, they'll put like, in fact, it's famous. It's from Hiroshima.

24:22It's like famous there. In fact, I went there and got like the best okanamayaki. Sometimes they'll put like shrimp in it, ginger on top, bonito flakes, which is like kind of a fish plate. Shut up, your kid's eating a bonito flake. My kid loves bonito. Oh my god, I'm obsessed with your kid. Your kid needs to tell my kids how to bloody eat. He's pretty cool. But yeah, yeah, okay. Well then, but also on top, you spread mayonnaise. The QP. Yeah, how do you know all this? I like eating, Jesse. Okay, but this is a very unusual, bespoke knowledge that you're... Okay, not everything revolves around New York City, okay, Jesse?

24:51We've got QP. okay yeah but like yeah okay where have we got where have you eaten cuba brinkston market mum they've got a whole pancake place there really yeah japanese pancakes yeah oh well that's great i'm very impressed and so okay then for my drinks we have a mocktail list and yeah there's a yuzu cucumber uh soda he makes gorgeous um yeah so it's you know what's that cocktail called yuzu cucumber oh so you have you on for there are some names it's not my You must have a picture of this. I need to see it. I have all the menus here. Should I get it now? Yes, absolutely. I have all the menus.

25:25I can get them in 10 seconds. I love it.

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26:41Oh my God. Okay, people can't see this. Maybe, I don't know whether we're allowed to show this on the, We could potentially... It'd be great. Would we be allowed to show this on the thing? I'll send you all three minutes. Okay, this is an incredibly mature... It's a very cool font. The dot, I presume, is because of the flag, the Japanese flag, maybe, or not? Oh, so he based it on a restaurant that he wants to run to. He based the logo, but it's different. We looked it up. But it's inspired by... It's inspired by... It's so adult. We've got miso, wonton, ramen. The ramen soup sounds delicious. Mushrooms and broccoli.

27:15Salads, quite an array for an eight-year-old. Seaweed salad, green fruit salad. That's spinach, omakase, strawberries. Oh, he likes to combine the sweet with the... That's right. Oh my goodness. Japanese plum and yuzu dressing. Wow. Japanese cucumber salad. Chinese cucumber salad. Right. Rice dishes, onigiri, for sure. Love that. Shizo leaf is in there. Dandan noodles. I love a dandan noodle. Yep, something for the spice lovers. Okay, yeah, we've got the pancake. Okunamiyaki. Oh, wow. Oh, so the appetizers. Your son. Your son has gone for mainly vegetables. Your eight-year-old son has gone for vegetables.

27:56Bok choy, edamame, garlic spinach. Wow, wonton avocado toast sounds wicked. Yeah. Have you had that somewhere? Wonton avocado toast? Or has he just created it? No, he made that up. Because he started using, because he didn't eat gluten, he started using these gluten-free wonton things as bread. This is amazing. Yeah. So from Jafan, what's the dessert? Sorry. I'm looking at the menu now. And okay, yesterday I asked him, can I get the black sesame cake without the honey drizzle? And then I said to him, actually, you know what? Can you put the honey drizzle on the side? And he laughed. I said, what's so funny?

28:26He said, well, if it's drizzle, it's not going to go on the side. I thought, wow, that's pretty amazing. So I'm going to get the black sesame cake with the honey drizzle. Not on the side. No. Dessert menu. Mochi, red bean paste, mango sticky rice. matcha ice cream, black sesame cake, sesame balls. I'm obsessed. So this is what you did before you boarded your plane. Yeah, exactly. I went from the Kinkos to the airport, actually. Yes, exactly. I love that. Yeah. So please help yourself to anything. This is amazing. Tell me what it is. Would you like chopped liver? Yeah, I love it. Oh, good. I love it.

29:00And I've got challah. I've got matzah if you want matzah. It's quite divisive chopped liver, though, isn't it? Yeah, it is. It is. But I've always loved it. And why is it divisive? Because I think people that aren't Jewish, that maybe aren't into chicken liver pate, look at it. Oh, that's what it is, chicken liver pate. I think it's a terrible name, chopped liver. Chopped liver. Well, it's become like the phrase, right? You have the phrase here too, right? What am I, chopped liver? Yes. You have this, yeah. Do they? Yeah. I guess we've only heard it from like New Yorkers saying. Oh, got it. So maybe it's an American thing.

29:30Jesse likes pickles with her. Yeah, yeah, sure. Thanks a lot. Do you like fish balls? Fish balls I don't know that I've had, but I like gefilte fish. Is that what this is? Yeah, gefilte is like chopped and fried. Oh, that's what it is. Okay. Have you ever had a volavon? What's it called? This is a volavon. No, never seen it. What? They were kind of, you know, in the 80s. Oh, really? Mm. Oh, great. Mushroom pastry. It's great. I made the filling, but I bought the cases. Can I give you one? No, I'm fine for a minute. Thanks. Just help yourself. Really good. Can we talk about, you filmed in Poland.

30:03Yeah, there's this scene where you and your cousin, who's played by Kieran Culkin, You're having this soup, sitting down in this lovely little square, and your character says, weird soup. And he's like, no, I love it. And he's like this well-trained. He's kind of like, loves it. Did you eat well in Poland? Yeah, I mean, beets are probably my favorite food. I love beets so much. Borscht, to me, is just the perfect meal. Oh, it's delicious. It's the perfect meal. Oh, I know. There's an egg in there for protein. It can be a little sweet, but it's vegetable. Do you always have egg in yours? Yeah. Do you not?

30:31No, sometimes I've had whole potato in it. That's in there too, but they'll often put a hard-boiled egg in there. Oh, really? Yeah, are you eating cold or hot? Do you know? I think. Or both? Warm. I would have warm. Yeah, warm. Oh, really? Oh, you've got to try cold borscht. Yeah. Oh, really? Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. And we were shooting in the summer, so I was only eating cold borscht. So when you're in New York, where's the first spot that you're going to go and eat? When you get back from a long filming and you're like, this is what I'm having. I'm back on home soil. Yeah, my kid likes this restaurant called Juban.

31:02Now, I know what you're thinking. he stole the name he didn't his is jiffon um it was inspired inspired by yeah and different menu completely different but anyway he loves that place you know it's a japanese restaurant but they have more experimental things my kid is just really curious with food he loves going there and i love taking him there he has an unusual existence you know it was like a kind of almost like running joke about the only children in new york city you know that their older friends are adults and that you know they listen to the daily which is our you know like serious new york times podcast i also take him down the block one block to um a place called pepe gallo which is like an italian restaurant that he also loves and he's gluten-free mostly uh-huh because he had a stomach problem when he was a kid that the doctors suggested he he goes gluten-free and so uh we get the gluten-free pasta there which is good which he likes yeah because gluten-free pasta can be quite it can be hit and miss exactly this one's a hit exactly that yeah that's great can i have one of these too yeah i made the blinnies i want you to know that wait you made the actual dough yeah it's not joe it's like pancakes tell me what you think it's unbelievable oh you're so nice so easy this is all phenomenal oh it's such a pleasure did you make this thing yeah you did do you like it yes i love it it's a good one really good how do you make it actually are you chicken livers with onions and wait but sorry are you baking it and then mashing it no no no i I fry the onions, then you put the chicken livers in, then I put it in a food processor with hard-boiled eggs.

32:32Got it. And mush it all up, and then I grate eggs on the top. Oh, got it. So there's egg inside as well. Yeah. Wow, it's fantastic. I like egg inside because I think it just lifts it a bit. Jesse, you just got your protein. Yes, exactly. I'm getting everything here except, well, really anything really healthy. Yeah. Yeah. My mom always said this is why, well, that was so morbid, but she was like this is why we all get sick because our, you know, look what we ate growing up. All this Jewish food, you know, it's fattening. I know. No one ate vegetables unless they were boiled. Yeah, this looks like a kiddish.

33:02Yeah, exactly. How long are you in London for? Just another day. I'm on like this press tour, so it's like literally I'm like... For your film? Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's been months and will continue. Because Mama saw the BFI when you came for the BFI. Yeah, exactly. I love that. Yeah, because you were on the stage and then we saw you all come on and you all, it was great. Oh, you were at that theater? Yeah, yeah. Oh, God, that was massive. At the Royal Festival Hall and we saw all the cast. That was fabulous. Oh, yeah, that was such a nice thing. I loved it. Is Kieran a friend in true life? In my social opinion?

33:38Yeah. I love him so much and I find him unknowable. He is, he's a kind of, he's a mysterious person. When I first met Kieran, I thought he and I would be exactly alike. So I just assumed he had all the same feelings I do about everything in the world. You know, same cynicism, same... And he's just not that at all. Like, we're going on these press tours. Kieran is winning, like, every award. And he's just, like, doesn't pay attention to it, doesn't think about it. Like, I'm nervous and thinking about it and preparing and trying to work, you know, when the studio tells me to go do something, you know, do it and be polite.

34:07And Kieran is just, like, he shows up late and everything. He's so charming and sweet and polite. But he's just, like, has no anxiety. He doesn't care about his career. He doesn't have ambition. He just wants to be home with his kids. In fact, he tried to... Like, I don't think he's done a movie in a decade. and he tried to drop out of our movie two weeks before we shot the movie because he decided he'd just rather be home with his kids. Good for him. Yeah, well, good and bad. We had spent a lot of money, you know, in locations. Did you tell, did you? How did you convince him to be? I didn't. Did you get a lawyer to get involved?

34:38Better than that. Like Emma Stone is our producer and so she called him and said, oh, you know, I heard that you are thinking of maybe dropping out. So, no, I just wanted to say that's so great that you want to, you know, spend time with your kids and don't worry, this is not on you. we'll find we'll figure out how to make this movie and he goes yeah well if you need help casting you know recasting I can help you and she said no no no the whole thing will fall apart if you don't do it everybody will be out of a job but I understand what you're saying so you do what you want to do and we'll you know we'll tell Jesse that you know because I think he had written this about his family who survived the Holocaust so we'll just tell him that we're not going to be able to make the movie and she just blackmailed him into doing it Jewish guilted him Jewish guilted him she is the most Jewish Gentile I know yeah I mean And how did you get Emma involved?

35:19Are you friends? Yeah, we're friends. She's a producer on the film and obviously sealed the deal with Kieran not working. Do you like some more cucumbers? Yeah, I would. So how did Emma get involved? We met when she was like 20. We were doing a movie, Zombieland. I'm like four or five years older than her. And she's so brilliant. I knew at 20 years old, I was like, this woman is just unbelievably brilliant. And after that movie, I started writing plays and books and she was so sweet. She'd be the only person I know who would read everything I wrote, like find obscure things that I wrote in magazines that no one read.

35:47And she would send me screenshots. This is my favorite line. She was always sweet. She's also the most famous person I knew. So it was always a shock that she would be so interested in my obscure things. And then I had sent a script to her agent for Julianne Moore. They have the same agent, Emma and Julianne Moore. And I had sent Emma's agent a script because I was trying to direct my first movie. And her agent gave it to her and said, your friend wrote this script. And Emma said, well, we wanted to start a production company, so let this be our first movie. And so we're now about to start my third movie that she's producing.

36:16and she's just the greatest. I think of her like, she's like a fairy godmother to me. Like she's given me so many amazing opportunities. She's really somebody who's, she's accomplished everything and I feel like I'm like, you know, her beneficiary or something. Like it's so nice. But this is so, you know, this is so mad, Jesse, you've been, you've had like a 20 year plus career. You are so beloved. Like people go to films because you're in them. You are amazing. Oh, thank you. But you know, everybody passed on this movie, a real pain. oh really every financing company passed on it every studio passed on it look at you now well no it's not like that kind of thing it's just like huge yeah i'm just saying like it looks maybe from the outside like i'm a busy working actor who's successful but like when you're trying to get like a movie made when somebody's gonna say like yeah we're gonna invest three million dollars into this movie you know it's not something that people jump on but having emma as my producer was really helpful so she would go on these meetings with me for financing and she you know everybody just defers to her she's just brilliant and so that was really really helpful so no it is helpful she can get any movie made like absolutely she can get any movie but there's probably only five people like that who can literally just get anything made if their name is attached to it regardless of what it is but i'm telling you it's like five people in the industry are like that and now she's helping you well you're making your next one with her so this is just amazing so can you talk about the next one yet or oh yeah yeah yeah it's um will you star in it no i might play in it but um but the leads are julianne moore and paul giamatti and it takes place on the world of community theater which is where i grew up i grew up doing community theater so it takes place in new jersey community theater and she's a very kind of shy person who's never been in a show before and she winds up in this kind of silly little community theater musical and paul giamatti is the director who kind of you know thinks of himself like one of the great artists in the world oh yeah i hope so i hope so do you want some more what is going on what is all this stuff I ate everything like that was the last thing I was going to eat.

38:10No, no, I made this cake for you. You made this? Do you have a sweet tooth? Yeah. Oh, that's what's going on. Oh, it's an orange. It's a clementine cake. Oh, my God, this sounds amazing. Oh, let me take one more thing because it's caviar. I love this. I'm so glad you're eating. And also, I'm sure you've had a mince pie before. What is mince pie? Okay, so lots of people in America, well, you don't have them there. A mince pie is a very traditional thing that I think Brits, I don't know if Europeans all have it It's something we have at Christmas Okay My husband starts on them in November because he loves them so much Interesting Okay It's You're either going to love it or you're going to hate it I'll do it It sounds like that's Sweeney Chod or something It's lots of currants So that's a mince pie and then mum has made a Nigella Lawson Clementine cake Would you like another cup of tea with yours No no I'm great This is all amazing Thank you so much And would you like some Mascarpone Mascarpone Sure Where does it go on This thing Yeah Thanks Jesse Eisenberg's trying a mince pie for the first time oh it's amazing I mean it's jelly on dough can you feel the Christmas cheer in that?

39:13well I am tasting something that feels like a Christmas spice what is that? clove maybe do you want some cake? yeah rule slither please what will you be doing for Christmas? will you be getting Chinese? isn't that what all Jewish New Yorkers do? I'm laughing but probably really? I mean, yeah, that's what Jewish New Yorkers do. Why is that? It's a weird tradition. It goes back a long time ago, I guess. That was the only thing that was open. Yeah. And they were like the two immigrant communities that didn't celebrate Christmas. Have you ever had a Christmas dinner? Well, they have Thanksgiving dinner.

39:49Yeah, which is quite similar, isn't it? I come from a family of vegetarians. Oh, God. We just had Thanksgiving, which is where we adopt a turkey. We pay for a turkey to be not killed. And we have a picture of that turkey on the thing. and it's a vegan Thanksgiving. We do this every year. Wow. Lentil loaf is the big centerpiece. And what's your turkey called this year? Do you name the turkey? Oh my God. What was the name? It was something like Grover. It was like a person's name. That's what's so funny about it. It's always like a person's name. Was it Grover? I think it might have been Grover.

40:20So Christmas too, like it would be, like anytime we have dinner with my family, it's vegan. Because that's like the, you know, most people are vegetarian or vegan. So that's what we have. And you grew up vegetarian. No, no. Only in like the last 15 years did my mom, like my sisters were both vegan growing up. They're 13 years apart. And my mom stopped eating meat and my dad mostly stopped eating meat maybe 15 years ago. I started eating meat about 10 years ago because I was vegetarian and vegan for a while. And then I'm just like, I don't know why. I'm because that's self-centered. I wish I could go back.

40:51I mean, I should go back. Can you have some last for a pony? Sure. I mean, the way you were shoving that smoked salmon in, babe, I don't think you're going back anytime soon. I know. I was like a bear in Alaska. I know. I know. I know. I know, I know. No, but I agree with the, listen, I cannot wait for the fake meat revolution. Use your fork. Just shove, if you need to scrape it off, just do what you need to do. Okay, next time I will. Can we go back to your mum for a moment? Sure. Because obviously your mum was a teacher and then a clown, a birthday clown. So this idea of offering jokes to each other, was this, I'm presuming your mum's quite funny.

41:23She's funny. She's more like, my dad is like more witty. My mum is more like she was performative because she was a clown and everything. And it really did create exactly who I am because I'm not like, I've like been in writer's rooms before where people are pitching jokes and everything. And like, I just don't like it that much. I feel like I need to perform or something. You know, I feel like I also need to be sad and depressed. Like I like the whole thing. And so it's really a combination of my parents because my mom wasn't that witty, but she was so engaging as a performer and my dad could never perform.

41:52He's like the most awkward person in kind of a public setting. And so I think I got both. Did she do your birthday parties? No. Or were you like, mum, just, no? No, that was like, it's so funny. I grew up thinking, it's so funny you should bring that up. Because I just grew up knowing that was like a complete conflict of interest. Like, of course she would not do my parties. I don't even know why we had this strict rule. But it was like, you know, as though she was like taking the SATs from me. It was like, no, of course that would never happen. And so she had her friend Bruce, who was a magician, do my parties.

42:19So Bruce Bray did my parties in exchange that she would do his family's, you know, parties. And what was like your mum's go-to? like showstopper she did a game called the hooper hop so my mom grew up in a communist american communist family and so all of her games well this game hooper hop it was the game where you lose to win and only as only as an adult did i realize all of her games were like these kind of marxists yeah yeah and the person who needs the most balloons gets the most balloons um and the loudest person never gets a balloon this kind of thing um and so like uh so that was her game and she would do, what do you call them, animal balloons?

42:57She would twist the animal balloons. And she was great. She was great. It's funny, though. Like, I really do think of her as like, at the time, I thought it was like, just a normal job that she had. And I saw somebody who had like, what, again, I consider like a normal job being really crazy and silly. And I consider my job normal. I imagine you do too. But other people ask me, you know, don't you feel weird being an actor or whatever? Like, no, it just seems like a normal job, like to go to a movie set and cry in front of strangers. It sounds odd when I say it out loud but like it was normalized for me from birth that it's normal to be a performer and to expose yourself or whatever you know and not in vain ways but just in like the enjoyment of it.

43:36So would you be quite happy for your son to be a performer? Yeah my kid is in my movie In A Real Pain playing my kid so you see him in the videos. Oh that's him! Talking about the Empire State Building. Yes exactly. I did think that bit was acted really well actually Jesse. I passed it along. He just literally had to join SAG this week, the Screen Actors Guild. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so he's in SAG. But no, I would never put him in another thing. It's New Year. Have you got any New Year's resolutions? Do you believe in New Year's resolutions? That is a great question. All due respect to your question.

44:09That is a better question. Because they go within about 10 minutes, don't they? Okay. About 10 years ago, I had started eating meat again. About 10 years ago on New Year's Eve, I was hanging out with this family and there was a little kid. and the kid was eating chicken and kind of just like, you know, throwing it on the ground. And like, I just remember thinking, my God, I should not never eat meat again. I should just never eat meat. That's just being wasted and everything. And I saw this little kid who was not eating it and throwing it on the ground and everything. And I just thought I can never eat meat again.

44:33It's just, you know, anyway, about three days later, I was in an airplane and I stopped in, um, at an airport and I, and there was a Shake Shack. I never ate Shake Shack in my life. And I was like, you know, this is gonna be my last meat. This is gonna be my last meat. So I went on, So I got a Shake Shack burger and I ate it there. And then on the plane, which was going to England, I got sicker than I've ever gotten in my entire resistance. So I spent the airplane ride in the bathroom. And then when I got to customs at Heathrow, I got to customs and I gave the guy my passport. And I, excuse me, but like everywhere, like on the desk.

45:07And then I was on the floor at customs just like, and I couldn't stop. And luckily the guy knew me from movies because otherwise I think maybe I would be banned from the country for illness or whatever. So I was able to get in. But anyway. On a stretch. But I just remember thinking I made the New Year's resolution three days before I ate this meat. And I broke it three days in. And I got punished for it. Yeah. And so I just thought, you know what, let me not make these resolutions because I'm going to break them. And then, you know, after though, after I did get like food poisoning, I stopped eating meat for like another few weeks.

45:37I really don't believe in it. It's like it's bad for everything. So, but I mean, I'm sorry, that sounds like sanctimonious. I just mean like in me, I know I should not eat it. And I come from a family who doesn't eat it. What is a nostalgic taste for you? Well, it's a great question. You're so kind, Jesse, by the way. You say that's a great question. Like you are a kind, yeah, but you're like a really kind teacher. And I don't know whether your wife does this too. Very interesting, Jesse. Yeah, no, no, no, that actually is an interesting question. Cause like, I don't, I don't actually have the thing that I go to, but I don't know.

46:05Do you have peanut butter and jelly here? Is that a thing? Yeah. Is it a thing like it's a thing with us? Peanut butter and jam. is our version of it. No, but it's not big. It's an American thing. It's an American thing. That's how we learned about it. Got it. Okay, no, that for me is like nostalgic and great. When would you have been eating it? When you were happy? When you were sad? Yeah, both. I mean, I ate it all growing up. You probably would have one a day. Like, you know, in fact, the football players now are eating these things called Uncrustables, which is basically peanut butter and jelly in a little bread thing and you freeze it.

46:34And it's like a fast food kind of thing, but it's so popular in our country. I wonder, you don't have peanut butter as much here, right? And is it part of your culture like it's in America? It's Jesse's culture. My family, a massive peanut butter. They go through a kilo of peanut butter probably a week. Yeah, like we have like a huge, but I like it savoury, so I'll have it with Marmite. Have you had Marmite? Yeah, I've had Marmite too. So try that with a bit of cheese as well. Oh, is that great? Delish. On a bread thing? Yeah, on toast. Gorgeous. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you for doing this.

47:01Slapping over to Clapham. And being so open and wonderful. Oh, thank you. And you are a gem and we're so lucky to have you on our screens and now writing and directing Can I just ask, when your wife went to see your film, did she put a coat over her face? Just in case, she didn't like it. I think she kept her coat behind her. Thank God for that. That's like the thumbs up or thumbs down. I know. Was your coat on your head for this movie or a coat behind you? Yeah, exactly. Two coats behind us, which has the rating. Yeah, so no, she did like it for the most part. Jessie, thanks so much for coming on.

47:34Yeah, thank you.

47:48I loved him. Loved. I feel he could be my son, Jess. Really? Yeah, I felt a real affinity with him. A familial affinity. Like, just wonderful to talk to. Interesting, passionate, generous, ate all the food. Appreciative. I love him. Yeah, me too. And a proper good dad. Oh. So proud of him. So proud of his son. What a star. A real kind of humble gentleman. And always ready to praise other people and give them their due. It was just lovely. Everyone, go and see A Real Pain. Because it's really lovely. It's not a pain at all. It's just completely charming. Love that. Happy New Year, everybody, and we'll see you next week for more Tableman.

48:56We'll be right back.

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