Eisenberg said that, on the contrary, he felt his religion had helped him land his first roles. “I have a very, very unusual life, and I’m in a real minority in that, for me, being Jewish has always been a positive thing.
“I grew up with Jewish humour and sometimes played Jewish characters. I received some good roles.”
Jesse Eisenberg poses on the red carpet as he arrives for the opening of the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Image: Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
Eisenberg played the Jewish founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, in The Social Network. He also directed and starred in A Real Pain, a film about two Jewish cousins travelling to Poland to visit the old Jewish cemetery in Lublin and the Majdanek concentration camp to honour their grandmother.
He told YNet: “When you grow up as I did in suburban New Jersey, you do not worry about where your food will come from. You think about self-fulfilment and joining the art world. Then you realise, ‘our ancestors, our grandparents had to run from Nazis’, and it is simply insane.
“I’ve become preoccupied with my own privilege compared with what our families went through. That is exactly what A Real Pain is about - two cousins trying to come to terms with their past. One of them has kind of fallen apart.
“So you ask yourself: How can you possibly fall apart when your grandparents survived by the skin of their teeth?”
Eisenberg, whose parents were born and bred in the US but whose origins are Polish, said he felt a strong connection to the country.
He said in the interview: “I want to spend more time in Poland because of my family heritage. My family lived in Eastern Europe for more years than it has lived in America.”
He has even decided to get Polish citizenship, which he said was “entirely about a spiritual connection to this place and an attempt to reconnect with somewhere my family lived for hundreds of years”.
Eisenberg also spoke about his decision to donate his kidney, an act which some see as one of the greatest mitzvot a Jew can do.
He did not say whether his Judaism had anything to do with the decision, however.
He said: “I married a woman who really spends her life helping people, so I feel I have a certain responsibility. I thought: ‘Maybe I should talk about donating a kidney because maybe it could influence other people’.
“Why did I donate? It was just a feeling of responsibility. I feel like I’ve been given so much in my life, including two kidneys, and I felt a need to give.”
He added: “I have a perfectly healthy life, and it was very easy. I feel great - 100 per cent, even 101 per cent, because I have a little more pep in my step - and I’m a little lighter.”
