Jesse Eisenberg Has a Few Questions

Vanessa Redgrave once compared Jesse Eisenberg to the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, because of his “inquiring mind.” Seventeen minutes into my recent lunch with Eisenberg, in Chelsea, I had yet to ask him a question, but he’d peppered me with plenty of his own. Where was I from? How did I know So-and-So? Did I get to consult on my New Yorker cartoon avatar? When I first glimpsed him, as I crossed the street to the restaurant, he’d been fist-bumping a postman. “People are so nice if you’re famous, I guess,” he reasoned, sounding apologetic. “Or maybe not. I don’t know.” He glanced at his menu. “What are you going to get?”