Best Film: The Social Network
They say that in Hollywood, everybody wants to direct. Apparently, in the theater, what everybody wants to do is write.
Exhibit A: Jesse Eisenberg, whose play, “Asuncion,” previews Oct. 12 at the Cherry Lane.
The Oscar-nominated star of “The Social Network” started writing back in high school. But while he’s written several screenplays, he says, none were ever made.
“I wasn’t very good at rewriting them, or I guess even writing them initially,” says the 27-year-old, whose occasional stutter is in marked contrast to his fierce, fast-talking turn as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. “I feel a lot more comfortable writing stage plays.”
In “Asuncion,” his debut comedy, he and Justin Bartha play friends whose self-professed open-mindedness is tested by their new roommate, the young Filipina of the title.
“My character thinks of himself as being worldly and very aware geopolitically and socially,” he says, “but he’s really masking his own insecurities. It’s an exaggeration of me.”