This week, Jesse Eisenberg stopped by the Canadian premiere of his new film, Now You See Me, where we were able to catch up with the actor and ask him a few brief questions about the flick. Though our time with Jesse was brief, we were able to speak with him about his training for the film, which magicians inspired his performance and how much of the magic was done by him.
On his training for the film and how much of the magic he had to do:
I do a lot of the more basic tricks, I had a few months to practice. The most impressive thing that my character does is when he’s being interrogated and he’s handcuffed to a table and shuffling through a deck of cards. It’s just the most exquisite looking thing but that wasn’t me, it was these guys known as The Buck Brothers, who are these great card shufflers.
On whether or not he’s always been interested in magic:
I’ve always loved magic but it always frustrated me because I didn’t know how it was done. When I got to play this part of a guy who knows every trick in the book, it was a relief to play because I didn’t have to worry about not knowing how to do everything.
On which magicians he modelled his performance after:
If you look at David Copperfield you see this real intensity and showmanship in him and the director, Louis Leterrier, wanted me to play it more like that, rather than someone like David Blaine, who does things more casually.
Unfortunately, that’s all the time we had with Jesse but we’d like to thank him for speaking with us. Be sure to check out Now You See Me, in theatres tomorrow.
