Person of Interest: Jesse Eisenberg

Fleishman Is in Trouble, the actor’s new NYC-set series, hits close to home

Fleishman Is in Trouble, the actor’s new New York-set series, hits close to home.

Jesse Eisenberg is a bit embarrassed to be here. It’s not because of the quality of the project he’s promoting — his new miniseries, Fleishman Is in Trouble, is based on Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s bestselling 2019 novel, which was longlisted for the National Book Award. Rather, it’s the sheer fact that, as the face of this project, or any project for that matter, he’s the subject of interest from other people. “I’m so embarrassed that I’m a public person in the first place,” he says.

The story follows a divorce between Toby (Eisenberg) and Rachel Fleishman (Claire Danes), narrated by Toby’s friend Libby (Lizzy Caplan). Viewers are shown all the ways in which a wealthobsessed wife has antagonized her altruistic husband, before the other side of the story is revealed. It takes place on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and while its themes about gender roles in marriage are universal, it particularly skewers the class consciousness of New Yorkers. Says Eisenberg, a New Yorker himself, “So much of this show feels embarrassingly specific to the culture I grew up with, all things I have shame around.” Eisenberg spoke to THR over Zoom about the film and his hometown.

How familiar with the book were you when you signed on?

I started reading the book because I had [read] so many interesting interviews with Taffy. The trick

of the book is so satisfying. You’re involved in this man’s story, he’s this heroic, sympathetic guy, and then you realize that not only is this a one-sided perspective on a tragic marriage but also a long-standing trope in stories, that we feel bad for the man. We have different expectations for what a man should shoulder than what we think a woman should shoulder.

Brodesser-Akner (also the series’ showrunner) is well known for her keen celebrity profiles of people like Bradley Cooper; did you feel like she was scoping you out?

I’m so glad I know Taffy through this experience, because there was a safe thing to talk about, which is the show. She did hit the thing right on the head for me, which is that I deflect from talking about myself by asking a lot of questions. She said if she was going to try to write a profile on me, it would be about the profile that I’m trying to do on her.

What did you think of the way the show depicts New York?

I was born in Queens, and when I was 5 I moved out to New Jersey, so I’ve been on the outskirts of Manhattan culture. I’ve always had this fascination with very rich people, that they could live side by side with everyone else and have these extravagant lives. I suppose there’s a bit of cynicism because you think, “I’m an artist, I’m doing it the right way, and I hate that you have to be a billionaire to get a two-bedroom apartment now.” And all that is in the show. As my character says to his wife, “I’m a rich person everywhere in the world except the 40 square blocks you insist we live in.”

Interview edited for length and clarity.

“It’s a lot more comfortable for me to play the antihero than it is to play the charming guy,” says Jesse Eisenberg.

Eisenberg (flanked by Meara Mahoney Gross and Maxim Swinton) in FX’s new series.