"I stopped watching myself in movies 15 years ago," says Jesse Eisenberg. The actor, who received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in David Fincher's The Social Network (2010), realized early in his career that seeing himself on the screen was beginning to have an adverse effect on his process. So, he decided to do something about it.
"I was worried that I was becoming self-conscious on set, because I would be thinking about my own vanity or the way I looked," he explains. "I just made the decision to never watch myself in a movie again, and then I didn't have to think about it! Nowadays, I'll occasionally see a trailer for something I'm in, but I try not to engage with the final product."
For his latest role, Eisenberg broke that rule. In the dramedy Sasquatch Sunset, he stars as an unnamed Bigfoot, but one would be hard-pressed to even recognize the actor in it. He, like co-stars Riley Keough and Nathan Zellner, is fully covered in makeup, prosthetics, and a full-body Sasquatch costume.
"This is the only movie of mine I can watch, because I don't physically see myself and all of my facial quirks in it," he says with a laugh. "You don't see me in the film — at least, not in the way you usually do — so I'm actually not self-conscious when I watch it."
Reflecting on Sasquatch Sunset's place within his filmography — which includes both indie gems (like Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale and James Ponsoldt's The End of the Tour) and franchise fare (the Now You See Me and Zombieland movies, and playing Lex Luthor in DC's cinematic universe) — Eisenberg says the film gave him the chance to do something he never could have imagined doing, which is partly why he loves acting. (He has also now written and directed two films of his own, 2022's When You Finish Saving the World and this year's A Real Pain.)
"It's so random the things you get sent when you're an actor," Eisenberg muses. "If you're a writer, you can only write the things that you have in your mind. But as an actor, if somebody believes you can play a magician or a Sasquatch, then you get to do that."
Below, Eisenberg shares with A.frame five films that he feels pair well with Sasquatch Sunset.
Directed by: Richard Ayoade | Written by: Richard Ayoade and Avi Korine
A few years ago, I was in two movies that are my favorite kind of movie. One was The Double, which was directed by Richard Ayoade, and the other was The Art of Self-Defense. I think those movies live in the same world as Sasquatch Sunset, even though they look very different. The tone of all three of them is pitched up in a similar way.
Written and Directed by: Riley Stearns
In addition to having a lot in common tonally with Sasquatch Sunset, The Art of Self-Defense was also produced by the Zellner Brothers and even starred David Zellner. Both movies live in these very heightened worlds of absurd comedy, and yet there's also a core of almost extreme earnestness in them. The characters are like children. Their emotions are right at the surface and, at the same time, they're constantly in their heads. Sasquatch Sunrise has that too. It has this eeriness because its characters' lives are so vulnerable to the elements, and in The Art of Self-Defense and The Double, the characters I played were also very vulnerable in their own ways.
Written and Directed by: Richard Ayoade
Richard Ayoade, the director of The Double, made this beautiful movie called Submarine, and it's similarly earnest in an extreme way that is both funny and emotionally textured and rich. Films like that are what I like more than anything else, and Submarine might be my favorite movie ever made. I've watched it more times than any other movie. I think it's just the greatest thing. The style, humor, and acting in it are just so incredible.
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog's movies also have that kind of earnestness mixed with absurdity, and he made Grizzly Man, which is set in a similar physical world as Sasquatch Sunset. At the same time, it has an almost ironic, 30,000-foot view of what he's documenting that reminds me of our movie. It has that tone, which I love, and if I could work forever in the kind of tonal world where everything is slightly skewed and comic but also emotionally earnest, I would. It's more fun than anything else to me.
Written and Directed by: Ari Aster
Beau is Afraid feels like a very modern version of something like Grizzly Man, where the character is dealing with something in such an earnest way, but the context around their life is just absurdity. It becomes this fever dream where you're in the character's shoes, but the context is so skewed and odd that you're just as confused as the character. I think that movie, as well as the other four I mentioned, live in that world of Sasquatch Sunset.
