Three years after Now You See Me — a heist caper focused on a group of magicians — took the box office by surprise, its sequel hits theatres on Friday. The film’s central lead Jesse Eisenberg — who has played Mark Zuckerberg and Lex Luthor, penned a number of plays and even written a book — talks about the film and more.

How different was it to shoot for Now You See Me 2 after the first film?
We were trying to figure out how dramatic it could be, how funny it could be, how splashy it could be without compromising what made it feel real and intense. That was difficult to balance. This time we have established the right blend of humour, intensity and showmanship.

Tell us about the story...
When the movie starts the ‘horsemen’ are kind of hiding out, they’ve basically gone underground and are awaiting orders from the ‘Eye’, the secret organisation they were a part of in the first movie. They are incredibly frustrated and going stir crazy because they are showmen, they want to be on stage, they want to be performing and when they get their first task in this movie, it very quickly turns into something dangerous and scary than they initially expected it to be.

What, according to you, is the similarity between caper films and magic tricks?
This movie is kind of a heist and a caper and I think it’s kind of perfectly parallel to what these characters do. When you do magic tricks, there are twists and turns. There are red herrings, there are misdirections which are kind of the elements of the magic tricks... a good magic trick. These are pretty much the elements of a caper. Just when you have figured out what the characters are doing, you have the rug pulled out from under you... and that is the great ingredient of a magic trick.

Do you enjoy playing a douchebag?
I feel more sympathy for the guy who’s tortured than the guy who is confident. That’s why I’m probably going to do a third Now You See Me. In these films, I get to play this brash, arrogant magician, while in my life I’m a shy, quiet person and I grew up with no social life. It’s a great outlet to play these characters.'

If we suggested you were the quintessential ‘millennial’, how would you take that?
Am I a millennial? I don’t know what it refers to. I think I’m too old. And I’m not on Twitter.

Millennials are aged between 16 and 34...
Oh, so I am... wonderful! (Jesse is 32.) All that stuff is silly ways to describe things that are more complicated.
 

JESSE THE HATKE STAR

♦ Is the creator of OneUpMe.com, a wordplay website. He also owns Yugoslavio.com, a site dedicated to “brain power” games and IQ tests. 

♦ Does not have a Twitter or Facebook account. The irony? He played Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2010’s The Social Network. 

♦ As a teenager, Jesse penned a play about Woody Allen, which his icon thought was “derogatory”. The result? Woody’s lawyers slapped “cease and desist” letters on the young Jesse, forcing him to withdraw the play. In 2012, Woody Allen directed Jesse in To Rome With Love #RevengeIsSweet

♦ Bream Gives Me Hiccups — his book of short humour pieces has earned him big praise. One review summed it up: “This isn’t a James Franco situation where he’s trying to pass off his Snapchats as performance art. Eisenberg is truly a talented writer.”

♦ He once wanted to join the circus — and even worked towards it. Reason? His mother has been a professional clown for many decades now.
 

Why do you put your time into stage and television projects instead of cinema?
I’m not a film buff. I didn’t go to film school. I have a degree in anthropology. I write plays. I work for the medium that’s on offer... and that doesn’t have to be cinema. The film industry has changed fundamentally. There is no room anymore for the films I would like to make. Woody Allen is the last man standing. He still makes reasonably priced, independent films my parents would go to see.

In Bream Gives Me Hiccups (the TV series based on the book of short stories he’s penned), I’m trying to do what the independent film directors tried to do in the 1990s. Back then, there was nothing strange about going to see an indie film.

 

Now that has shifted to television. The sort of stuff I write is either intended for theatre — for example, a three-hour play that is transgressive, confrontational and entertaining — or for television. It is made with an independent spirit that you hardly find at all in the film world.

Do you find it weird that a nerd like you can be a real film star?
Isn’t it always the calm, shy people who later become successful? I didn’t have any friends when I was growing up. I was a quiet, shy, and often depressed child. I spent all my time intent on revenge on the world [laughs]. So playing Lex Luthor [in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice] suited me. I sat at home writing or making up jokes. I never went to parties, but I did go to the theatre. It often happens that children with a difficult childhood focus on other things and look for other outlets and then later make a career for themselves. Or they come to grief with drugs.

Do you feel fame has disadvantages?
Fame can be terrifying. It’s not always fun to be looked at by everyone in the street. But you can also use that fame for a good cause. I’m involved with an organisation that campaigns against domestic violence in India. We collected half a million dollars for an organisation that helps abused women and families.
 

Do you agree with Jesse that calm, shy people later become successful? 
Tell t2@abp.in