Jesse Eisenberg Interview For ’30 Minutes or Less’

In the action-comedy ’30 Minutes or Less,’ Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) is a small town pizza delivery guy whose mundane life collides with the big plans of two wanna-be criminal masterminds (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson). The volatile duo kidnaps Nick and forces him to rob a bank. With mere hours to pull off the impossible task, Nick enlists the help of his ex-best friend, Chet (Aziz Ansari). As the clock ticks, the two must deal with the police, hired assassins, flamethrowers, and their own tumultuous relationship. ’30 Minutes or Less’ is set for release August 12th in the US, and October 16th in the UK. The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson and Michael Peña.

I read as preperation for the role you actually rode around with a delivery driver who worked for the pizza place in the movie? What was that experience like?

Jesse Eisenberg: It was good because it kind of confirmed for me all of the things in the script that I wasn’t sure about – like the character’s self-awareness. The pizza place where we were filming the movie, they let me go out with this guy Alex, who they thought was most similar to my character – I was surprised to realize how similar he was. He was as sarcastic and self-aware as the character, it was a perfect match for my character.

The character going into potentially dangerous situations, without thinking twice about it. Like in the movie, I deliver a pizza to these guys in this dangerous scrap yard, and when I was out with the guy, I realized that you are doing kind of equivalent things. You are delivering pizza in the middle of the night to drunk people who you know, live in weird places and you have to go into their house, you don’t know if they’re going to answer their door. It made sense that this character would do that, and also might give me some insight into isolated lifestyle. When you know you’re in your car, you maybe start to develop a sense of righteousness and sense of bitterness, and dismissal of the world. So I was able to kind of see some of that.

The key event in the film is a catalyst for your character to change, change for the better.

Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah. My character, he’s dropped out of school a few years ago, he is stuck in this job that he hates. He’s also in love with this girl – who he has never told. When he has the bomb strapped to him, and knows that he has a finite period to live, he quits his job, he confesses his love to this girl, he tries to mend the relationship with his best friend – that has been strained over the last several years. So it really is, ironically, the best thing that could have happened to him. This metaphorically lights a fire underneath him to take a stand and spend these ten hours doing everything he should have been doing the last several years.

How hard was it to balance the stakes? Like the criminal stuff and also reacting in a way that should be presumably funny as it is believable.

Jesse Eisenberg: I guess the more serious you play something, if the context is funny, then it will be funny. It doesn’t really require you to be necessarily, explicitly humorous, or silly. There are some scenes in this movie, because of the grave situation, are naturally that much more funny. For example, this bank robbery where Aziz Ansari and I have to rob a bank and everything that can go wrong in the bank does go wrong. It’s because the two of us are so panicked, freaked out, and taking it so seriously that it’s really funny.

Danny McBride is so great as Dwayne.

Jesse Eisenberg: The character that Danny was playing was written for him, it’s so specifically his voice. He has such a unique way of being intimidating, just being terrible. But at the same time, somehow sweet, endearing and funny. It’s a very strange and unique combination. It’s so important that character has that because he has an arc. As awful as the character is, he has his own storyline, you kind of root for him at some point.

What was the stunt-driving like?

Jesse Eisenberg: I had to unlearn all things I was taught in driver’s ed. Here we were told to just drive recklessly and we were surrounded by stunt drivers that had to react to anything we did. The way Reuben wanted to shoot it was in the spirit of the movies our character liked, such as The French Connection. I got to drive in a lot of the scenes, no one was injured (laughs).

Do you have a favourite heist movie?

Jesse Eisenberg: I really like ‘Dog Day Afternoon,’ and I watched ‘Lethal Weapon’ because our characters reference it and I had never seen it. I feel like our characters think of ourselves as Danny Glover and Mel Gibson when we run into the bank, but in that movie they don’t actually like each other.