Jesse Eisenberg Talks Complicated Young Men In Manodrome
In Manodrome, Jesse Eisenberg plays Ralphie, a man tormented by his performs demons who encounters a mysterious organization of men that invite him into their folds. Struggling with pressures and self-worth, he is a powder keg who threatens to blow up the lives of everyone he touches. Kristen Maldonado of Pop Culture Planet spoke with Eisenberg about Manodrome, men in today’s society, and the film industry.
Manodrome can be polarizing in the way it depicts masculinity and gender roles. “This movie really touches on something in quite a deep and shocking way, which is the alienation of young men as gender roles start to maybe shift a little bit. As jobs disappear, as expectations for what masculinity is, and what sexuality should be changes. This stuff can be quite alarming to young men,” he told me. “I never felt like I excelled as a masculine guy. I was always like a small kid and into the arts and kind of an emotional person. So, for me, certain changes in society have been really welcome because suddenly a guy like me can be seen as like, ‘Oh, it's fine. This is another way of being a guy.’ I don't have to be really strong. I don't have to be really confident. I could be emotional. I could raise a child and tell them, ‘Hey, crying is okay.’ So for me these changes in our society have been incredibly welcome and I feel lucky, but, for a lot of other people, I can imagine…”
Eisenberg continued: “My character works at a steel factory [in] Upstate New York, goes to the gym all the time, has these expectations from problems in his childhood that make him feel like he has to be a certain kind of man, and as the world shifts away from that, it's terrifying to him and alienating. So he joins this horrifying male cult where they say that they can answer any questions you might have about being a man and you don't have to worry about anything because we're going to take care of all of that. And you know what? It's women's fault. It's women who are the problems. It's the changing nature of the weak male archetypes. This movie speaks to that very explicitly but not in like a political way. The movie is not saying like, ‘Hey guys, don't join a place like this.’ It's basically just showing what happens when a confused vulnerable individual gets caught up in this awful place.”
Due to scheduling issues, Eisenberg had nearly two years to prepare for the role of Ralphie. “That preparation included figuring out how the character would sound, what the character's hair color would be, earrings, necklaces, physique. I was sending pictures of nude men's torsos back and forth with the director for a year to try to figure out what muscles should I be working on,” he said. “[I was] doing interviews with guys who know this culture — who know gym culture, who know the culture of Upstate New York where the movie takes place — and then just trying to mimic their voices. [I was] listening to their voices from my interviews and creating tapes of all the greatest hits of of lines from them that I wanted to use in the movie.”
The most difficult part of working on the film? “Getting my body into shape,” said Eisenberg, “because I'm not physically inclined to be quite strong. Physically strong. That was just the hard thing. It was just like every day, every weekend, every night just eating a lot, which is again something that doesn’t come naturally to me because I don't have a big appetite. And then, not only eating a lot, but just lifting heavy stuff all day long for about two years prior to making the movie. It was a big part of my life because I thought the movie was about to happen, then it didn’t. So I had spend the last six months working out every day for nothing or just eating this stuff that's gross.”
That helped him stay in the zone when it came time to film. “It's so funny because you get to the set and the character is just eating chicken in the car, just eating, eating, eating, or drinking these protein powders, just drinking, drinking, drinking. And it's like, ‘Oh, I know what this experience is like. You're a machine. You feel like a machine. You treat your body like a machine. You hate yourself when you don't accomplish the goal that you set for yourself that day,” he shared. “So it ended up being really helpful.”
The easiest scenes were the “big emotional ones.” “This is stuff I feel all the time, but never get to express. I’m a very emotionally extreme person. High highs, low lows. So to me, playing a part like this felt very comfortable. It felt cathartic. Like, oh, of course I would scream and cry if this thing happened and here I get to do it in a safe environment, in a creative space. To me, it was a gift,” he shared. “I talk to my parents about this because my parents don't know this process and they're like, ‘Was that hard to do that?’ 'I was like, ‘No, that's the easiest thing in the world because you're pushing yourself to an extreme emotion that you've already had.’ We all know what it's like to feel awful and we all try to put those feelings in our backyard so that we don't have to express them during the day because it's not appropriate. But when you're given the opportunity I guarantee you if you were on set you would be able to do these like big emotional scenes much more easily than sly casual scenes. The sly casual scenes is stuff where you're like, ‘Wait, that doesn't seem real. I didn't do that right. I didn't look real,’ whereas the big emotional stuff you lose yourself in it.”
Up next, Eisenberg is editing his second movie dropping next year called A Real Pain. “It stars me and Kieran Culkin, who is absolutely superb in the movie. He's truly breathtaking. We filmed the entire thing in Poland,” he told me. “Then I want to do another movie like that. But, you know, it's really hard to get movies made that are kind of small movies as you know because you cover it so well. That’s the kind of tough thing. So my goal is to act in anything that can be as good as my part in Manodrome and then direct my scripts when somebody is willing to produce it.”
With his track record, it may seem surprising that it’s not as easy for him to make anything he wants. “It's a weird industry,” he shared. “It's kind of like other freelance jobs where you have like a certain set of standards, but at the same time are desperate to stay busy. Think about how many people that are whatever my level is of notoriety. There’s 200 people like that and a lot of them also want to produce and direct their own stuff. You think like, ‘Wow, it’s so easy. I just got recognized at a coffee shop. I’m sure this producer is going to take my call.’ Then the producer is taking another call. You have a confused sense of your own specialness.”
Watch Manodrome on Prime Video.
