September 18, 2026

24 Hours With: Jesse Eisenberg

24 Hours in the life of The Debut writer, director, and star, Jesse Eisenberg at TIFF.

IN THE LAST 24 HOURS:

I LISTENED TO:
**“Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy. It’s the only song that calms me down during intense periods because, no matter what I’m doing, she’s always more stressed out**

I PLAYED:
A NY Times Saturday crossword from twenty years ago. I’m going through the archive now. I’m getting to years where “pine tar” would be a possible answer

I OVERHEARD:
Someone on the airplane talking about inheriting an old car from “someone” in their family. I was struggling to evaluate whether or not this story was being told to impress (as in, “I have this amazing car”) or for pity (as in, “I only have a car because someone gave it to me, and the car is really old”)

I ATE:
Various yogurts

I LEARNED:
That there are a few luggage companies that dominate the industry. I met a really nice woman who was flying to Toronto to try to get Dulce suitcases into retail stores. She said her company was the third-largest company. I asked who was first, and she said Samsonite, followed by Rimowa, and it reinforced for me that we all live in our own little bubbles and that she and I were probably worried about different things

I WROTE DOWN:
I wrote a letter for McSweeney’s called “Dear Suit That Hangs In My Closet.” It’s about how I have a suit in my closet, and its very presence makes me feel like a baby

I WOKE UP THINKING ABOUT:
I had a dream where I was given a sandwich, but the person who gave it to me said, “Just don’t eat the bread.” I asked why, and he said something like, “A lot of actors don’t like to eat the bread because it stains.” I woke up wondering if this is a metaphor for something more important or if I should just avoid dyed bread for the day

I DRANK:
A cup of coffee

I WATCHED:
A little TV in the bathroom at the hotel in Toronto, which was on mute. It was playing a local news station, and there was a news scroll that mentioned the Toronto Film Festival and various fires and car accidents around the city. Then there was a section called “News from Hamilton,” and I was impressed that the Broadway show was so popular that it had its own news section on a local Toronto station. It soon became clear that Hamilton is a city in Ontario

I BUMPED INTO:
My friend Eloge Butera, who was the basis of the character of the same name in A Real Pain. He has an incredible life story and is a brilliant man, and he was in Toronto for a conference. We ate french fries and talked about world politics, a subject for which he is a literal expert. He came to a screening of The Debut. That was an unexpected highlight

I READ:
A series of fictional “letters” from McSweeney ’s, which were letters written to inanimate objects or ideas or themselves, etc. Specifically, the letters from the writers Isaac Fitzgerald and Ikechukwu Ufomadu were very wonderful

I WORRIED ABOUT:
Various fantastical things and some concrete things, like losing my passport

I TOOK A PHOTO OF:

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