Jesse Eisenberg needed to use his Social Network to grasp the world of dating apps for his new Disney+ TV show Fleishman Is In Trouble.
The 39-year-old actor, who plays a newly divorced guy forced into the current dating scene in this adaptation of Taffy Brodesser-bestselling Akner’s novel, had to borrow his friends’ phones to learn how to use Tinder, Bumble, and other dating apps.
‘That’s precisely what I did, and they were solely, by accident, straight women looking at guys,’ he tells Metro.co.uk.
‘They were the women I was working with at the time and who showed me their apps.’
‘I mean 90% of the world knows far more about this than I do because I’m not on them, but the overwhelming amount of options is all so stifling. Because you feel like, why would you ever stop dating, you know? Because you don’t ever have to stop dating.’
Jesse, who has been married to Anna Stroud since 2017 after dating her on and off since 2002, got to live out his ideal single life on the programme – but he doesn’t envy those of us seeking for love on dating apps.
‘What was really interesting was getting to live out the kind of fantasy of doing all of that in the show. I’m looking at these apps and the prop department actually made these fully usable, interactive apps where I can scroll through pictures of people,’ he says.
‘I would actually go on these dates in the scenes and then there were, like, sex scenes. So, in some ways, I was living out a kind of very strange, technical version of this life and realising that it would be quite stressful to do.’
But it’s not just about hook-ups. Fleishman Is In Trouble discusses contemporary societal concerns and how we’ve lost sight of what we should cherish in society.
Jesse portrays Toby Fleishman, a doctor who is taken for granted and pitied by others around him who make significantly more money for doing job that is comparably less essential, something that many will sympathise with as the NHS strikes for fairer pay continue.
‘Growing up anybody who was a doctor was two things: respected by the community and very rich. Now, in a world where people in finance are making, you know, not only making money, but their money is making money, somebody like Toby Fleischman is relegated in New York City to a middle class life rather than being the richest person you know which was the case when I was a kid,’ says Jesse.
‘It captures that really well. Toby thought he was going to be a doctor and live in New York and be this revered member of society, but everybody he meets who hears he’s a doctor they kind of pity him a little bit, as though he’s doing something cute and small. It’s really cutting in its satire of how things have changed.’
Fleishman Is In Trouble is streaming on Disney+ now.
Source My Celebrity Life.