Up Close with Jesse Eisenberg

By Sloan MacRae, September 18, 2025

The Park Distinguished Visitor’s advice and insights resonate with IC culture: try everything and embrace curiosity.

A man interviews actor Jesse Eisenberg on a stage.

Professor Jack Powers in conversation with acclaimed actor, writer, and director Jesse Eisenberg.

Devan Accardo/Park Productions

On September 15, Ford Hall was at capacity—644 in the room with some 500 watching online—as actor, writer, and director Jesse Eisenberg joined the Park Distinguished Visitor Series hosted by the Roy H. Park School of Communications. Guided by moderator Professor Jack Powers, the event demonstrated a core IC strength: access that becomes student opportunity.

Park School Dean Amy Falkner set the tone. Calling it “the hottest ticket in town,” she praised the cross-campus collaboration that filled the room to the rafters, “the kind of energy that makes Ithaca College so special.” Students ran cameras, produced assets, and fed live questions through a Park-built app. President La Jerne Terry Cornish joined the audience alongside students, faculty, and staff.

The night’s marquee moment capped student projects that built momentum in the weeks earlier. Leading up to the event, students formed teams to write, shoot, and edit short films for a campus contest designed to promote Eisenberg’s visit. Forty-one videos—representing more than 200 students—were submitted. From those, 14 films were chosen, earning the winners and selected other students from across the campus an intimate Q&A with Eisenberg earlier in the day.

Actor Jesse Eisenberg stands at the entrance to the Roy H. Park School of Communications.

Eisenberg arrives at Park.

Eli Brown/Park Productions

That smaller session, students said, felt like a masterclass with direct feedback, candid process notes, and practical advice about navigating a creative life.

On stage that night, a student question surfaced a theme that resonates at IC: being multifaceted. Eisenberg—an Academy Award-nominated actor who also writes, directs, and composes—didn’t hesitate. “Really, really try to do everything,” he told students. Not to “take over the world,” he added, but because curiosity opens doors. “It’s the curious people who find their way into things because they ask and they’re interested.” It’s a message that mirrors how IC students build their paths—across studios, labs, clubs, and teams—often in ways that don’t run in straight lines.

He also spoke to the character behind the craft. Asked about “authenticity,” Eisenberg cautioned against confusing bluntness with professionalism: “As much as we should prize authenticity and whatever that means to you … you want to make sure that that authenticity is not coming at the expense of being a person who is comfortable and good to work with because it's a collaborative industry.” In a business built on teams, he added, kindness and humility are career skills.

Students with Eisenberg in a television studio/classroom.

Eisenberg with students in one of Park's studios. Eli Brown/Park Productions

The evening traced his arc from child actor to beyond-triple-threat creator. He reflected on A Real Pain, the Sundance winner that earned BAFTA and Oscar recognition, and on what comes next, a stylized musical he wrote and will direct, starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti. He credited craft lessons learned the hard way (including 100-take days with director David Fincher) and made space for the luck, doubt, and anxiety that shadow even celebrated careers.

One story landed especially close to home. On the set of the television miniseries Fleishman Is in Trouble, Eisenberg met Eli Bernstein ’21, an Ithaca alum working on the production. Impressed by his smarts and work ethic, Eisenberg promised that if he ever needed an assistant, he’d call. A few years later, finding Bernstein working at a butcher shop, Eisenberg followed through. “I’m bringing you back,” he told him, hiring him as his assistant and then promoting him to associate producer on his latest film. “He was everybody’s favorite person on set,” Eisenberg said, an anecdote that drew cheers and underscored the value of IC’s alumni network in the industry.

Throughout, Powers and Falkner kept the conversation nimble—probing craft, process, and the practical realities of freelance creative work—while the live app helped steer Q&A. The mix of mainstage energy and intimate access felt distinctly Ithaca: a marquee moment with up-close, student-first exchanges.

Eisenberg's visit included conversations with students from across campus. Devan Accardo/Park Productions

The Park Distinguished Visitor Series, made possible by the Park Foundation, exists for nights like this, when an acclaimed guest engages directly with students, and the campus turns that engagement into learning, mentorship, and excitement. Eisenberg joins a roster that has brought filmmakers, journalists, and advocates to South Hill, and the throughline is clear: students aren’t just in the audience, they’re in the conversation.

As the applause eventually receded, the takeaways were less about celebrity than about possibility. For the 74 students who spent an hour in a private Q&A—and for the hundreds who filled Ford Hall or tuned in online—the message landed. Be multidimensional, stay curious, do the work, and be someone people want to work with. It’s a message that meets IC students where they are ... in production studios and classrooms, on stages and in locker rooms, on campus and beyond.

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