Stop fighting your anxiety and start using it | Jesse Eisenberg for Big Think+

Nov 19, 2025

In this engaging conversation, Jesse Eisenberg, an Academy Award-nominated actor and acclaimed playwright, dives into the complexities of performance anxiety. He shares how his own catastrophizing worsens with repetition and how feelings often override rational thoughts. Eisenberg emphasizes the importance of normalizing panic, reflecting on the shared anxieties among colleagues. He suggests that rather than suppressing anxiety, we can channel it into authentic performances, turning panic into a motivating force for creativity.

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INSIGHT

Success Can Intensify Worry

Repetition didn't reduce Jesse Eisenberg's anxiety; it often intensified toward the end of long runs.
He catastrophizes success by expecting the next performance to fail despite prior successes.

ANECDOTE

Panic Attack On A Movie Set

Jesse describes having real panic attacks on movie sets that sometimes made his body shut down or hyperventilate.
A sympathetic director gave space, normalized the reaction, and the scene improved after pressure eased.

INSIGHT

Normalization Reduces Performance Pressure

Hearing others normalize his panic removed expectation of perfection and relieved pressure to be flawless.
Realizing anxiety is common reframed it as an ordinary part of demanding work, not a personal failure.

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“The way my mind works is just out of anxiety and catastrophization.” Anxiety doesn’t vanish with practice. In fact, in actor Jesse Eisenberg’s experience, it can grow even sharper even after repetition. Eisenberg’s stories from stage and film sets reveal what performance anxiety teaches us about how the brain works, and how we can rewire it to work better for us. Rather than treating panic as a flaw, the actor argues it can be redirected into focus and authenticity.

Chapters:- 0:00 Performance anxiety 0:32 Recognize catastrophic thinking 3:57 Normalize your panic 6:24 Reframe negative feelings as motivation ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Jesse Eisenberg: Jesse Eisenberg is an Academy Award nominated actor and an acclaimed playwright and author. Eisenberg’s film credits include Roger Dodger, The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland, Zombieland, The Social Network, Now You See Me, The Double, Night Moves, The End of Tour, American Ultra, Louder Than Bombs, Batman v. Superman, Now You See Me 2, Café Society, Justice League, The Hummingbird Project, The Art of Self Defense, Zombieland: Double Tap, Resistance, Vivarium,Wild Indian, Manodrome, and Sasquatch Sunset which sees him play the urban legend Sasquatch. On the small screen, Eisenberg was recently seen playing the titular character of ‘Toby Fleishman’ in the FX limited series Fleishman Is in Trouble based on Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s best-selling novel of the same name. Eisenberg made his directorial debut with A24’s When You Finish Saving the World, which premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival to glowing reviews and screened as a part of Critics Week at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The film is based on the Audible Original of the same name, both of which were written by Eisenberg. Eisenberg’s second directorial effort, A Real Pain, recently had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The film, which Eisenberg stars alongside Kieran Culkin, tells the story of two estranged cousins who travel to Poland after their grandmother dies to see where she came from and end up joining a Holocaust tour, won Eisenberg the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for his screenplay The film was bought at the festival by Searchlight Pictures for a release later in the year. Eisenberg has written four plays, including “The Spoils,” which had a box-office record-breaking run-on West End. He also wrote and starred alongside Vanessa Redgrave in his play “The Revisionist,” and “Asuncion.” His play, “Happy Talk” starring Susan Sarandon and Marin Ireland opened April 2019 at the Signature Theater in New York. Born in New York, Eisenberg is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, the author of the collection, Bream Gives Me Hiccups from Grove Press and the Audible Original When You Finish Saving the World, which won “Best Original Work” at the 2021 Audie Awards.

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