Lifestyle
Jesse Eisenberg isn't ambitious — but he does worry about failing
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A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: I appreciate Jesse Eisenberg not just because he’s really good at acting, but because he helps me raise my kids. That may sound unnecessarily provocative, but here’s what I mean: Eisenberg tends to play male characters with deep interior lives. Characters who spend a lot of time feeling things like anxiety, fear, insecurity. They are also big hearted and kind. And on screen, we see Eisenberg’s characters trying to find their place in a world where men are expected to flatten their vulnerabilities and all of their emotions to fit into some antiquated definition of masculinity.
What does this have to do with my kids? Well, I’ve got two boys, they’re 10 and 12, and I very much want for them to turn into young men who are comfortable living through every one of their emotions. And maybe I’m giving Hollywood too much power in my life, but it feels affirming as a parent to see these kinds of male characters on screen.
Cases in point: The Squid and the Whale, The Art of Self-Defense, the show Fleishman is in Trouble. And of course the movie that’s getting a ton of accolades right now — including a best original screenplay and supporting actor nomination at the Oscars — A Real Pain, which Eisenberg wrote and directed. He also co-stars in the film alongside Kieran Culkin.
The trailer for “A Real Pain.”
YouTube
This Wild Card interview has been edited for length and clarity. Host Rachel Martin asks guests randomly-selected questions from a deck of cards. Tap play above to listen to the full podcast, or read an excerpt below.
Question 1: What’s a moment when you remember being brave as a teenager?
Jesse Eisenberg: Well, so in my senior year of high school, I kind of came into my own a little bit. I grew up in New Jersey, and in my senior year of high school, I transferred to a performing arts high school in New York City. And it was like I just became, like, an adult overnight going there. But the bravest thing I did was probably cut school one day to go see a Broadway matinee of Judgment at Nuremberg — which maybe tells you enough about me to understand my full personality.
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Actor, writer and director Jesse Eisenberg says he has had far more failures than successes.
Gareth Cattermole/Contour by Getty Images
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Gareth Cattermole/Contour by Getty Images
My friends and I — we were planning it like a heist at math class in the morning, like, “Yeah, cool I’m gonna meet you at lunch and I think we can get student tickets for the last row mezzanine.” So our big transgression in high school was going to see a Broadway matinee.
I’m sure it would have been the kind of thing if our teachers caught us, they’d be like, “Oh my God, you sweet nerds. Of course. Go. That’s great. I’m giving you an A anyway.”
Question 2: Has ambition ever led you astray?
Eisenberg: I mean, yeah, I think about it all the time. In an attempt for me to stay busy and active I sometimes will push for my things to be done sometimes, even if they’re premature. But I will say, I’m not naturally an ambitious person for myself, but I really am quite a worried person about failing. And so it creates an ambition in me by necessity to just try to stay busy at all times.
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Rachel Martin: How have you managed that fear of failure? Because that’s inevitable. I mean you’ve had them, right?
Eisenberg: Yeah. I’ve had far more failures than successes. And my father is a sweet person. He’s a teacher and has such sweet perspectives on my life. So, like, with this movie, A Real Pain, it’s doing well and everything and, you know, there’s a feeling inside of me that this should be the norm and like, “I’m a failure if this is not the norm.”
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(L-R) Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg at The National Board of Review Annual Awards Gala in January.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board/Getty Images North America
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Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board/Getty Images North America
And my dad has kind of a 60,000-foot view or 30,000-foot view – depending on your airline – of what this means. And he tells me things like, “If you have two of these in your career, that’s a cool thing.” A really successful career to have in the arts is to have, like, let’s say two movies that you make that are regarded this nicely.
And so that puts things in perspective, because what it tells me is that this should not be expected to be the norm. And then my friend Jim tells me all the time that if you want a career in the arts, success is basically staying active and busy. The successes are not the one or two things that spike.
Question 3: What is your best defense against despair?
Eisenberg: I married a woman who has the same values as me. I mean, she’s a far better person — she teaches disability social justice and awareness in public schools. And her mom ran a domestic violence shelter for 35 years. So she comes from this kind of world.
And I’m preoccupied with privilege versus struggle and meaning versus emptiness, etc. But the interesting thing that occurs to me, though, is that my wife – she just does something about it. She always just says, “OK, so what are you going to do about it?”
So if I’m, like, feeling miserable, she’s like, “OK, so what are you going to do about it?” Or I’m like, “I feel so bad about what happened to my friend.” She always is just like, “Oh, let’s call him now and try to get him a job. Oh, you know what? I can call my friend. She actually knows somebody who just lost their job here. Maybe they can talk. Maybe they can work together.” There’s not an instinct in her to wallow in it or to, like, make it about herself.
I make it about myself. “Oh God, I feel so guilty.” She’s not even aware that she’s doing something different than me. It’s just the way she’s wired. And so I look to her all the time, and we’ve been together forever.
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Martin: I think it’s so lovely that you found each other.
Eisenberg: Oh, I’m lucky. I’m lucky. Because I’m not wired for anything good. She’s wired to do all this good stuff.
Martin: That’s not true. I’ve known you for an hour, and Jesse Eisenberg I don’t think you’re wired to do nothing good.
Eisenberg: No, no, no. I’m a thoughtful person, but it doesn’t lead to, like, you know, benevolent action. She’s just, like, she’s less contemplative than me. She’s just very active and has a good heart.
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Lifestyle
Farfetch Reached EBITDA Profitability in 2024, Sales Remain Lower Than 2022 Levels
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Lifestyle
The New Yorker Celebrates 100 Years
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On Tuesday evening, Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly were sitting at a sidewalk table outside Jean’s, a chic night spot in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. Nearby, writers, critics and cartoonists streamed past a black rope and a bouncer to attend The New Yorker’s 100th anniversary party.
Mr. Spiegelman, the graphic novelist who has been a contributor to the publication since 1992, puffed on a slender e-cigarette. Ms. Mouly, the magazine’s longtime art editor, took in the scene. The two have been married almost 50 years.
“The New Yorker is the last of its kind standing, and tonight we’re celebrating that,” Mr. Spiegelman said. “I still remember meeting the great writer Joseph Mitchell in the magazine’s hallway. I felt like I was in the presence of a monument.”
Ms. Mouly, who recently curated a centennial exhibit of the magazine’s covers for L’Alliance New York, a French cultural center, also reflected on the big night.
“A hundred years of The New Yorker is a vindication of what I believe in,” she said. “Now there’s TikTok, and all the minutes people spend on it, but to me a magazine is a magazine is a magazine. That copies of The New Yorker used to pile up at the foot of the bed was once the magazine’s curse, but to me now that’s a point of pride.”
The choice of Jean’s as the venue for a party meant to celebrate a publication known for deeply reported articles and literary fiction came as a bit of a surprise to Hua Hsu, a Pulitzer Prize winner who writes about music and culture for the magazine.
“I guess part of me was hoping the party might be at some stuffy old uptown spot,” he said. “But this magazine can only be what it is because of the young people who keep coming through it and imparting their vision, so I think this venue nicely reflects that.”
As Iggy Pop and Fleetwood Mac played from the speakers, the place was packed with bookish guests who squeezed past one another on their way to a seafood platter.
David Remnick, who became the magazine’s fifth editor in 1998, roamed the floor, as did his predecessor in the job, Tina Brown.
“It would be the height of presumption to think anything can last another 100 years, and I know we’re all obsessed with every new thing that comes down the highway,” Mr. Remnick said. “But I absolutely believe that people will always want what we do at The New Yorker.”
He grew pensive as he considered two stalwarts of the magazine who were now gone. “I miss Janet Malcolm, and I miss Roger Angell,” he said. “I’ll always remember sitting with him in the left field stands for the Yankees. It was one of the great nights of my life.”
A pack of fiction writers — Zadie Smith, Jennifer Egan, Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Lethem — gathered by the bar. The club was also flooded with staff writers including Rachel Aviv, Adam Gopnik, Jia Tolentino, Naomi Fry, Vinson Cunningham, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Helen Rosner, Kelefa Sanneh, Rachel Syme, Kyle Chayka and Doreen St. Félix.
“The New Yorker doesn’t really change, which can be seen as a marker of conservatism, but there’s something to be gleaned by consistency,” Ms. St. Félix said. “We’re entering an era where there won’t be many things that last a hundred years.”
As waiters offered fries in Anthora coffee cups, bartenders served cocktails with New Yorker-appropriate names. The gin-based Tipsy Tilley referred to the magazine’s foppish mascot, Eustace Tilley, who appeared on the cover of the first issue, dated Feb. 21, 1925. Versions of the character, created by the cartoonist Rea Irvin, appear on the six cover variants the magazine rolled out for its anniversary issue this month.
“I think that in this day and age, endurance means something,” Susan Orlean, a longtime staff writer, said. “Tonight is like celebrating the centennial of the United States. We made it.”
The critic Emily Nussbaum danced beneath a disco ball alongside editors, fact-checkers and editorial assistants. Also present at Jean’s were the cartoonist Roz Chast and the writers Daniel Mendelsohn and Bill Buford. Roger Lynch and Jonathan Newhouse were among the executives at Condé Nast, the publisher that operates The New Yorker, who made the party.
Judith Thurman, who started writing for the magazine in 1987, made her way to the coat check. She said the party was a little more boisterous than she had expected.
“You could be wearing a garbage bag here, it’s so dark,” she said. “I don’t know if this venue is that great for those of us with hearing problems.”
“At first I thought this was my 100th birthday party, but then I remembered I’m only 78,” she added. “The more A.I. takes over, and TikTok takes over, the more there’s going to be a resistance to it one day. And The New Yorker will be here, more necessary than ever.”
As the party wound down, Patrick Radden Keefe reminisced about stepping into David Grann’s office to get structural advice on his stories. The film critic Richard Brody and the food writer Hannah Goldfield traded notes on “The Brutalist” and the merits of intermissions.
Calvin Trillin, who started writing for the magazine in 1963, was holding court by the bar as Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” blasted from a speaker.
“I’m 89 now, so I haven’t been here for all of the hundred years, but I’ve been here for quite a few,” he said. “Tonight I’ve thought about Joseph Mitchell, and how in awe I was of him. My wife used to say to me, ‘Why don’t you just ask him if he wants to go to lunch with you?’ But I didn’t have the nerve to.”
He swiped a cookie from a passing tray.
“A hundred years is a long time,” he said, “but I hope The New Yorker will go on for another hundred. There’s no good reason not to.”
Lifestyle
This hidden L.A. stargazing party is 'more interesting than going to a bar'
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When Dylan Anderson was eight years old, he discovered an old telescope of his grandfather’s. The pirate-esque rig was dusty from years in the garage, but Anderson was instantly intrigued.
“I was like, ‘Hey, what’s this?’ ” the now-18-year-old member of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society said. “I saw Jupiter and its four moons, and I was hooked.”
You’ll hear similar stories from a lot of astronomy enthusiasts, who say that seeing their first big planet was what sparked a lifelong enchantment with the stars. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the line to see Jupiter, with its milky stripes and four moons, seemed to never end last Thursday evening at the Los Angeles Astronomical Society’s (LAAS) monthly Star Party Silverlake.
The premise for the party is simple: members of the 100-year-old society set up their personal telescopes; community members can circle through and gaze at whatever is on view that night.
This month’s event featured free wine and live music — singer and gayageum player Joyce Kwon accompanied by two harpists. It was also the first time LAAS co-hosted Star Party with Usal Project, an outdoors club dedicated to “newfound nature enthusiasts.” With the additional draw from Usal’s network, over 200 people came to the Sunset Triangle Plaza in Silver Lake to, as LAAS encourages, “look up.”
“We walk around with the pressures of the world, but there’s a lot of reward in just looking up at the universe,” said Bobby Cabbagestalk, 37, an LAAS member who created Star Party in October 2024.
Keith Armstrong, left, president of LAAS, stands with Bobby Cabbagestalk, who created the party.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
“The idea of ‘looking up’ really translates from an ethos standpoint for the whole reason we both started our projects,” said Michael Washington, 34, the founder of Usal Project. “Being curious, stepping outside your comfort zone, and trying something new.”
Cabbagestalk joined LAAS last summer after running into a group of members stargazing at the Sunset Triangle Plaza, a Thursday night tradition which began in the fall of 2023. The experience immediately sent him back to growing up stargazing with his mom — he recalled that on his 12th birthday, she woke him up in the middle of the night to watch the 2001 Perseid meteor shower. After getting involved with the group, he decided to expand the weekly gatherings with a party once a month, complete with music, drinks and programming, such as happy hour provided by the restaurant Pine and Crane. Cabbagestalk said he hopes guests will have the same sense of childlike wonder that he had when they come to these events.
And if the chatter from the animated crowd was any indication, Star Party was successful in accomplishing its mission.
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Anjalika Lobo looks at Mars.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
“Can I ask a really silly question? … What’s a nebula?”
“Is this the line for Jupiter?
“It better change my life.”
“They should have this here every night!”
Anjalika Lobo, 33, walked from her apartment to the event where she met her friend Katy Maravala, 35. Both women expressed that in a city that can feel so “sceney,” Star Party offered a “low-key” opportunity for community.
“I feel like this is the event that so many people have been craving,” Lobo said. “It’s like that mythical third space that everyone has been whining about.”
“It’s more interesting than going to a bar,” said Maravala. “It’s nice to be surrounded by people who are just as interested in doing something different on their Thursday night.”
“We needed this!” the women laughed.

Usal Project founder Michael Washington, left, talks with fellow stargazers.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
That same sense of joy in community has buoyed membership of LAAS, which skyrocketed from 300 to 900 members during the pandemic, and now sits at around 1,100 members, according to the president Keith Armstrong.
“We’re all just kinda like orphans, who didn’t have friends and family who were into it, so we all kinda found each other,” said Armstrong, 47. “Because of that, it’s easy to make friends here.”
Armstrong explained that the society is made of everyone from tech bros to actual scientists to astrophotography nerds — and everyone got into it for a different reason. For Alex Vidal, 46, the owner of the telescope that was trained on Jupiter, joining LAAS was about sharing the night sky with as many people as possible; for Justin Hawkins, 40, whose great uncle designed astronaut helmets, exploring astronomy was inevitable as soon as he could budget for his first telescope; for Nasir Jeevanjee, 68, the joy comes from taking long exposure photographs of the stars from his backyard.
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The California Nebula imaged by Nasir Jeevanjee, a longtime LAAS member, who photographs the stars from his backyard in Lake Balboa.
(Nasir Jeevanjee)
But for Armstrong, it always comes back to community: even if the weather conditions are poor and the planets aren’t visible, it’s still a chance for the stargazing regulars to grab a beer together on Thursday nights.
“For every unit of energy I put into this thing, I get a unit and a half back,” he said.
At this star party, Jupiter and its moons, Mars, and constellations like Orion, were visible despite Los Angeles’ light pollution. Like Cabbagestalk had hoped, people spilled into the plaza from nearby establishments like El Condor or the Win-Dow to try something different. For most, the wait to see Jupiter was worth it.
“It’s a good reminder that there’s things bigger than us,” said Emily Guarin, 26, whose far-flung group of friends had reconnected specifically for the event. “I was staring at the lines of Jupiter, and it’s like I am here and Jupiter is there, and it doesn’t even know I’m looking at it.”
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Stargazers gather to look at the celestial bodies at the Star Party.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
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