After a brief pause from acting in the past year, actor Jesse Eisenberg is slowly finding his way back onto cinema screens, most recently in Woody Allen's latest, “To Rome With Love.” That isn't to say the actor's been lounging off his Fincher cash though, as a first glimpse from his starring Sundance entry, as well as details of his second off-Broadway-penned effort, have shown up to provide two different sides to the actor's work.
Before working with Woody, it was Ruben Fleischer's comedy “30 Minutes or Less” that saw Eisenberg working his jittery energy into the lead role, and it appears the actor will return to similar ground with “Why Stop Now?,” the Phil Dorling/Ron Nyswaner film that premiered at Sundance back in January. Eisenberg plays a piano prodigy struggling to check his loving mother (Melissa Leo) into rehab while also making a prestigious audition, but when a policy trip-up forces him to enlist the help of Sprinkles (Tracy Morgan), his mother's drug dealer, Eisenberg is then forced into a battle for both his mother's well being and his musical future.
The film will be premiering on VOD starting today, July 5th, before it screens in select theaters on August 17th (check the trailer below), but if you're looking to see Eisenberg tackling more dramatic fare this year, you'll need to look to the stage. The actor found critical acclaim last year with his off-Broadway play, “Asuncion,” and now he's announced the completion of “The Revisionist,” a work focused around the Holocaust. Not too many details have been released just yet, but the play is purported to follow a sci-fi writer that travels to Poland, and meets with a Holocaust survivor relative who happens to carry with him a deep, hidden secret.
Eisenberg is increasingly growing more comfortable with the stage, and perhaps bolder considering the subject matter, so as the play nears its release this year at New York's Cherry Lane Theatre, it should be one followed very closely indeed. [Yahoo/Shalom Life]
