Rising star speaks to The Beacon about his experiences and his role in new horror film from Wes Craven

Twenty-one-year-old Jesse Eisenberg is already a Hollywood success story. First seen on the big screen as the inexperienced teenager given life lessons by Campbell Scott in the indie film Roger Dodger, he then graduated to supporting roles in bigger films like The Emperor’s Club and M. Night Shymalan’s The Village.

Now he stars in Cursed, which opened in theaters this past Friday, a new horror film directed by Nightmare on Elm Street auteur Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, in their first collaboration since the monstrously successful Scream franchise. The film also stars Christina Ricci, Portia de Rossi, Joshua Jackson and Shannon Elizabeth.

Eisenberg was born and raised in New York City. He is not the only member of his family to break into show business. His sister is Hallie Kate Eisenberg, best known to audiences as the Pepsi girl of the late 1990s.

Prior to Roger Dodger, Eisenberg was seen as the youngest sibling, Kenny Green, on the short-lived Fox television series Get Real. He also appeared in the television movie Lightning: Fire From the Sky.

While it may seem like a standard teenybopper thriller, Cursed had deeper resonance with Eisenberg.

"Unlike a lot of other genre movies, I thought it really has a nice emphasis on creating characters that seemed realistic," he said in a recent telephone interview with The Beacon. "Kevin Williamson is a good writer and as an actor that’s the best thing, creating characters that are real and multi-dimensional. And to be able to turn it into a movie that doesn’t necessarily have to focus on characters."

Williamson, besides creating and writing the first two entries in the Scream series, is also the mastermind behind the film I Know What You Did Last Summer and television series Dawson’s Creek, which catapulted teen actors like Sarah Michelle Gellar and Katie Holmes into superstardom.

Despite the fact that Cursed is not really about the characters (its plot concerns a werewolf on the prowl in Los Angeles), Eisenberg found that Craven was still interested in realistic portrayals.

"Wes Craven is known for putting his cast at ease and creating a really relaxed set," he said. "It was very relaxed and it’s always important to have a presence like that to feel comfortable. He’s very soft-spoken. The acting was taken seriously regardless of the genre."

Cursed also made headlines during its extremely troubled production.

It was originally supposed to be released more than a year ago, but the release date was pushed back numerous times. Problems with the script plagued the set and resulted in the film eventually being re-shot. Some actors were replaced due to the lengthy delays. Mandy Moore, Skeet Ulrich, Lance Bass and Corey Feldman were among those who got the axe.

"There were some changes with the script and they ended up with a much better product in the end," Eisenberg said.

According to Eisenberg, Cursed’s status as a comfortably budgeted studio production (it was made by Dimension, a specialty division of Miramax) allowed such changes to be made.

"This film has the luxury of being able to afford to go back and rework something," he said. "It’s a great advantage to have in a movie like this, to be able to look at something and see that it’s not working as well as it could."

After all, it gave him the opportunity to work with top-drawer talent like Ricci and de Rossi, both of whom are horror movie veterans.

"It was just more exciting for me to work with those kinds of people," Eisenberg said. "They’re working at such a high level; you don’t want to screw it up."

Now that Cursed is over and done with, Eisenberg sees it as a positive experience.

"It came along at a time where I was in these two movies that had just come out, both dramas," he said. "It just seemed like an interesting thing to do, especially with Wes Craven. And I really liked the characters."

He has an extensive theatre background and, as a New Yorker, looks to do more-that is, if Cursed doesn’t become a Scream-style smash and warrant a number of sequels.

With any luck, Cursed will provide Eisenberg with a stepping-stone to the high-profile roles that could showcase his talent and fulfill the promise of the considerable potential he has shown thus far.