Jesse Eisenberg Subverts Songwriting Process for 'Debut' With His Love of Musical Theater Clichés

Eisenberg Wrote Seven Original Songs for His New Film, Recalls Tears While Working on Its Biggest Song

In addition to writing, directing, producing, and starring in his new film The Debut, Jesse Eisenberg has also taken on another unexpected role: songwriter.

For the film - which follows a shy housewife (played by Julianne Moore) as a community theater performer who loses herself in performance - Eisenberg wrote seven of the original songs that make up the film's central show, Nosy Neighbors. One of those songs, "This Town May Have Chewed Me Up (But It Didn't Spit Me Out)," is up for Best Original Song.

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The star emphasized that he is not classically trained but writes music on the piano or while playing the guitar, "And again, what I can write is musical theater music. It's not like I like what you're doing [composing]. That's the extent of my talent and I've worked really hard at it, but that's my ceiling."

Eisenberg recalls collaborating with Mussery on the 2022 film When You Finish Saving the World and writing a song for Finn Wolfhard's character. "I sent it to Emil, and Emil was very sweet, but he said, 'It would be really good if he did musical theater music,' and he does more rock music," Eisenberg explained. "And so I was like, 'Can you rewrite the score?'" Mussery said, but Eisenberg said that made him realize, "I'm not a good enough musician. Then do jazz or something more complicated…. I really like musical theater music and I like a lot of the songs I've written. But this is the extent of my skill."

Mussery responded by noting that Eisenberg "is very humble and kind of downplays his musical ability because he's written these incredible songs," as the filmmaker explained that with the story set in the world of theater, "it allowed me to take things to the extreme, because musicals are over the top and silly and absurd."

That's not to say he didn't take the songwriting seriously, though, as Eisenberg explained, "I wanted it to feel like it was the real thing. So I'm making fun of the songs, but when I'm sitting there writing 'This City Might Have Chewed Me Up,' I'm crying. It's like I feel like the city chewed me up, Jesse, and it didn't spit me out, Jesse. Like it's so personal, but I knew the context around it was stupid."

He added that he was particularly inspired by the wave of '90s musicals that "kind of idolized New York," where he grew up obsessed. "All the songs in the movie are like that weird thing, like 'Finding a good boy in the city is like a needle in a haystack,'" joked Eisenberg. "I don't think any real self-actualized person can relate to that feeling, but they do in musical theater."

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