The Roy H. Park School of Communications held its 2025 Park Distinguished Visitor Series on Sept. 15 in Ford Hall with Oscar-nominated actor, writer and director Jesse Eisenberg. Eisenberg is known for his work on “The Social Network” and “A Real Pain.” In this event, he was on stage with Jack Powers, professor and chair in the Department of Media Arts, Sciences, and Studies, who led the conversation around giving advice for students who are interested in the entertainment industry.
The audience was engaged, cheering and reacting to Eisenberg’s comments about his film career. Some notable moments included a student during the Q&A portion of the event asking Eisenberg if he could do any magic tricks, a reference to his previous film “Now You See Me,” and another question that asked about the possibility of a “Rio 3.”
Eisenberg discussed a variety of topics relating to both his career and his personal experiences related to his time in the industry, which included dealing with anxiety and putting on a persona in a public setting.
“The way that I think about myself, and the way I imagine you guys will think about yourselves once you graduate and you’re in the world of the arts, is that you’re going to be a freelance artist,” Eisenberg said. “You finish one job, and then you have to get another job. And that’s a scary, unstable position to be put in. … It taught me to stay busy. And then, ultimately I had my biggest success in the last decade [with] the movie [A Real Pain] I made last year in Poland.”
Powers described the Park Distinguished Visitor Series as a chance for students to engage with people who have made their careers in different parts of the entertainment industry. He said the program is a chance for students to see what is possible in the industry and during the talk, he said that Eisenberg was an ideal candidate for a Park Distinguished Visitor due to his versatility as an artist, being a writer, director and actor.
“[Eisenberg]’s gone from being a college student to being an acclaimed actor, an acclaimed writer and an acclaimed director,” Powers said. “I want students to understand that journeys like that are possible. … We have a number of immensely talented students and there’s no reason that one day it won’t be them. Maybe not at the level of Eisenberg, but it’s possible [they] could do this.”
This year’s Park Distinguished Visitor Series held an opportunity for students in the weeks before the event. There was a contest that was held for students to film a 15-45 second short video for social media that promoted the event in some way, shape or form. The top winners were invited to attend a small session with Eisenberg, where they would discuss his career and the entertainment industry in a more intimate setting that took place before the main event.
Sophomore Alec Aleva, a television, photography, and digital media major, was part of one of the three groups that won the contest. He said he and his friends — sophomores Andrew White, Mamadou Balde and Pranat Shah were not expecting to win at all — just wanted to have fun and make a short film and see where it went.
“We had sort of low expectations,” Aleva said. “We thought this was a great opportunity, and we were like, ‘If we win this, this is awesome, but there’s probably gonna be a lot of other Park kids that are putting a ton of effort into this.’”
After winning the contest, Aleva said he was going to take this opportunity seriously by going into the session with Eisenberg with a professional mindset.
“The main reason why I am at Park is to make connections,” Aleva said. “I’m taking this as seriously as I can because I know if I do things correctly, I could stem off of him, meet other people, and just get my foot in the door. That’s really what this is about.”
Unfortunately, it was not all smooth sailing for the event. Ford Hall could seat 644 people, which included both students and staff monitoring the event. There were some miscommunications about which tickets were available to students, causing many to purchase faculty, tickets meant for faculty, staff or students in particular classes required to attend the event, which were eventually voided because they were not meant to be open to the public.
There was then a second round of tickets available to all that were shadow dropped Sept. 10 via email. After this, due to the previous confusion about the faculty tickets, there was then a third round of tickets that were a lottery drawing that only Park students could get into. There were also various technical difficulties pertaining to the ticketing website, PurplePass, which kept some people from accessing their tickets. This has caused dissatisfaction for the amount of people able to attend, leaving anyone else who wanted to see the event watching through a virtual livestream.
Aleva said that his experience was difficult accessing the tickets, only being able to gain a ticket through pure luck.
The site was not that stable and it was getting network errors,” Aleva said. “After five minutes, I got the site to work, so I bought a ticket. A lot of people didn’t.”
The Ithacan reached out to Amy Falkner, dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications, for a comment pertaining to the ticketing situation, who did not respond in time for publication.
In spite of the ticket debacle, however, the students who were able to attend got a lot of insight out of the event. Senior Ava Nicoletti, a film, photography, and visual arts student, was also ecstatic for the event. She viewed the event through a more professional lens.
“There’s a lot of schools that get a lot of high–level speakers like Chapman [University] and places like that, where it happens very commonly,” Nicoletti said. “I feel like that hasn’t really been something that [Ithaca College] has been able to offer me up to this point.”
Eisenberg ended the event with advice for anyone that is trying to break into the arts and the entertainment industry, in which he told students to pursue their curiosities, whatever they may be.
“I guess my advice is really try anything,” Eisenberg said. “It’s really hard to get any job in the arts, but if you think ‘I could do anything, let me learn what this is.’ … If you’re curious, it’s the curious people who find their way into things because they ask, and they’re interested. My advice to people that want to do anything is: That’s amazing. Pursue that feeling.”
