Now the 25 year-old actor hopes to continue to gain even more notice in Hollywood as zombie assassin Columbus in the new horror comedy Zombieland. As Eisenberg reveals, however, like so many actors, he didn’t come out seeking the role so much as the role sought him.

“The only reason I got to audition for this movie because I was flown out to San Diego to do like a Greek play,” Jesse recalls, “We flown out for the troops in Camp Pendleton to do two Greek plays. We were doing Ajax and Philoctetes.”

“And then, I drove up to LA to Reuben and audition for him,” he adds, “And I think that people don’t understand that the life of an actor is just that. You may get known for something, but that doesn’t mean you don’t do other things.”

Being a gun-toting zombie killer, we asked Jesse if there was any training or research involved on his part for the role.

“Well, they put me on a treadmill for a week to get me down to an even 100 and then, they made me shoot a fake gun,” Eisenberg reveals, “Nothing physically taxing at all. The girls in the movie, they’re supposed to be the expert markspeople and the girls had a lot of training.”

“Abigail Breslin is 12 years old and she’s a great shot and probably serve her well in Hollyweird,” he continues, “I read about the Peloponnesian War, but when we got to set, we realized that was unnecessary.”

Eisenberg says that unlike most horror films, he and the cast were blessed with a great script, but the freedom to improvise.

“The guys wrote a great script,” he believes, “These two guys wrote an amazing script. First, it was a television pilot, they wrote this script about a hundred different ways. It was like a television series where they wrote other episodes and finally got turned into this, which is its best incarnation ever, as like a movie script. To the director’s credit, Reuben [Fleischer] let us improvise a lot and he kind of pieced it together. There’s a lot in there that that was made up. Abigail Breslin, she’s a genius. She’s only 12 and yet she’s the best actress among us. And [director] Reuben [Fleischer], it was his first movie as well, but I swear to God, it felt like his second, if the first one was for YouTube.”

“The first scene in the movie where we meet up, there’s like all these funny little things,” Jesse adds, “Again, the scene was like an amazingly, well-written scene, I mean that. The same day I auditioned for Zombieland, I auditioned for what would be considered a great independent drama and I had my friend read the both scenes with me because I had auditions and my friend said this was so much better. The scene was actually like a well-written script even though it was a genre comedy, but even so, Reuben would let us do all these crazy…Woody has all these crazy props that he decided to use in this opening scene, like cleaning his knives and stuff. And all that stuff, he let us play around with our characters.”

We asked Jesse how he felt working with co-star Woody Harrelson and whether the real-life Woody leaned closer to his badass or sweet types of characters that color most of his film roles.

“He’s a sweetass,” Eisenberg replies, “Woody’s been going around cutting my name out of the movie posters, replacing it with Woody Harrelson. So it’s now Woody Harrelson, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin.”

The film’s comic tone has many comparisons to the offbeat 2004 British zombie spoof Shaun Of The Dead. We asked Eisenberg whether he felt there were any similarities.

“I didn’t see the movie, but I think our movie is maybe less a parody, like less satirical,” Jesse believes, “I don’t think it plays on the conventions of the zombie movies as much as it creates its own world. What I liked about it the most was that it really takes place in its own space where the rules are popping up on screen and it’s kind of a fun environment separate from everything I’ve seen.

“I don’t know,” he continues, “I don’t watch any zombie movies, so I guess that’s the first difference as I saw this one. I don’t know, this is like the funniest movie I’ve ever seen. I saw it twice now. I hate watching movies I’ve been in. I hate, hate, hate it. I see it once because I have to. I’ve seen the movie twice in a row because I think it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s hysterical and it’s so much fun. It’s like 90 minutes of pure fun.”

Jesse was shared co-star Woody Harrelson’s notion that his “90 Minutes Of Pure Fun” comment would look great on the film’s promotional ads.

“I’m an unbiased movie critic,” Eisenberg replies.

We wondered though whether he had even ever seen a horror movie.

“Maybe Woody Allen’s September?” Jesse says, “Takes place at a country house and Louise Lasser does something.”

Jesse shared with us the experience of also doing voiceover work for the film.

“It was OK, but I did about twenty different, and when I say different, I mean flying out to Los Angeles to record it,” he recalls,” Because as they were editing the movie, as I was saying, the movie is so much fun mostly because it’s so tight, there’s not one moment in the movie where you feel like it drags.”

“A lot of that was about getting the voiceover right so it can push the story along as efficient as possible, kind of give you enough information, but not too much,” Eisenberg continues, “So we rewrote the voiceover part of the movie, maybe twenty times, and it works really well. We hit it.”

Eisenberg says that he notes the strange irony of doing back-to-back films involving scenes in carnivals in both his previous film Adventureland and his newest one Zombieland.

“I’ve tried in every way to escape that irony, but it sneaks up on you at night, sometimes in the shower. Just irony with a knife,” Jesse claims.

We asked Jesse whether he’d be open to the possibility of doing a sequel for Zombieland.

“I think we should do a sequel, although that’s something to ask Reuben,” Eisenberg answers, “He’s filming Avatar right now, so I don’t think we can get him back. And if the press junket is any indication, this is the last one.”

Eisenberg also shared with us what he feels he would do if zombies overran the Earth and destroyed all of functioning society.

“Necrophilia,” he replies, “And I also have an edible complex. So if I can do anything and it wouldn’t be reported, I would probably do something with my mom and then gouge my own eyes out.”

Eisenberg’s next film is set to be about Beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg. We asked the actor if he could explain to us the common link in the jump between doing Zombieland and the Ginsberg film.

“Well, they are both beats,” Jesse explains, “Well, Allen Ginsberg, by the end of his life, with his facial hair and spectacles kind of looked a bit like a zombie, but geez, I don’t know. There’s not much similarity.”

The simple truth of it all, Jesse believes, is that there really isn’t a criteria for him when it comes to what kind of role he chooses from film to film.

“When I saw the script, when I saw that it was called Zombieland, I really didn’t read it for a week,” Eisenberg explains, “When I opened it, from the first page, you realized right away it was great. Not only did you realize it was great right away from the first page with the characters, but you know the characters are respected by the writers, you know that each character’s well-rounded, you know that the comedy is witty, you know that the drama is legitimate.”

“Like I’ve said, I’ve seen it twice,” he adds, “There’s not one moment in this movie that feels false. There’s moments in so many great independent dramas that feel phony and this movie, which is like a zombie comedy, there’s not one moment in this movie that feels forced or fake or not earned or a joke that feels like it’s patronizing or pandering to a lower common denominator or whatever. So I can say any great movies can span any kind of genre or any kind of categorization.”

However, Eisenberg claims there is one simple criteria for those interested in seeing Zombieland.

“No nihilists. They can go see Sunshine Cleaning. I don’t even know,” Jesse remarks.