Jesse Eisenberg tells Tel Aviv audience why he didn’t fear visiting Israel

Jesse Eisenberg, the Oscar-nominated actor who starred in The Social Network, made an appearance at Tel Aviv’s Beit Lessin Theater last week, where a Hebrew adaptation of his 2013 Off-Broadway play The Revisionist was premiering.

Despite the recent news of musical acts canceling their scheduled visits to Israel, the current conflict was not enough to keep Eisenberg away.

Speaking at a Q&A session held at the end of the play, Eisenberg told the audience and members of the press that he did not hesitate at all before boarding a plane to Israel earlier in the week. His flight came just before the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s imposed security prohibition to fly to Israel, a ban that has since been lifted.

“Israel is a wonderful country, and it is an unfortunate time, of course, for people living here, but for me this has been a very good week,” the actor said about his first-ever visit to the country.

Eisenberg’s comments were met with applause.”If there was any sign that I would be endangered somehow, I would have hesitated to come, but that wasn’t the case,” he said.

Eisenberg has just been cast as the iconic villain Lex Luthor in an upcoming DC Comics film; Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, which is due to be released in 2016.