Jesse Eisenberg made fun of me, but I’ll have the last laugh

Have you ever been laughed at by a Hollywood A-lister over your loyalty to a sports team? I have.

He might be up for an Oscar next month for his, admittedly, moving new film A Real Pain, but to me actor-writer-director Jesse Eisenberg is mainly the guy who mocked me a decade ago for being a Detroit Pistons fan. I don’t forget these things.

Jesse Eisenberg, meet my vengeance (served extra cold).Credit: Getty Images for The Walt Disney Company Limited

It was during the press run for Now You See Me, the barely-a-50-on-Metacritic movie where he played an illusionist (lol, embarrassing for him). After the requisite questions about close-up magic and his reputation for being obnoxious in interviews, our conversation turned to a shared love of basketball and how he might watch the NBA while he was in Australia.

“So you watch NBA? How? Do you have a League Pass?” Eisenberg asked.

“Yes, I have League Pass,” I replied. “My team’s the Pistons though so it hasn’t been too good lately.”

Eisenberg laughed heartily. “Your team’s the Pistons? What a waste of a League Pass!” he said. And he laughed for about three minutes.

I don’t know about you, but I guess loyalty is a joke to Hollywood superstar Jesse Eisenberg. I shouldn’t be surprised. Google “What is Jesse Eisenberg’s favourite NBA team” and you’ll get like 15 different answers, from his hometown Knicks, to the Indiana Pacers, to the Phoenix Suns. Geez, pick a bandwagon, Jesse. I bet he’ll turn up to the Oscars in a Luka Doncic Lakers jersey, too. Loyalty, it’s a foreign concept to Jesse Eisenberg. I hope Kieran Culkin knows this.

Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain, probably casually mocking the Detroit Pistons.

But, believe it or not, this isn’t about Jesse Eisenberg. I have endured his sort of mockery for decades now. All my sports teams – the Pistons, the Miami Dolphins, West Ham United – are perennially bad. They were good (or at least promising) when I picked them, about 30 years ago, when I was a child and I didn’t know what a fascist was (my Paolo Di Canio jersey is the EPL version of a MAGA hat now). But I’ve stuck with them, because that’s how loyalty works. You don’t get to just leave during the bad times.

Loyalty, in instances of sport, is a useful reminder that suffering is the natural state of things. We lose, sometimes for 19 seasons in a row, but we endure. Penrith Panthers fans don’t understand this, that’s why they’re spiritually weak people. Parramatta Eels fans, meanwhile, are probably all going to heaven.

Sport is just part of the equation. I am loyal to many things. Madura green tea. Gillette Mach 3+ razors. Lindt 70 per cent chocolate. Cables and wires (bluetooth is for ghosts).

Some might say this suggests a rigidness to my being, a lack of adventurousness, overwhelming fear at the prospect of change or trying something different. Perhaps. But if the point of life is to find things that bring comfort and happiness, then why would I keep searching for green teas once I’d already found Madura green tea? It’s the best green tea. It’d be absurd to switch. At some point, the search should stop.

Someone tell Jesse Eisenberg: the Detroit Pistons are good again (finally).Credit: AP

The Cure frontman Robert Smith knows this. I once read that when his favoured red lipstick – by the brand Jade, in a shade called “Reddest” – was due to be discontinued, he quickly bought a lifetime supply to put in storage. I have tried to verify this story (like, I Googled it) but it’s nowhere to be found, and instead I see people on Reddit saying Robert Smith’s favoured lipstick is Mac Ruby Woo, which discredits my entire anecdote. The point is Robert Smith is loyal to some sort of red lipstick, as we should all be.

Loyalty can also breed camaraderie, a sense of belonging, the idea of feeling united with like-minded people over a common cause (or sports team or green tea). Personally, I don’t particularly care about these things. In fact, I hate belonging. I’m a lone wolf, like Spike from Buffy.

For me, the best part of loyalty is when the Detroit Pistons enter the 2025 NBA All-Star Break on a four-game winning streak, three games over .500, and in sixth place in the Eastern Conference. And knowing that somewhere, in New York or Indiana or Phoenix (really, who knows with this guy), Jesse Eisenberg is thinking of me in his utter shame and tormented anguish, begging for forgiveness.

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