Finn Wolfhard received advice from Jesse Eisenberg about panic attacks

Jesse Eisenberg shares wisdom on how to deal with anxiety as a teen star.

The “Social Network” alum said he gave “Stranger Things” breakout star Finn Wolfhard advice to director Greg Mottola back in 2009 on the set of “Adventureland.”

“She does work that is very emotionally revealing and very publically very gruesome. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t, and please don’t ever worry,” Mottola told Eisenberg. GQ. “” It’s a two-dimensional medium, and we can’t see what’s inside your head. It just changed my life because I was able to take my anxiety more seriously and I realized that it’s okay to feel it in a professional environment.”

When Wolfhard was “really anxious and depressed” before starring in Eisenberg’s directorial debut, “When You Finish Saving the World,” the writer-director offered reassuring advice. “(Eisenberg) said, ‘Have you met me? I’m the most nervous guy in the whole world,’” Wolfhard recalled. “I was so excited and nervous about it because I just thought, ‘This is the first movie (I’m doing) as an adult.’

Wolfhard said that when he was 15, he had routine panic attacks. While filming Stranger Things, he decided “I’m not going to talk about anything because I was just going through this crazy whirlwind career, so there was no time, or at least we didn’t feel like (we had) at the time.”

“Everybody said, ‘Look at him, he’s fine. He’s having the best time,” Wolfhard said. “But in reality, I’ve probably evolved as well, and things have happened in my brain, and anxieties have developed, and things that I didn’t realize I had to bury because of my feelings at work.”

Wolfhard added, “When things seem really overwhelming and big, it can seem even bigger for child actors who feel like everything can go by in an instant.”

And Eisenberg isn’t the only collaborator to open up to Wolfhard: the young actor detailed how Stranger Things co-stars Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin were there for him in his time of need. While having what Wolfhard called a “classic me” panic attack, both Matarazzo and McLaughlin embraced him as hosts, and the Duffer Brothers stopped filming.

“They were like, ‘Dude, we’re the only ones who know what it’s really like,'” Wolfhard said of his peers. “Gaten and Caleb, we’re for life, we’re bound for life.”

Read IndieWire’s recent interview with Wolfhard here.

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