How does one wake up in the morning and say, I want to donate a kidney to a stranger?

What would you do to save the life of someone you love? Would you donate an organ? I bet many of you would if it meant you could save the life of your spouse, a member of your family, or even a friend. But how far would you go to not only save the life of someone you don't know, but the life of someone you'll never

even meet? When I heard about kidney donations, my first thought was why is there not a line down

the block of the hospital? I would just think everybody would want to do this kind of thing.

I really am fascinated by people who look for a connection through something dark.

Well, you may know him as a Hollywood superstar for movies like the Social Network

or is Oscar-winning film A Real Pain. Someone out there has a different relationship to Jesse

because they're walking around with his kidney. Here's the thing. They don't even know it. They received a kidney from an anonymous donor. So why endure an abdominal surgery to help a complete stranger with no strings attached? That's what newspapers and magazines have been asking Jesse for months, but he's refused to give anyone an interview. Well, as you know from our messages, I was like incredibly hesitant. I've turned down every interview that I've been asked to do, and I've been asked to do tons of interviews and speak at things, and I don't do it. And I thought you have a young audience of people who are health curious. Those are the people who are going to hear this and think, oh, I'm that person. And in a first for the checkup podcast, Jesse doesn't tell the complete story. To help round out the

clinical side of organ transplantation, we have Dr. Robert Montgomery, the director of NYU

Langone Transplant Institute, which handled Jesse's donation. But for now, please help me in welcoming

Jesse Eisenberg to the Checkup podcast. Working in Hollywood, you have a diverse array of characters, quite literally, figuratively, theoretically.

Is it difficult to mingle with people who come from such diverse backgrounds and schools of thought,

especially when it comes to politics and such?

I think you're might be mischaracterizing Hollywood.

It's quite a, it's much more, it's much more homogenous politically than, well, yeah, of course.

I mean, you know, it's people who get into the arts, you know, and have maybe like a real feeling of not only rebelliousness, but also driven by, you know, great empathy because you want to

think about characters and stories and embody those emotions and you feel comfortable expressing

yourself.

You know, it's all things that I would associate more with like liberal politics and, you

know, kind of, you know, we, most Hollywood stories are underdog stories. We value kind of the Mr. Smith

goes to Washington kind of thing. And so that to me is all associated with what I would consider to be,

you know, liberal ideals. Yeah, I guess I was thinking about it more from a science perspective.

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