Jesse Eisenberg enjoys playing "nasty" characters.

Jesse Eisenberg

Jesse Eisenberg

'The Social Network' star deliberately seeks out antagonistic roles after he grew tired of playing "sweet" characters early on in his career in movies such as 'Adventureland'

In an interview with Dazed magazine, Jesse said: "When I started doing movies, I kept getting sweet, virginal characters. And I didn't want to do that anymore, so I started only taking parts that were confident, nasty people."

Jesse, 36, went against his wishes in his role as Tom in his latest project, 'Vivarium', as he plays a conventional character, something he isn't particularly keen on doing.

He said: "Essentially, I'm playing the masculine presence in 'Vivarium'. He's not an eccentric protagonist, which is the part I'm usually interested in playing. It's not the kind of thing I want to do a lot, but it was interesting."

The plot sees Tom and Gemma (Imogen Poots) become trapped in a deserted neighbourhood and are made to raise a mysterious boy to escape. Jesse describes the film as a "nightmare version" of adulthood.

He remarked: "I view the film as a fever dream of the anxieties we have of making commitments. You buy a house, and the fear is that you're going to be tied down to this house forever because of debt, or because you succumb to the convenience of the suburbs.

"This movie is a nightmare version of all those fears we have of growing up and doing 'traditional' things."