(continued)

ACTOR
Jesse Eisenberg, 24

WHO HE IS: A preternaturally adept thespian with a knack for projecting the sort of teenage insecurity the rest of us worked diligently to outgrow.

WHY HE'S RADICAL: Having played hard-to-like adolescents in Roger Dodger and Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, Eisenberg has decided it's more fun than playing cool kids. "It's frustrating to have to think about being appealing. A character that the audience is supposed to like can't really do anything weird or interesting."

WHERE YOU'LL SEE HIM NEXT: Either in class at the New School, where he's majoring in democracy and cultural pluralism ("it's like anthropology with a political aspect"), or on the red carpet next year for the premiere of Greg Mottola's Adventureland, in which he's starring.

WHY STARDOM SUCKS: "It hurts the process in some ways because it makes me so self-conscious. On set today, someone who I'd never met came up to me and asked if there were any specific foods I needed. I demanded a certain kind of caviar you can only get in Nova Scotia."

Photo: Naomi Harris; Grooming: Angel Dicarlo; Stylist: Karen Levitt/Kramer & Kramer