One of Jesse Eisenberg‘s most memorable leading ladies gave her a hard time before she even landed the role.

After 15 years, the Zombie Land the actor recalled how his co-star Emma Pierre wowed the casting director and left him feeling “so small” during his audition for the 2009 Ruben Fleischer-directed post-apocalyptic comedy.

“I was already part of the cast of the film, so I was auditioning like a lot of people for his role that day,” he told SiriusXM. Spotlight on Jessica Shaw. “At that point, the actors were all incredible actresses, but they were all trying to get into the movie, and so they were really polite and everything.

“And then (Stone) came, and she just started making fun of me in the scene, like she was attacking me with insults in the scene and it was so funny. They were so fast, so funny and so sharp,” Eisenberg added. “And she left the room and I felt so, so small.”

Eisenberg praised his co-star: “We were like, ‘Oh my God.’ This person is a genius. And maybe she was even 19 at the time of the audition. I mean, he’s a truly spectacular and unusually brilliant person.

In Zombie Landa virus has turned most of the population into zombies. Four strangers (Eisenberg, Stone, Abigail Breslin, and Woody Harrelson) head west toward a safe haven in Los Angeles.

The cast reunited with Fleischer in 2019 for the sequel Zombieland: double tapwhich also starred Zoey Deutch, Rosario Dawson, Luke Wilson, Avan Jogia and Bill Murray, reprising his role as himself from the original film.