Jesse Eisenberg had panic attacks filming his 2009 movie Zombieland because he felt like he was “ruining” the film by not being as funny as the director’s first choice Michael Cera.

The Social Network actor, who starred alongside Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin in Ruben Fleischer’s zombie comedy, has admitted that he struggled with the knowledge that his character Columbus was originally meant for the Superbad star.

“I know that Ruben wanted Michael Cera to be in the movie,” Eisenberg revealed on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast. “Ruben is a good friend of mine so I could say this comfortably – (he) has no filter and didn’t realise that him telling me that he wanted Michael Cera to be in it would make me feel uncomfortable.

“And so every day I was thinking, ‘Oh, of course you wanted Michael Cera.’ And I could read the part with Michael’s voice in the part, way more than I could read it with my own voice. I just felt like I was every day letting down the movie and this was a failure because of me.”

Eisenberg, who openly speaks about his anxiety, shared that he had panic attacks “all the time” because he felt like he was “ruining” a good film and everyone would see it and think he’s “so bad” in it.

“The anxiety in Zombieland was really (because I felt like) I’m an interloper here,” he continued. “They tried to cast somebody else who’s definitely funnier than me, I still think definitely funnier than me, and he didn’t want to do it and everybody’s disappointed that I show up every day.”

Eisenberg noted that he has since met Cera, who he often gets mistaken for on the street, and found him to be “the nicest person”.

It turns out that Cera turned down a Zombieland opportunity twice. During the press tour for the 2019 sequel, Zombieland: Double Tap, Fleischer revealed that he approached the Barbie actor to play Eisenberg’s doppelgänger but he “didn’t want to do it”.

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