For his next trick, Jesse Eisenberg will make his kidney disappear — into a stranger
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- “Now You See Me” star Jesse Eisenberg announced he will donate one of his kidneys in December to a person he doesn’t know.
- Less than 5% of the roughly 6,000 kidney donations made annually in the U.S. are altruistic donations to strangers, per the National Kidney Registry.
- The actor said the process is “essentially risk-free,” citing a registry program that protects donors’ loved ones should they need a kidney transplant later.
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” star Jesse Eisenberg may soon one-up the film franchise’s Robin Hood-esque Four Horsemen in the giving-back department.
This December, the Academy Award nominee and longtime blood donor will give one of his kidneys to a complete stranger, he said Thursday on the “Today” show. He slipped the news into a conversation with host Craig Melvin about a recent show-sponsored blood drive.
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My ‘non-directed’ donation, to someone I don’t know, saved one life and then some.
As Melvin and his co-hosts reacted in disbelief, Eisenberg said, “I really am [donating].”
“I don’t know why. I got bitten by the blood donation bug,” he said, adding that he was “so excited” to make the nondirected (a.k.a. “altruistic”) donation, wherein a living donor is not related to or known by the recipient.
According to the National Kidney Registry, approximately 90,000 people in the U.S. are currently in need of a kidney transplant, while roughly 6,000 people donate kidneys each year. Less than 5% of those already slim donations are nondirected.
Eisenberg said he suspected that if people knew how safe the process was, those numbers would go up.
“It’s essentially risk-free and so needed,” Eisenberg said in a separate interview with Today.com. “I think people will realize that it’s a no-brainer, if you have the time and the inclination.”
One tightly wound, the other loose and spontaneous. The setup for ‘A Real Pain’? Yes, and the actors themselves.
“The Social Network” alum added that prospective donors need not worry about forking over a kidney and later facing a situation wherein a family member urgently needs one.
“The way it works now is you can put a list of whoever you would like to be the first [relative] to be at the top of the list,” he said, referring to the National Kidney Registry’s family voucher program. The program launched in 2019, preceded by an earlier “standard” iteration that required the voucher donor to name a voucher holder who had some form of kidney impairment. (The standard voucher option is still available to donors as well.)
“Not only does this remove an important disincentive to living kidney donation, but it is the right thing to do for the generous people who are donating a kidney to a stranger. Donors can now donate a kidney and still provide security for their loved ones should they need a kidney transplant in the future,” Dr. Jeff Veale, who helped pioneer the voucher system, said in a statement at the time of the program update.
Recovery is also a non-issue for most kidney donors, who on average return to daily activities within a few weeks of the surgery, per the Mayo Clinic.
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” hits theaters Nov. 14, nearly a decade after the previous installment in the franchise premiered. Eisenberg stars alongside returning cast members Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco and newcomers Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt and Rosamund Pike.
