Lubavitch Mivtzah Tefilin in Hollywood Movie

Video clip of Hollywood actor Jesse Eisenberg donning Tefillin in a movie called “Holy Rollers." The movie which was released last May is about a Brooklyn youth from an Orthodox Jewish community who is lured into becoming an Ecstasy dealer by his pal who has ties to an Israel drug cartel. The film was officially inspired by the true story of Chasids-turned-drug smugglers in the 1990s.

Eisenberg who is a rising star in Hollywood was the main actor in the recent major movie about the creation of Facebook.com called "The Social Network."

Eisenberg, who was raised Reform in Queens and New Jersey respects his Jewish background, but said he refused to become bar mitzvah because “in my community, kids did it for the checks.”

He  also said he sees a contradiction in his participation in “Holy Rollers”: “Chasidic Jews don’t see secular movies, and I act in them,” he said. To create a realistic and respectful portrait, Eisenberg spent two years reading and watching movies about the community, learning to wrap tefillin, to chant prayers, and interviewing Chasidim sometimes on tape — about marriage, faith and blind faith.

There were some unexpected perks to the job: Eisenberg finally had his bar mitzvah. “It was just a 15-minute ceremony at the Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway, without all the hoopla that had surrounded bar mitzvahs when I was a child,” he said. “I didn’t feel like a man immediately afterwards,” he added with a laugh. “But maybe after a day or two.” (Via: JewishJournal.com May 18, 2010.)

Eisenberg with Yamulka and Peyos on “Holy Rollers”