Jesse Eisenberg
Eisenberg made his television debut with the short-lived comedy-drama series Get Real (1999–2000). Following his first leading role in the film Roger Dodger (2002), he starred in films such as The Squid and the Whale (2005), Adventureland (2009) and Zombieland (2009). He gained wider recognition for starring as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in David Fincher's film The Social Network (2010), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Eisenberg then starred in the Woody Allen films To Rome with Love (2012) and Café Society (2016), the heist films Now You See Me (2013) and its two sequels (2016 and 2025), and independent dramas such as The Double (2013).
He starred as Lex Luthor in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) superhero films Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021), and had a lead voice role as Blu in the animated films Rio (2011) and Rio 2 (2014). In 2022, he starred in the FX / Hulu miniseries Fleishman Is in Trouble and made his film directorial debut with the black comedy When You Finish Saving the World.
He has since directed, written, and starred in the comedy-drama A Real Pain (2024), which earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay and an Academy Award nomination in the same category.
Eisenberg has contributed pieces to The New Yorker and the website McSweeney's. He has written and starred in three plays for the New York stage: Asuncion, The Revisionist, and The Spoils. He released his first book, Bream Gives Me Hiccups: and Other Stories, in 2015.
Early life
"... It taught me ... about the discipline about performance ... Every morning she had a duck party, she would wake up very early and tune her guitar and warm up her voice, and it taught me that you could take performance seriously. I think a lot of actors have trouble taking things seriously, ... but it's really like anything else in the world ... So it gave me the confidence to take it seriously and not make me feel silly for indulging in a role."
Jesse Adam Eisenberg was born in Astoria, Queens (NYC) and grew up in East Brunswick, New Jersey. His mother, Amy (née Fishman), who now teaches cross-cultural sensitivity in hospitals, previously worked as a clown named Bonabini at children's parties and as a director/choreographer for a high school for 20 years.
She was also a Socialist Zionist and member of the Hashomer Hatzair youth organization. His father, Barry Eisenberg, drove a taxicab, then worked at a hospital, and later became a college professor, teaching sociology. He has two sisters: Hallie Eisenberg, a former child actress who was once famous as the "Pepsi Girl" in a series of commercials; and Kerri Eisenberg, now Kerry Lea, who also worked as an actress, ran a vegetarianism- and animal rights-based children's theatre troupe, later becoming an independent artist in New York.
Eisenberg was raised in a secular Jewish household. His ancestors came from Poland and from the area that later became Ukraine. He attended the East Brunswick Public Schools at Frost Elementary School, Hammarskjold Middle School (6th & 7th), Churchill Junior High School (8th & 9th), and spent his sophomore and junior years at East Brunswick High School.
He then transferred to the Professional Performing Arts School in New York for his senior year. When he was a senior, he received his breakthrough role in the independent comedy-drama film Roger Dodger. His work in the film prevented him from enrolling at New York University. Instead, he studied anthropology and contemporary architecture at The New School in Greenwich Village, where he majored in liberal arts, with a focus on democracy and cultural pluralism.
Career
Beginnings
Eisenberg struggled to fit in at school due to an anxiety disorder, and began acting in plays at an early age. When he was seven he starred as Oliver Twist in a children's theater production of the musical Oliver!, and by 12 he was an understudy in the 1996 Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke.
At 13, he understudied the role of Young Scrooge in a musical version of A Christmas Carol starring Tony Randall. He had his first professional role in Arje Shaw's off-Broadway play The Gathering at age 16. He said, "When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you're given a prescribed way of behaving."
Eisenberg started writing screenplays at 16, some of which were optioned by major studios, but he claimed that he was dissatisfied with the lack of control he had over his creations once they were sold. He once got into trouble with Woody Allen's lawyers when, as a teenager, he penned a play about how Allen came to change his name and managed to get the script to Allen's "people." Instead of a seal of approval, he received cease and desist letters from Allen's attorney. Eisenberg later starred in two films directed by Allen, To Rome with Love and Café Society.
1999–2008: Early work
Eisenberg made his television debut in the series Get Real, from 1999 to 2000. In 2001, he appeared in a UK Dr Pepper commercial as "Butt Naked Boy." After appearing in the made-for-television film Lightning: Fire from the Sky at 18, he starred in the independent film Roger Dodger (for which he won an award at the San Diego Film Festival for Most Promising New Actor), and in The Emperor's Club, both of which were released in 2002 to generally positive reviews. Eisenberg was sick for the majority of the nightclub scene and can be seen sweating in different shots.
In 2005, Eisenberg appeared in Cursed, a horror film directed by Wes Craven, and The Squid and the Whale, a well-reviewed independent drama starring Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels. In 2007, he starred opposite Richard Gere and Terrence Howard in The Hunting Party, a comic thriller in which he plays an American journalist reporting from Bosnia and was also cast in the indie comic-drama Holy Rollers alongside his sister, Hallie Eisenberg, who played his fictional sister in the film.
He played a young Hasidic Jew who becomes involved in the ecstasy smuggling trade, using his religion as a disguise to deal without suspicion. Filming took place in New York in 2008. In 2009, Eisenberg played the lead role alongside Kristen Stewart which would be the first of many collaborations between them in Adventureland, a comedy directed by Greg Mottola and filmed in Kennywood Park, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Filming wrapped in October 2007, and the film had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. During the late 2000s, he also had roles in the independent films Solitary Man, playing college student Daniel, and Camp Hell, a horror film directed by George Van Buskirk.
2009–2011: Breakthrough and critical success
Eisenberg's first major box office success was a lead role in the horror-comedy Zombieland (2009). He starred opposite Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin as a group of survivors on a road trip through a post-zombie apocalypse America, and was a sleeper hit. In 2010, he portrayed Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in the film The Social Network, for which he earned the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, and nominations for Best Actor at the BAFTA Awards, Golden Globes, and Academy Awards but lost to Colin Firth for his performance of George VI in The King's Speech.
According to the film's director, David Fincher, both he and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin knew Eisenberg was the one for the role as soon as they watched his audition tape, despite Eisenberg's own anxieties about his audition.
On January 29, 2011, Eisenberg hosted Saturday Night Live on NBC, with musical guest Nicki Minaj. During his opening monologue, Zuckerberg himself appeared. Eisenberg said that meeting the man he portrayed on-screen was "an overwhelming experience," and was happy that "we were both able to have fun at the situation." Zuckerberg, who has complained frequently about the artistic licenses taken by The Social Network, would later say that he thought Eisenberg "was a little afraid to meet me after his portrayal, but I tried to be nice."
In 2011, he starred in the box-office animated hit Rio, as the main character Blu, a metropolitan, domesticated male Spix's macaw who learns how to fly. He starred alongside Anne Hathaway, his former co-star (and onscreen sibling) from Get Real, as well as George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, will.i.am, and Jamie Foxx.
He featured in one song, "Real in Rio," in the film's soundtrack, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. He also starred alongside Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, and Nick Swardson in 30 Minutes or Less, a film noir heist-comedy about a pizza delivery man, played by Eisenberg, who is forced to rob a bank, which was released in August 2011.
In October 2011, Eisenberg made his playwriting debut in Rattlestick Playwrights Theater's Off-Broadway production of Asuncion, staged at Cherry Lane Theatre. Eisenberg also acted in the play, which was directed by Kip Fagan. The play highlights two overeducated, liberal-minded friends, played by Eisenberg and Justin Bartha, whose assumptions are challenged by their new Filipina roommate, played by Camille Mana.
2012–2019: Work as a playwright and acting roles
In 2012, he starred alongside Melissa Leo in Why Stop Now, a drama about a drug addict mother (Leo) and her piano prodigy son (Eisenberg), and in the magical realist romantic comedy To Rome with Love, directed by Woody Allen. That same year, he filed a $3 million lawsuit against the producers of the 2010 direct-to-DVD film Camp Hell, claiming exploitation.
According to the lawsuit, Eisenberg agreed to appear in the film as a favor to his friends. He was on set for one day of filming in 2007, earned about $3,000, and logged only a few minutes of total screen time. Because of his minimal involvement in the production, he was surprised to see that his face was prominently featured on the cover of the DVD, implying that he starred in the film.
His lawsuit asserts various California law causes of action, including claims for unfair business practices and publicity rights.
In 2013, Eisenberg reunited with Woody Harrelson for the magician heist thriller Now You See Me, playing a world-famous close-up magician and street performer recruited into a secret group of elite magicians to pull off bank heists with magic tricks, redistributing the money from a wealthy businessman (Michael Caine) to victims of his corrupt capitalist schemes.
That year he announced his plan to continue writing, for both stage and screen, as well as continuing to act. He debuted his second play, The Revisionist, and starred in Richard Ayoade's drama, The Double (2013), which was shot in 2012. In the following years, Eisenberg reprised his role as Blu in Rio 2 (2014), and reunited with Stewart in the action comedy American Ultra (2015), playing a rogue sleeper agent being chased by the C.I.A.
In 2015, Eisenberg portrayed Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky in the biographical drama film The End of the Tour, appearing opposite Jason Segel, who portrayed the late author David Foster Wallace. Eisenberg's third play, The Spoils, premiered off-Broadway in The New Group Perishing Square Signature Center Alice Griffin Box Theatre.
The play featuring Eisenberg as Ben, also starring Kunal Nayyar, Michael Zegen, Erin Darke, and Annapurna Sriram, was the winner of The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Theatre Visions Fund Award. On September 8, 2015, Eisenberg released his first book, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, a collection of short humor pieces.
Eisenberg serves on the Board of Advisors for Playing On Air, a public radio show/podcast that works with contemporary playwrights to produce plays for "today's digital audience." He has written one short play for Playing On Air, called A Little Part of All of Us (2015), which he starred in with Justin Bartha. He has voiced for two other plays, The Final Interrogation of Ceaucescu's Dog (2015), written by Warren Leight, and The Blizzard (2016), written by David Ives and directed by John Rando. Eisenberg played the supervillain Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which was released in March 2016, to generally negative reviews. His performance in particular was criticized by comic book fans and film reviewers, later earning him the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor. He defended himself by saying he attempted to "make these people real and relatable and interesting and engaging." Years later, Eisenberg shared that he felt joining the project was detrimental to his career because he was poorly received in the high-profile film.
Eisenberg then reunited with Woody Allen and Kristen Stewart (for the third time) in Café Society. The film held its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 11, 2016. Eisenberg next reprised his role as street magician J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas in Now You See Me 2, which was released on June 10, 2016, previewed June 9, to mixed reviews.
The film was shot primarily in London and Macau. It grossed over $267 million worldwide, and Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer announced that they had "already begun early planning" for Now You See Me 3. On June 2, 2016, Eisenberg's play The Spoils began a run at London's Trafalgar Studios in the West End, with Scott Elliott returning to direct.
Eisenberg again played the lead role, along with Nayyar and Sriram, while Zegen and Darke's characters were replaced by Alfie Allen and Katie Brayben respectively. In May 2016, Eisenberg teased that he would reprise his role of Lex Luthor in the Justice League film (2017). An official press kit, released by Warner Bros. on December 22, 2016, confirmed the return.
He appeared as Luthor in the post-credits scene alongside Joe Manganiello as Slade Wilson/Deathstroke. Eisenberg joined Riley Stearns's dark comedy The Art of Self-Defense alongside Imogen Poots and Alessandro Nivola. Principal photography began in Louisville, Kentucky, on September 11, 2017 and the film had its world premiere in 2019.
Eisenberg starred alongside Alexander Skarsgård in the role of an intermediary in the financial sector in Kim Nguyen's tech drama The Hummingbird Project that was released in 2018. In the same year, he produced Jeremy Workman's documentary The World Before Your Feet, which follows a 37-year-old man named Matt Green who has walked over 9,000 miles on the streets of New York City.
In an interview with Variety, Eisenberg talked about the film, stating, "it's this fantastic tour of New York City. But more than that, its central character has this unusual relationship to his environment. He's simultaneously a tourist and a philosopher." The documentary premiered to critical acclaim at the 2018 South by Southwest Film Festival where it was acquired by distributor Greenwich Entertainment.
It was released theatrically in November 2018 and has an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. The same month he appeared in the Serbian TV series Žigosani u reketu as the owner of an NBA club.
In 2019, Eisenberg starred in the sequel Zombieland: Double Tap, directed by Ruben Fleischer. Writers of the first Zombieland, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, penned the script with David Callaham. Eisenberg's new play Happy Talk had its world premiere in 2019, with production by The New Group, marking his second collaboration with the company.
The production is about "a suburban woman's efforts to take care of her family while starring in a community-theater production of South Pacific." Originally titled Yea, Sister, the show was directed by Scott Elliott.
2020–present: Career expansion
Eisenberg portrayed Marcel Marceau in the 2020 film Resistance, written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz, which focused on Marceau's part in the French resistance during World War II. He also reappeared as Luthor in the post-credits scene for Zack Snyder's Justice League alongside Manganiello.
📚 Source: Wikipedia
