When Jesse Eisenberg was first coming up, I didn’t really care for his acting or his performances, except for his Oscar-nominated work in The Social Network. He was legitimately great in that, so great that I think he got typecast as the “nerd/a–hole.” After The Social Network, he kept working steadily in mostly forgettable roles. Then, ten years ago, he played Lex Luthor in Zach Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Eisenberg’s performance was not critically acclaimed, to say the least. In fact, he ended up winning a Razzie for it. Soon after, he began writing and directing his own films. Jesse’s A Real Pain, which he wrote and directed, came out in 2024 and Jesse was nominated for an Original Screenplay Oscar, and Keiran Culkin won the Oscar for Best Supporting actor. A real high point for his career, and I thought Jesse did a great job with directing, writing and acting. Well, Jesse recently reflected back on all of the twists and turns of the past decade, especially after playing Lex Luthor.

Jesse Eisenberg is reflecting on one of his past roles. The filmmaker, 43, said he turned to directing after his acting career was damaged following his Razzie win for his performance in Zack Snyder‘s superhero film, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

In the 2016 movie, he starred as Lex Luthor opposite Ben Affleck as Batman and Henry Cavill as Superman. The villainous role earned him a Worst Supporting Actor award at the parody award show. The movie also took home Worst Remake, Rip-off or Sequel, Worst Screen Combo and Worst Screenplay.

“Listen, a lot of it just came from fear,” Eisenberg said at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 18, per Variety. “I couldn’t get into movie studio parts anymore because I had won a Raspberry Award from [being in the] ‘Batman’ movie … and I saw the trajectory.”

The filmmaker, who is promoting his upcoming movie The Debut, continued, “If you’re an actor, you’re constantly panicked about ‘Am I on an upslope or a downslope?’ Because there’s no plateau. Acting is just this unstable, awful industry where you are either on the treadmill and you’re doing okay and you’re running up or you are yesterday’s news and it’s awful. And if you’re a paranoid person like me, you see it way in advance… So I was like, ‘I’ve got to direct movies.’ That’s why I started writing them, just to kind of keep my career afloat, really.”

Eisenberg noted that the industry “tells you what they want from you.”

“The industry did not want me to be in a superhero movie, and if you’re smart and self-aware, you learn that quickly,” The Social Network actor said. “And you know, it’s the unsuccessful actor that goes, ‘No, I want to be in more of those.’ It’s not going to happen and they don’t want you there and they wouldn’t have given you a Raspberry Award if they wanted you there. That’s an award for bad acting. And so the industry tells you what it wants and if you want a career in the arts you have to follow the things that you’re being told are liked.”

[From People]

“And if you’re a paranoid person like me, you see it way in advance…” No, I get it, because I’m like that too, always trying to read the tea leaves and finesse the vibes. The truth is that Jesse probably would have overcome the bad reviews and the Razzie for the Batman movie, but he’s right that the industry would have soured on him as an actor for several years. He could tell by how few scripts he was receiving, he could tell by how infrequently his phone rang. Being able to transition into “small-budget writer/director” was very smart and he not only extended his career, he changed the trajectory of his career.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.