Key Points
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Jesse Eisenberg says he “couldn’t get into movie studio parts anymore” after Batman v Superman.
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The Oscar-nominated star won the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for the superhero film.
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He said he started writing films “just to kind of keep my career afloat.”
Jesse Eisenberg is reflecting on how starring as Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman changed his career forever.
The Oscar-nominated actor, 43, revealed that he couldn’t land any major Hollywood roles after winning Worst Supporting Actor at the Razzie Awards for his portrayal of the supervillain in the Zack Snyder-directed film.
The career hit led Eisenberg to dive headfirst into writing and directing instead.
“Listen, a lot of it just came from fear,” he explained of the shift at a BFI London Film Festival talk on Sunday, per Variety. “I couldn’t get into movie studio parts anymore because I had won a [Golden] Raspberry Award from [being in the] Batman movie… and I saw the trajectory.”
He 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.”
And Eisenberg could see the writing on the wall. “So I was like, I’ve got to direct movies,” he said. “That’s why I started writing them, just to kind of keep my career afloat, really.”
The experience affirmed to Eisenberg that he should stay far, far away from superhero films.
“The industry tells you what they want from you,” he said. “The industry did not want me to be in a superhero movie, and if you’re smart and self-aware, you learn that quickly. And you know, it’s the unsuccessful actor that goes, ‘No, I want to be in more of those.'”
Eisenberg added, “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.”
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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice performed well at the box office with a $424 million global debut, but was seriously skewered by critics and comic book fans alike. The film went on to win four Razzie Awards, including Eisenberg’s nod as well as Worst Screenplay, Worst Sequel, and Worst Screen Combo for fellow stars Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck.
This isn’t the first time that Eisenberg has spoken about how the DC film’s negative reception took a real toll on him.
“I was in this Batman movie and the Batman movie was so poorly received, and I was so poorly received,” Eisenberg said in a 2024 episode of Armchair Podcast. “I’ve never said this before, and it’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but I genuinely think it actually hurt my career in a real way, because I was poorly received in something so public.”
He added, “I’ve been in poorly received things that just don’t see the light of day, and for the most part, no one knows. But this was so public, and I don’t read notices or reviews or movie press or anything, so I was unaware of how poorly it was received.”
Eisenberg has experienced success as both a director and screenwriter in the years since Batman v Superman. His 2024 filmA Real Pain,in which he starred alongside Kieran Culkin, was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 2025 Oscars, and his new film, The Debut, is earning significant buzz on the film circuit.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
