Life comes at you fast. Once upon a time, actor Jesse Eisenberg was only known for his work as a scrawny character actor in films like Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale and Greg Mottola’s Adventureland. In fact, his biggest cause for concern at the time was disproving claims that he was the same guy who played Napoleon Dynamite. (“Please Abraham, I am not that man.” He recalled pleading during an interview, releasing a thousand memes on this year’s brilliant “A Real Pain” (which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival).
But one particularly polarizing role may have caused serious trouble along the way – his role as Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which Eisenberg now admits set his career back significantly. The refreshingly candid comments come from a recent podcast appearance on “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard,” meanwhile Eisenberg spoke his, ah, divisive Appears as Superman’s archenemy. Reimagined by director Zack Snyder as a tech mogul with serious father issues and a nervous tic, critics and audiences all but rejected this unusually uninhibited approach. The blockbuster scale meant all eyes were on him… for better or for worse, as Eisenberg explained:
“I was in that ‘Batman’ movie and the ‘Batman’ movie was so poorly received and I was so poorly received. I’ve never said this before and it’s kind of embarrassing to admit it, but I really think it actually hurt my career in the truest sense of the word because I was poorly received in such public things that just don’t matter came to light, and for the most part no one knows this, and I don’t read any notices or reviews or film press or anything like that, so I wasn’t aware of how poorly it was received.
Batman v Superman damaged Jesse Eisenberg’s career… but he has no regrets
Grandma’s peach tea. All that weird, nervous laughter and neurotic meltdowns in public. That way too serious scene where Lex Luthor gets his head shaved in prison. And I must emphasize Grandma’s peach tea. These are probably just a few of the more unsavory moments that come to mind when thinking of Jesse Eisenberg in 2016’s Batman v Superman. Given everything stacked against him, it’s no surprise that the actor felt that being associated with this role held him back in some ways. But don’t mistake this blunt candor for regret. He went on to say that he has no dislike for the film or Zack Snyder:
“I loved my role and I love the film (…), so I just feel guilty myself, not like they did me wrong. No, I think, ‘Oh, I think I did something wrong there.’ And so it felt like I had to get out again, but I’m depressed all the time. In a way, I just thought, ‘Oh yeah, of course I had this great opportunity that didn’t go well.’ Just pessimism.”
Eisenberg has made it clear how much he dislikes the more high-profile aspects of acting in major films, which seems to make him unsuited to a role as huge as Lex’s bloody Luthor. Despite the end result, you still have to give credit to Snyder and his creative team: their instinct to turn the supervillain into a whiny tech bro with no social skills or creative talent to speak of was spot on. (See: Elon Musk.) It’s just the execution of his performance and the lack of guardrails for his personality traits – not to mention the script he was saddled with – that have condemned this leaky ship to a watery grave.
In any case, Today’s trailer for James Gunn’s “Superman” brought us a first look at ours latest Lex, in the form of Nicholas Hoult. This reboot hits theaters on July 11, 2025. Let’s just hope things go a little better here than last time.
