Jesse Eisenberg reveals role that 'hurt' his career
Jesse Eisenberg feels embarrassed to admit playing Lex Luthor in 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' didn't do him any justice.
Jesse Eisenberg believes 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' "hurt" his "career in a real way".
The 41-year-old actor - who is known for movies including 'Zombieland' and 'The Social Network' - felt that the negative reviews of his portrayal of Lex Luthor in the 2016 sequel to DC's 'Man of Steel', which was helmed by Zack Snyder, didn’t do him any favours.
Appearing on the 'Armchair Expert' podcast, he said: "I was in this 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, but I genuinely think it actually hurt my career in a real way because I was poorly received in something so public.
“In the industry, if you’re in a huge, huge movie and not seen as good, the people who are choosing who to put next in their movie are just not gonna select you.”
On review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, the film scored 29 per cent from critics and has a 63 per cent audience score, but Jesse avoided reading the reviews so had no idea how the flick or his part was perceived.
He went on: “I’ve been in poorly received things that just don’t see the light of day. 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.”
The ‘A Real Pain’ star has starred in many roles since and appeared as Batman’s enemy again in Snyder’s 2021 director’s cut of 2017’s ‘Justice League’.
Jesse insists he “loved” playing the supervillain and puts the “blame” on himself.
He added: “I loved my role and I loved the movie, doing it and everything. So I feel [I] just [have] myself to blame. I’m not like they did me wrong. No. I’m like, ‘Oh, I guess I did something wrong there.’”
Jesse previously admitted he is "not a comic book fan" and would be "shocked" if he appeared in another DC movie.
He told Deadline in 2022: “I’d be shocked if I wound up in a DC movie, but it would be a pleasant shock.
“Listen, I’m not a comic book fan. To me, it was not playing a role that I’d envisioned since childhood. To me, it was a chance to play this great character that this great writer wrote, and I loved doing that. So, to play it is a joy, and to not play it isn’t something that I’m going to be ashamed to tell my kids about, because that is not an important genre in my life, even though I loved doing that movie.”
