Jesse Adam Eisenberg (/ˈaɪzənbɜːrɡ/; October 5, 1983, New York City, USA) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
He made his television debut with the short-lived comedy-drama series Get Real (1999–2000). Following his first leading role in the comedy-drama film Roger Dodger (2002), he appeared in the drama film The Emperor's Club (2002), the psychological thriller film The Village (2004), the comedy-drama film The Squid and the Whale (2005), and the drama film The Education of Charlie Banks (2007). He is also known for playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in David Fincher's film The Social Network (2010), which earned him nominations for the BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2009, Eisenberg had his breakthrough with starring roles in the comedy-drama film Adventureland and the horror comedy Zombieland. His other films include the Woody Allen films To Rome with Love (2012) and Café Society (2016), and the heist film Now You See Me (2013) and its sequel Now You See Me 2 (2016). He also provided the voice of Blu in the animated films Rio (2011) and Rio 2 (2014). In 2016, he portrayed Lex Luthor in the superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Eisenberg has contributed pieces to The New Yorker and McSweeney's websites. He has written and starred in three plays for the New York stage: Asuncion, The Revisionist, and The Spoils. His first book, Bream Gives Me Hiccups: and Other Stories, a short story collection, was released in September 2015.
Jesse Adam Eisenberg was born in Astoria, in the Queens borough of New York City on October 5, 1983, 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 at children's parties and as a choreographer for a Catholic high school for 20 years. 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, and is now an independent artist in New York.
Eisenberg was raised in a secular Jewish household, with his ancestry tracing back to Poland and Ukraine. He attended the East Brunswick Public Schools at Frost School, Hammarskjold Middle School, Churchill Junior High School, and spent his sophomore year at East Brunswick High School. He then transferred to the Professional Performing Arts School in New York. 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.
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 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.
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 permformance 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 November 22, 2010, Eisenberg was honored, along with Whoopi Goldberg, Joycelyn Engle, and Harvey Krueger, at the Children at Heart Celebrity Dinner Gala and Fantasy Auction, to benefit the children of the Chernobyl disaster. Steven Spielberg serves as Chair of the event each year.
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.
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."
| Year | Image | Character | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 
|
Blu | Rio |