Jesse Eisenberg (birthname:
Jesse Adam Eisenberg) is an Oscar nominee for Best Actor for his memorable portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in David Fincher’s
The Social Network (2010). Although he may be one of the most identifiable in the group of “smart” young
Hollywood actors (Eisenberg having made his mark depicting smart, or smart-ass, characters), Eisenberg is having a stealth career as an author, filmmaker, and producer, having written a short story collection titled
Bream Gives Me Hiccups: And Other Stories (2015) and written and directed his debut feature,
When You Finish Saving the World (2022), starring Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard, and premiering in Semaine de la Critique at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
He has also recently begun to executive produce various movies in which he stars or co-stars or documentaries, including Jeremy Workman’s
The World Before Your Feet (2018); Lorcan Finnegan’s sci-fi horror movie,
Vivarium (2019), with Imogen Poots; and writer-director Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.’s indie drama,
Wild Indian (2021), with Michael Greyeyes, Chaske Spencer, and Kate Bosworth, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Eisenberg received the Heart of Sarajevo Prize, the Sarajevo Film Festival’s annual award for acknowledgment of a major film career, in August 2022.
Jesse Eisenberg earned plaudits for his debut performance opposite Campbell Scott in Dylan Kidd’s sex comedy,
Roger Dodger (2002), with Isabella Rossellini, Elizabeth Berkley, and Jennifer Beals. He had small roles in Michael Hoffman’s
The Emperor’s Club (2002) and
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village (2004), before landing the choice role of Walt in writer-director Noah Baumbach’s fine comedy-drama,
The Squid and the Whale (2005), with Laura Linney, William Baldwin, and Anna Paquin, and which earned Baumbach the rare awards sweep of the top four American film critics organizations for best screenplay.
Eisenberg’s first genre foray was in Wes Craven’s werewolf comedy,
Cursed (2005), with Christina Ricci and Joshua Jackson. Eisenberg’s first starring role (and title) was in Fred Durst’s debut,
The Education of Charlie Banks (2007), followed by the wonderful and overlooked indie film directed by Sol Tryon,
The Living Wake (2007), featuring a colorful cast that included Jim Gaffigan, Ann Dowd, and Bryan Brown. With
Kristen Stewart, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, and
Ryan Reynolds, Eisenberg enjoyed greater attention in Greg Mottola’s terrific ensemble comedy-drama, Adventureland (2009).
Jesse Eisenberg joined another, more rollicking ensemble,
Ruben Fleischer’s zombie comedy debut for Columbia Pictures,
Zombieland (2009), with
Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, and Bill Murray, which launched the sequel also directed by Fleischer,
Zombieland: Double Tap (2019), with new cast members Rosario Dawson, Zoey Deutch, and Luke Wilson. Eisenberg’s breakthrough came in 2010 with his dazzling, dark portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (and a rare and highly unflattering depiction of a living corporate titan) in David Fincher’s
The Social Network, alongside Andrew Garfield,
Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, and Max Minghella.
Eisenberg was nominated for Best Actor across many major awards, including the Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, and a National Society of Film Critics win. In his first voice performance for animation, Eisenberg starred in Blue Sky Studios/20
th Century Fox Animation’s
Rio (2011) with
Anne Hathaway. i.am, Jamie Foxx, and Tracy Morgan (and earning $484 million worldwide); Eisenberg returned to the project’s sequel,
Rio 2 (2014), with new cast members Bruno Mars, Andy Garcia, Kristin Chenoweth, and Tracy Morgan, and outgrossing the original with a global box office take of nearly $500 million. Eisenberg reunited with director Fleischer for the true-story comedy thriller,
30 Minutes or Less (2011), with
Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride.
Although he once provoked a cease-and-desist order from Woody Allen’s attorneys for a screenplay he wrote about Allen’s life, Jesse Eisenberg co-starred in two Woody Allen movies, starting in 2012 with the rom-com
To Rome with Love (2012), with Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penelope Cruz, Judy Davis,
Greta Gerwig, and Elliot Page; and continuing in 2016 with
Café Society, with Jeannie Berlin, Steve Carell, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, and Kristen Stewart.
Each film world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and earned a combined worldwide gross of $116 million. Eisenberg led a starry ensemble in one of his most successful commercial ventures,
Now You See Me (2016), with Mark Ruffalo,
Woody Harrelson, Melanie Laurent, Common, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman, totaling $352 million for Lionsgate, which also released the sequel starring Eisenberg,
Now You See Me 2 (2016), with new cast members Jay Chou and Sanaa Lathan and earning $334 million worldwide.
Eisenberg joined the strong cast of Dakota Fanning and Peter Saragaard for
Kelly Reichardt’s superb eco-thriller,
Night Moves (2013), co-written by Jonathan Raymond, and premiering in competition at the 70
th edition of the Venice Film Festival and winning the Grand Prix at the Deauville Film Festival. Tackling Dostoevsky, Eisenberg portrayed the Russian novelist’s title character in
The Double (2013), directed and co-written by Richard Ayoade and co-starring Mia Wasikowska, and then turned to the complex literary world of the late novelist David Foster Wallace in James Ponsoldt’s/Donald Margulies’
The End of the Tour (2015), with Jason Segal as Wallace and Eisenberg as Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky.
The brilliant Norwegian writing-directing team of Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier’s only English-language film,
Louder Than Bombs (2015), starred Eisenberg with Isabelle Huppert, Gabriel Byrne, Amy Ryan, and
David Strathairn, and competed in the 2015 edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Eisenberg reunited with
Kristen Stewart for the third time in Nima Nourizadeh’s comedy,
American Ultra (2015), with Topher Grace, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo, and Bill Pullman. In an odd move, Eisenberg took on the unlikely role of DC Comics arch-nemesis Lex Luthor in
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and
Justice League (2017), directed by Zack Snyder.
The exotic topic of high-frequency trading was the subject of writer-director Kim Nguyen’s
The Hummingbird Project (2018), starring Eisenberg and co-starring
Alexander Skarsgård and Salma Hayek, and which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Eisenberg starred in Riley Stearns’ black comedy with a martial arts twist,
The Art of Self-Defense (2019), premiering at the South by Southwest Film Festival, with Alessandro Nivola and Imogen Poots. Eisenberg tackled one of his occasional real-life portrayals (as mime artist Marcel Marceau, battling Nazis) in writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz’s little-seen biopic,
Resistance (2020), for IFC Films.
Eisenberg co-starred with
Adrien Brody and Odessa Young in South African director/writer John Trengove’s U.S./U.K.-produced thriller,
Manodrome (2023), with Salieu Sesay, Philip Ettinger, Ethan Suplee, and Evan Jonigkeit, and released by Lionsgate/Universal Pictures after premiering in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Eisenberg was a producer and also co-starred with Riley Keough (who was a producer on
Manosphere) in co-director/producer/co-editor/actor Nathan Zellner’s and co-director/writer/producer/co-editor David Zellner’s absurdist fantasy,
Sasquatch Sunset (2024), premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and released to a $1 million return by Bleccker Street.
Eisenberg had his biggest personal artistic triumph to date as co-star/director/writer/producer of the comedy-drama,
A Real Pain (2024), co-starring Oscar-winning Kieran Culkin, with Will Sharpe and Jennifer Grey, and with
Emma Stone as part of the team of lead producers, and which launched at the Sundance Film Festival (where it won Eisenberg the Waldo Salt Best Screenplay Award) before grossing a knockout $25 million return (based on an estimated $3 million budget) via distributor Searchlight Pictures.
Eisenberg then revived his role as J. Daniel Atlas in the sequel and third movie in the series,
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (2025), co-starring returning cast members
Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher and Morgan Freeman, with newcomers Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa,
Ariana Greenblatt and Rosamund Pike, and released wide by Lionsgate via producers Summit Entertainment/Secret Hideout.
Eisenberg was director/writer/producer of the provisionally titled
Untitled Musical Comedy Jesse Eisenberg (date to be announced), co-starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti, with
Halle Bailey, Havana Rose Lu, and Bernadette Peters, with Eisenberg partnering again with Emma Stone’s Fruit Tree production company as well as Topic Studios, and with A24 as distributor.
Eisenberg continued to support film projects as executive producer, including director/producer Brendan Walsh’s indie comedy,
I’ll Be Right There (2023), starring Edie Falco, Jeannie Berlin, Charlie Tahan, Michael Rapaport and Bradley Whitford and released by Brainstorm Media; and Eoisenberg’s second collaboration with director/producer/co-cinematographer/co-editor Jeremy Workman for his non-fiction film,
Secret Mall Apartment (2024), about an actually true urban legend, premiering at the South by Southwest Film Festival.
Jesse Eisenberg is a prolific writer, as the author of four plays (
Asuncion in 2011,
The Revisionist in 2013,
The Spoils and
A Little Part of All of Us in 2015); a short story collection (
Bream Gives Me Hiccups: And Other Stories) published by Grove Press in 2015; twenty contributions to the literary journal McSweeney’s (including several stories published in
Bream Gives Me Hiccups); eighteen contributions to the New Yorker Magazine’s “Shouts & Murmurs” column, many of them focused on the New York Knicks.
