Behind the scenes of the life of Jesse Eisenberg, who managed to make a name for himself with the roles he played and the character he portrayed, that he was shy, asocial and had trouble speaking, that he could not hide from anyone.
His full name is Jesse Adam Eisenberg, he was born on October 5, 1983, in Queens, New York City. His mother, Amy Fishman, who now teaches cross-cultural sensitivity in hospitals, previously worked as a clown at children's parties and as a high school director/choreographer for 20 years. His father, Barry Eisenberg, was a taxi driver, then worked at a hospital and later taught sociology as a university professor. Eisenberg has two sisters, Hallie Eisenberg, a former child actress who once became famous as the "Pepsi girl" in a series of commercials, and Kerri Eisenberg, who currently works as an independent artist in New York City.
Eisenberg was brought up in East Brunswick, New Jersey, in a Jewish family descending from Poland and Ukraine. Eisenberg, who was educated in public schools, spent his second and third years at East Brunswick High School and transferred to the Professional Performing Arts School in New York in his final year. While in his senior year, he landed his breakthrough role in the independent comedy-drama film "Roger Dodger" (2002). His studies for his role in the movie prevented him from enrolling in New York University. Instead, he studied anthropology and contemporary architecture at the New School in Greenwich Village. Additionally, he majored in the liberal arts, focusing on democracy and cultural pluralism.
Having trouble adjusting to school due to his anxiety disorder, Eisenberg started playing games at an early age. At the age of seven, "Oliver!" He appeared as Oliver Twist in a children's theatrical production of the musical, and as a backup at the age of 12 in the 1996 Broadway reenactment of Tennessee Williams' "Summer and Smoke". The following year, he appeared as Young Scrooge in the musical version of "A Christmas Carol" starring Tony Randall.
He got his first professional role at the age of 16 in Arje Shaw's off-Broadway play "The Gathering." At the same time, he began writing screenplays and some of his writings were favored by major studios.
Eisenberg made his television debut in the comedy-drama series "Get Real" from 1999 to 2000. At the age of 18, he starred in Sky, the independent film "Roger Dodger" and the drama "The Emperor's Club" (2002). Both received generally positive reviews, while his performance in the first won the San Diego Film Festival in the Most Promising New Actor category.
In 2005, he appeared with Christina Ricci in "Cursed," a horror comedy film directed by Wes Craven, and with Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels in "The Squid and the Whale," an independent comedy-drama film directed by Noah Baumbach. Two years later, he co-starred with Richard Gere and Terrence Howard in the satirical black comedy thriller "The Hunting Party," in which he plays an American journalist reporting from Bosnia. He also appeared in the independent crime novel drama film "Holy Rollers" (2010) with his sister Hallie Eisenberg.
In the following years,she played the lead role in "Adventureland," a comedy-drama film written and directed by Greg Mottola, with Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Kristen Wiig, and Bill Hader. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009 and received positive reviews and moderate success worldwide upon release. In the late 2000s, he portrayed college student Daniel as part of the cast in the independent film "Solitary Man" directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien. Although the film was generally well received, it did not do well at the box office. He then co-starred with Dana Delany, Andrew McCarthy, and Bruce Davison in "Camp Hell," a horror movie directed by George Van Buskirk.
He starred in Eisenberg's first big box office hit, starring in the zombie horror-comedy "Zombieland" (2009) alongside Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin. The movie was a sleepover hit and received critical acclaim. With its worldwide gross, "World War Z" (2013) was the highest-grossing zombie movie of that time in the US until its release. The following year, he played Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in the biographical drama film "The Social Network" directed by David Fincher, for which he won the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and the BAFTA Awards, Gold. He was nominated for Best Actor in the Globe. Additionally, he was nominated for the Academy Awards but was defeated.
In 2011, he voiced Spix's main character, Blu, a metropolitan tamed male parrot learning to fly, in the blockbuster animated movie "Rio." Eisenberg appeared in the film alongside Anne Hathaway, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, will.i.am, and Jamie Foxx. A single titled "Real in Rio" also appeared on the soundtrack of the film, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Also that year, he appeared alongside Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, and Nick Swardson in "30 Minutes or Less," a film noir action heist-comedy that was released and features a pizzeria played by Eisenberg who is forced to rob a bank. The film had mixed reviews from critics and moderate success at the box office. Eisenberg made his playwriting debut with the Off-Broadway production of "Asuncion", which premiered at the Cherry Lane Theater in October 2011. Eisenberg also starred in the play he portrayed alongside Justin Bartha, directed by Kip Fagan.
In 2012, he starred in "Why Stop Now," a comedy-drama with Melissa Leo and Tracy Morgan about a drug-addicted mother and her piano prodigy son. He then appeared as part of the cast in "To Rome with Love", the magical realistic romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen.
The following year, Eisenberg reunited with Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Mélanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Common, and Dave Franco in the magician heist thriller "Now You See Me." The film chronicled the events of an FBI agent and an Interpol detective who, during their performance, follow a team of magicians who commit bank robberies and robberies and reward their audience with money, and try to bring them to justice. Despite all the mixed reviews, the movie was a great success at the box office.
Announcing his plans to continue writing and acting for both the stage and screen that year, Eisenberg made his debut with his second play, "The Revisionist." He also starred in the black comedy thriller drama film "The Double"(2013), directed by Richard Ayoade. In the following years, Eisenberg reprized the role of Blu in its sequel, "Rio 2" (2014). In the sequel, he reunited with Kristen Stewart in the action comedy "American Ultra" (2015) to become a C.I.A. He played the role of a sleeping rogue agent being chased by him.
Later that year, he starred opposite Jason Segel in the biographical drama film "The End of the Tour," portraying reporter David Lipsky. Eisenberg's third play, "The Spoils," premiered at an off-Broadway theater venue. Kunal Nayyar, Michael Zegen, Erin Darke and Annapurna Sriram also took part in the play, in which Eisenberg played the role of Ben. The play also won the The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Theater Visions Fund Award. In September 2015, Eisenberg published his first book, "The Sea Bream Gives Me Hiccups", which consists of short humor pieces.
Eisenberg served on the Advisory Board of "Playing On Air," a public radio show/podcast that works with playwrights to produce games for "today's digital audience." For the program, he wrote a short play called "A Little Part of All of Us"(2015), which he played with Justin Bartha. He later voiced in two more plays, "The Final Interrogation of Ceaucescu's Dog" (2015) by Warren Leight and "The Blizzard" (2016), written by David Ives and directed by John Rando.
He played super villain Lex Luthor in the superhero movie "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice", which was released in March 2016 and received mostly negative reviews. His performance was particularly criticized by comic book fans and film critics, and subsequently won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor.
Eisenberg later reunited with Kristen Stewart in the romantic comedy-drama film "Café Society." While the film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 11, 2016, Woody Allen sat in the director's chair again. He later reprized the role of street magician J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas in the sequel "Now You See Me 2", which aired on June 10, 2016. The film was a success, grossing over $267 million worldwide.
On June 2, 2016, Eisenberg's play "The Spoils" premiered at Trafalgar Studios in London's West End. In the play, Scott Elliott returns to directing and reprises the lead role alongside Eisenberg, Nayyar, and Sriram. Additionally, the characters of Zegen and Darke were replaced by Alfie Allen and Katie Brayben, respectively. Also that year, he reprized the role of Lex Luthor in the superhero movie "Justice League" (2017).
Eisenberg starred with Imogen Poots and Alessandro Nivola in the black comedy martial arts film "The Art of Self-Defense" written and directed by Riley Stearns. The film had its world premiere in 2019 and received generally positive reviews. He then appeared as a trader in the tech drama movie "The Hummingbird Project"(2018), directed by Kim Nguyen, with Alexander Skarsgård. That same year, he produced the documentary film "The World Before Your Feet," directed by Jeremy Workman, about a 37-year-old man named Matt Green who walks more than 9,000 miles through the streets of New York. The movie, which was released in theaters in November 2018, proved to be successful with a 100% approval rate.
In 2019, he took a lead role in the sequel "Zombieland: Double Tap", a post-apocalyptic action zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer. The movie was a huge success at the box office as well as receiving positive reviews. Eisenberg's new game, "Happy Talk," had its world premiere in 2019, produced by The New Group.
The following year, he played the famous mime Marcel Marceau in the biographical drama film "Resistance" (2020), written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz. Focusing on the mime's role in the French resistance during World War II, the film broke weekend box office records with a single-screen revenue on its opening weekend. He later reappeared as Luthor in the sequel "Zack Snyder's Justice League." He then starred as Toby Fleishman alongside Lizzy Caplan in an adaptation of Taffy Brodesser-Akner's novel of the same name and FX's limited TV mini-series "Fleishman is in Trouble."
Eisenberg made his feature directorial debut with When You Finish Saving the World, based on his original audiobook series. The movie starring Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard was produced by Emma Stone. The film, which was screened for the first time at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, received generally healthy reviews after it was released in theaters on January 20, 2023. In addition, it was given the "Heart of Sarajevo Honor Award" before the screening of the film at the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2023, he starred as the main character Ralphie in the British movie "Manodrome" and garnered positive reviews for his acting.
Personal life
Eisenberg dated Anna Strout from 2002 to 2012 after meeting him on the set of The Emperor's Club. Later, he had an affair with Mia Wasikowska, who was his co-star from 2013 to 2015. He then resumed his relationship with Anna Strout and the couple got married in 2017. The couple has a son named Banner, who was born in April 2017.
Enjoying drumming since the age of eight, Eisenberg has certain characteristics such as extreme shyness, asociality and fast speaking. His favorite band is Ween. Additionally, he is a fan of the Indiana Pacers basketball team. He is also a big and longtime fan of the Indy Thunder beep baseball team and its founder, Darnell Booker. In 2007, he launched an online word game website called "OneUpMe" with her cousin, a social design advocate at Facebook.
Eisenberg showed support and donated thousands of dollars to Indiana University Bloomington. Eisenberg is also an alumnus of the Bloomington Playwrights Project.
Eisenberg loved cats, was fond of feeding animals, and enjoyed long bike rides. She also reportedly said "I'm like 95% vegetarian" in 2015. Reaching out to many needy people, Eisenberg provided support both financially and morally, as well as time and effort. He is also one of the cast members of the Theater of War, a nonprofit and a performing arts service to the military and civilian communities.
On November 22, 2010, Eisenberg was honored with Whoopi Goldberg, Joycelyn Engle and Harvey Krueger at the "Children at Heart Celebrity Dinner Gala" and "Fancy Auction" to benefit their children in the Chernobyl disaster. Steven Spielberg continues to serve as president of the event each year.