Jesse Eisenberg Says Lex Luthor Role “Hurt My Career in a Real Way”

Jesse Eisenberg is looking back on portraying Lex Luthor.

While joining Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast, the actor reflected on how “poorly received” Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was and his portrayal of Superman villain Lex Luthor.

“I was in this Batman movie and the Batman movie was so poorly received, and I was so poorly received,” Eisenberg said. “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.”

He also noted, “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.”

Eisenberg, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in The Social Network, went on to explain that despite success with projects, he has been in “poorly received things that just don’t see the light of day, and 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,” he said.

Despite the criticism, Eisenberg reiterated that he loved the role: “And I loved the movie, doing it and everything. So I feel just myself to blame. I’m not like they did me wrong. No. I’m like, ‘Oh, I guess I did something wrong there.’ And so it did feel like I had to climb out again.”

“It was depressing, but I’m depressed all the time in some ways. Just like, ‘Oh, yeah, of course, I had this great opportunity. Of course, it didn’t go well.’ Just pessimism.”

The 2016 Zack Snyder film grossed more than $873 million worldwide and starred Ben Affleck as Batman and Henry Cavill as Superman. However, the film faced mediocre response from the audience, even scoring four Razzie Awards at the time, with stars Affleck and Cavill winning for worst onscreen combo while Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor gave him a worst supporting actor Razzie.

During an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Snyder was asked if there was any truth to the fact that the studio wanted Tom Hanks or Adam Driver for the villain role of Lex Luthor.

“I think I did talk to Adam on the phone, yeah,” he said of the rumored castings. “Leonardo DiCaprio, I talked to him about it,” and he “had a lot of great ideas, actually, just in the meeting.”

“I think, in the end, he was like, ‘Eh, I don’t know.’ But he was really smart about the material and really smart about the character,” the director shared. “In a lot of ways, I think he was the one that mentioned to me this idea about Superman fighting the Justice League at some point.”

Affleck has also been outspoken about the film, emphasizing that he “loved it” and was the “biggest hit” of his career but had “a lot of editorial negativity.” “It was interesting, that movie, because it was judged not necessarily on execution so much as its tone,” he said in a 2016 interview.

Eisenberg recently wrote, directed and starred in A Real Pain, which co-stars Kieran Culkin. He also wrapped filming on Now You See Me 3.