Jesse Eisenberg's 'Batman' backlash changed his career

Jesse Eisenberg didn’t just lose points with critics after playing Lex Luthor — he says his Razzie win may have cost him Hollywood opportunities, too.

The 43-year-old actor revealed at the BFI London Film Festival on October 18 that the backlash to his performance in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice pushed him toward directing, partly out of fear that his acting career was heading downhill.

“Listen, a lot of it just came from fear,” Eisenberg said, per Variety.

Read More: Jesse Eisenberg explains how 'Batman v Superman' Razzie made him director

“I couldn’t get into movie studio parts anymore because I had won a Raspberry Award from [being in the] ‘Batman’ movie … and I saw the trajectory.”

Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor earned him a Worst Supporting Actor Razzie, while the film picked up several other awards from the parody ceremony.

For the actor, the experience highlighted just how unpredictable Hollywood can be.

“If you’re an actor, you’re constantly panicked about ‘Am I on an upslope or a downslope?’ Because there’s no plateau. Acting is just this unstable, awful industry where you are either on the treadmill and you’re doing okay and you’re running up or you are yesterday’s news and it’s awful,” he explained.

His response? Take control behind the camera.

“So I was like, ‘I’ve got to direct movies.’ That’s why I started writing them, just to kind of keep my career afloat, really,” he said.

Eisenberg added that Hollywood’s response to the superhero role made him rethink where he fit in the industry.

“The industry did not want me to be in a superhero movie, and if you’re smart and self-aware, you learn that quickly,” he said.

He later directed When You Finish Saving the World and A Real Pain, while continuing to act in projects including Now You See Me and Zombieland sequels.

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On the Armchair Expert podcast in 2024, he admitted the film’s reception had a real impact.

“I genuinely think it actually hurt my career in a real way because I was poorly received in something so public.”