Jesse Eisenberg says Razzie award pushed him towards directing

Actor Jesse Eisenberg has said winning a Razzie award for his role as Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice made him fear for his acting career and helped push him towards writing and directing films.

Actor Jesse Eisenberg has said winning a Razzie award for his role as Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice made him fear for his acting career and helped push him towards writing and directing films.

Speaking at the BFI London Film Festival, Eisenberg said the award had made it harder for him to secure roles in studio films.

“Listen, a lot of it just came from fear,” he said. “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, who played Lex Luthor in the 2016 superhero film, received the Golden Raspberry Award for worst supporting actor for the performance at the 2017 ceremony.

“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 said.

“And if you’re a paranoid person like me, you see it way in advance,” he added.

“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 also said the experience shaped how he viewed casting decisions in superhero films.

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

Eisenberg played Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in the 2010 film The Social Network. He declined to reprise the role in its 2026 sequel, The Social Reckoning, with Jeremy Strong taking over the part.