Early life

"...It taught me...about the discipline about performance... Every morning she had a party, she would wake up very early and tune her guitar and warm up her voice, and it taught me that you could take performance seriously. I think a lot of actors have trouble taking things seriously,... but it’s really like anything else in the world... So it gave me the confidence to take it seriously and not make me feel silly for indulging in a role."

— Eisenberg, on the influence his mother's previous job as a children's clown had on his acting

Eisenberg was born in Queens, New York, and grew up there and in East Brunswick Township, New Jersey. His mother, Amy (née Fishman), who now teaches cultural sensitivity in hospitals, previously worked as a clown at children's parties for 20 years. His father, Barry Eisenberg, drove a taxicab, then owned and worked at a hospital, and later became a college professor, teaching sociology. He has two sisters, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, a former child actress who was once famous as the "Pepsi girl" in a series of commercials, and Kerri Eisenberg, now Kerry Lea, who also worked as an actress and started The Acting Creatively Veg Kids, a children's theatre troupe who "use their passion for compassion to entertain, educate, and change the world" about vegetarianism and animal rights.

Eisenberg was raised in a secular Jewish family that originated in Poland and Ukraine. He attended the East Brunswick Public Schools at Frost School, Hammarskjold Middle School, and Churchill Junior High School, and spent his sophomore year at East Brunswick High School. Eisenberg then transferred to the High School of Performing Arts in New York. When he was a senior, he received his breakthrough role in the independent comedy-drama film Roger Dodger.

Eisenberg struggled to fit in at school due to his anxiety and sensitivity, and began acting in plays at an early age. When he was 7, he starred as Oliver Twist in a children's theater production of the musical Oliver!, and by the age of 12 he was an understudy in the 1996 Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke. At 13, he understudied the role of Young Scrooge in a musical version of A Christmas Carol starring Tony Randall. Eisenberg made his first professional role in Arje Shaw's off-Broadway play, The Gathering, at the age of 16. He stated, "When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you're given a prescribed way of behaving." After graduating from high school, he studied anthropology at The New School in Greenwich Village, New York City. Eisenberg majored in liberal arts, with a concentration in Democracy and Cultural Pluralism. Originally, he had applied and was accepted to New York University, but declined enrollment in order to complete his first film, Roger Dodger.

Eisenberg started writing screenplays at sixteen, some of which were optioned by major studios, but was dissatisfied with the lack of control he had over his creations once they were sold. Pre-fame, Eisenberg got into trouble with Woody Allen's lawyers. As a teenager he penned a play about how Woody Allen came to change his name and managed to get the script to Allen's "people". Instead of a seal of approval, Eisenberg received two "cease and desist" letters. Eisenberg would go on to star in Woody Allen's 2012 film To Rome with Love, as well as the 2016 Café Society, which opened the 69th Cannes Film Festival.

Acting career

Eisenberg made his television debut in the series Get Real, from 1999 to 2000. In 2001, he appeared in a UK Dr Pepper commercial as "Butt Naked Boy." After appearing in the made-for-television film Lightning: Fire from the Sky, he starred in the independent film Roger Dodger (for which he won an award at the San Diego film festival for Most Promising New Actor), and in The Emperor's Club, both of which were released in 2002 to generally positive reviews.

In 2005, Eisenberg appeared in Cursed, a horror film directed by Wes Craven, and The Squid and the Whale, a well-reviewed independent drama starring Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels. In 2007, he starred opposite Richard Gere and Terrence Howard in The Hunting Party, a comic thriller in which he plays an American journalist in Bosnia. In 2009, Eisenberg played the lead role in Adventureland, a comedy directed by Greg Mottola and filmed in Kennywood Park near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Filming ended in October 2007, and the movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. In November 2007, Eisenberg was cast in the indie comic-drama Holy Rollers alongside his sister, Hallie Eisenberg. He played a young Hasidic Jew who is lured into becoming an ecstasy dealer. Filming took place in New York in 2008. During the late 2000s, he also had roles in the independent films Solitary Man, playing Daniel, and Camp Hell, a horror film directed by George Van Buskirk.

Eisenberg's breakthrough starring role was as the neurotic Columbus in Zombieland. The horror-comedy, which saw him with Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin on a roadtrip through a post-zombie apocalypse America, was a surprise hit. In 2010, he starred alongside Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake in the role of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in the film The Social Network, for which he earned the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, and nominations for Best Actor at the BAFTA Awards, Golden Globes, Academy Awards. According to the film's director David Fincher, both he and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin knew Eisenberg was the one for the role as soon as they watched his audition tape. On November 22, 2010, Eisenberg was honored, along with Whoopi Goldberg, Joycelyn Engle and Harvey Krueger, at the Children at Heart Celebrity Dinner Gala and Fantasy Auction, to benefit The Children of Chernobyl. Steven Spielberg is Chair of the event each year. On January 29, 2011, Eisenberg hosted Saturday Night Live on NBC, with musical guest Nicki Minaj. During his opening monologue, Eisenberg was joined by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg.

In 2011, he starred in the box-office animated hit Rio, as the main character Blu, a metropolitan, domesticated male Spix's macaw who learns how to fly, starring alongside Anne Hathaway, his former co-star (and onscreen sibling) from Get Real, as well as George Lopez, Jake T. Austin, Tracy Morgan, Jemaine Clement, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, will.i.am and Jamie Foxx. He partially sang one song, "Real in Rio", in the movie's soundtrack, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. He also starred alongside Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, and Nick Swardson in 30 Minutes or Less, a film noir heist comedy about a pizza delivery man, played by Eisenberg, who is forced to rob a bank, which was released in August 2011. In October 2011, Eisenberg made his playwriting debut Off-Broadway in Rattlestick Playwrights Theater's production of Asuncion, presented at Cherry Lane Theatre. Eisenberg also acted in the play, which was directed by Kip Fagan. The play highlights two liberal-minded friends, played by Eisenberg and Justin Bartha, whose assumptions are challenged by their new Filipina roommate, played by Camille Mana.

In 2012, he starred alongside Melissa Leo in Why Stop Now, a drama about a drug addict mother and her piano prodigy son, and in the magical realist romantic comedy To Rome with Love, directed by Woody Allen. That same year, he filed a $3 million lawsuit against the producers of the 2010 direct-to-DVD movie Camp Hell, claiming exploitation. According to the lawsuit, Eisenberg agreed to appear in the film as a favor to his friends. He was on set for one day of filming in 2007, earned about $3,000, and logged only a few minutes of total screentime. Because of his minimal involvement in the production, he was surprised to see that his face was prominently featured on the cover of the DVD, implying that he starred in the film. His lawsuit asserts various California law causes of action, including claims for unfair business practices and publicity rights.

In 2013, Eisenberg reunited with Woody Harrelson for the magician caper thriller Now You See Me, playing a world-famous close-up magician and street performer recruited into a secret group of elite magicians to pull off bank heists with magic tricks, redistributing the money from a wealthy businessman (Michael Caine) to victims of his corrupt capitalist schemes. That year he announced his plan to continue writing, for both stage and screen, as well as continuing to act. He starred in Richard Ayoade's drama, The Double, which was shot in 2012, and reprised his role as Blu in Rio 2 (2014). He starred alongside Kristen Stewart in the action comedy American Ultra (2015), playing a rogue sleeper agent being chased by the C.I.A.

In 2015, Eisenberg portrayed Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky in the biographical drama film The End of the Tour, appearing opposite Jason Segel, who portrayed the late author David Foster Wallace.

The sequel to Now You See Me, Now You See Me: The Second Act, is set to premiere June 10, 2016. Eisenberg will reprise his role as street magician J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas.

Eisenberg played the supervillain Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which was released in March 2016. As part of a viral marketing campaign to promote the film, a fictional write-up of the “new” LexCorp in Fortune, stylized as a magazine profile and published October 5, 2015, revealed that Lex Luthor's full name is Alexander Luthor, Jr. In the interview, Luthor is described as “a 31-year-old wunderkind who transformed an aging petrochemical and heavy machinery dinosaur into a tech darling of the Fortune 500 in what some call a superhuman feat.” For his performance, Eisenberg received mixed reviews from both critics and fans worldwide, with some claiming that his portrayal of the character was "misconceived" and "ill-thought", while others felt it to be a "modern", "interesting", and "animated" new take on the iconic villain.

Eisenberg then starred in Café Society directed by Woody Allen. Other cast members include Jeannie Berlin, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Steve Carell, Corey Stoll, Ken Stott, and Tony Sirico. The film will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 11, 2016.

Personal life

Eisenberg is fond of cats and has been involved in fostering animals. He is a vegetarian, and was vegan for a short period of time. He has been associated with Farm Sanctuary and has presented at several of their galas. Eisenberg's short story "Marv Albert is My Therapist" appeared in The New Yorker in 2013. Eisenberg has written other short humor pieces for The New Yorker's "Shouts & Murmurs" column, as well as for McSweeney's. These pieces, as well as others, were included in Eisenberg's debut novel, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, which was released on September 8, 2015. He dated Anna Strout, Director of Events and Special Projects for the Urban Arts Partnership in New York, and an actress, from 2002 to 2012. He dated actress Mia Wasikowska from 2013 to 2015 after they worked together in The Double. Eisenberg lives with his sister Hallie and her boyfriend, singer-songwriter Owen Danoff, in New York.

Eisenberg has obsessive-compulsive disorder and is open about it. He said of his condition: "I touch the tips of my fingers in a weird way; I don't step on cracks; if I'm going onto a new surface - be it carpet to concrete, or concrete to wood, or wood to concrete, any new surface - I have to make sure all parts of my feet touch the ground equally before I touch that new thing. So I'll often hesitate before walking into a new room."

In September 2015, Eisenberg announced that, starting November, he would match donations made to Middle Way House, a domestic violence shelter in Bloomington, Indiana, up to $100,000 until April 3. All contributions made will go towards the organization's mortgage payment fund that will be matched by a committee led by Eisenberg. Founded in 1971, Middle Way provides shelter for women and children fleeing violence at home. "It's an incredible collective," Eisenberg told a reporter. "It's the kind of place where the residents go through their wonderful program and end up working there. It's saved so many lives." Eisenberg is also a cast member with Theater of War, a performing arts non-profit that presents readings of Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes to military and civilian communities across the United States and Europe. "As an actor, sometimes you feel limited by the role you're in; stories without much meaning. allows you do something that has more substance and benefits people... It's a greater purpose than just entertainment," Eisenberg said of the organization.

Eisenberg also works in performing for Voices of a People's History of the United States, which is an organization that works to "encourage civic engagement and to further history education by bringing the rich history of the United States to life through public readings of primary-source materials." He read Howard Zinn's "The Problem is Civil Disobedience" (1970) for Voices of a People's History as part of "NYU Portraits" 2011 event. Eisenberg is involved with Keep America Beautiful, which " individuals to take greater responsibility for improving their community environments," as well as Shoe Revolt, which is a "hybrid start-up company that auctions celeb shoes to raise funds to deploy a social franchising model which aims to educate, engage, and empower youth to take the lead in the fight against domestic sex trafficking through peer-to-peer involvement, training, activism and social enterprise development."

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2002	Roger Dodger	Nick
2002	Emperor's Club, TheThe Emperor's Club	Louis Masoudi
2004	Village, TheThe Village	Jamison
2005	Squid and the Whale, TheThe Squid and the Whale	Walt Berkman
2005	Cursed	Jimmy Myers
2007	Education of Charlie Banks, TheThe Education of Charlie Banks	Charlie Banks
2007	Hunting Party, TheThe Hunting Party	Benjamin Strauss
2007	One Day Like Rain	Mark
2007	Living Wake, TheThe Living Wake	Mills Joaquin
2009	Some Boys Don't Leave	Boy	Short film
2009	Adventureland	James Brennan
2009	Beyond All Boundaries	Lt. Fiske Hanley / Sgt. Benjamin McKinney (voice)	Short film
2009	Zombieland	Columbus
2010	Holy Rollers	Sam Gold
2010	Camp Hell	Daniel Jacobs
2010	Solitary Man	Daniel Cheston
2010	Social Network, TheThe Social Network	Mark Zuckerberg
2011	Rio	Blu (voice)
2011	30 Minutes or Less	Nick Davis
2012	Why Stop Now	Eli Bloom
2012	Free Samples	Tex
2012	To Rome with Love	Jack
2013	He's Way More Famous Than You	Himself
2013	Now You See Me	J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas
2013	Night Moves	Josh Stamos
2013	The Double	Simon James / James Simon
2014	Rio 2	Blu (voice)
2015	The End of the Tour	David Lipsky
2015	Louder Than Bombs	Jonah
2015	American Ultra	Mike Howell
2016	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice	Lex Luthor
2016	Café Society	Bobby
2016	Now You See Me 2	J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1999-2000	Get Real	Kenny Green	22 episodes
2001	Lightning: Fire from the Sky	Eric Dobbs	Television film
2011	Saturday Night Live	Host	Episode: "Jesse Eisenberg/Nicki Minaj"
2012	The Newsroom	Eric Neal (voice)	Uncredited Episode: "We Just Decided To"
2014	Modern Family	Asher	Episode: "Under Pressure"

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Theatre	Notes	Refs
1996	Summer and Smoke	Young John (Understudy)	Criterion Center Stage Right
1999	The Gathering	Michael	Playhouse 91	Credited as Jesse Adam Eisenberg
2007	Scarcity	Billy	Linda Gross Theater
2011	Asuncion	Edgar	Cherry Lane Theatre	Also playwright
2013	The Revisionist	David	Cherry Lane Theatre	Also playwright
2015	The Spoils	Ben	Pershing Square Signature Center The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre	Also playwright

Accolades

See also: List of awards and nominations received by Jesse Eisenberg

Bibliography

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Articles

• Eisenberg, Jesse (March 18, 2013). "Marv Albert is my therapist". Shouts & Murmurs. The New Yorker 89 (5): 34-35.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]