Jesse Eisenberg Says a Razzie for Bad Acting Ended His Studio Career, Making It the Only Award in Hollywood That Has Ever Worked Exactly as Intended

Hollywood hands out hundreds of trophies a year, and almost none of them do anything. The Oscar raises your fee. The Golden Globe raises your eyebrows. According to Jesse Eisenberg, only one award has ever changed a career on contact, and it is shaped like a raspberry.

Speaking at a screen talk at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday, Eisenberg said his Worst Supporting Actor Razzie for playing Lex Luthor in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" locked him out of studio films. "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," he said. Most actors fear the phone not ringing. Eisenberg could hear it not ringing in advance.

The Razzies are a tongue-in-cheek ceremony held the night before the Oscars, which makes them the only awards show where the winner is announced as a warning. Nobody gives a speech. Nobody thanks their agent. The agent is busy pretending they have never met you.

"Batman v Superman" collected four Razzies, including worst screenplay, worst sequel and worst screen combo for Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck. It also opened to $424.1 million worldwide, proving audiences will pay almost half a billion dollars for something they will spend the next decade apologizing for at dinner parties.

Eisenberg's review of his own profession was characteristically relaxed. "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." It is the first recorded case of a man reading his career's obituary, then optioning it as a screenplay.

So he did what any frightened man with a laptop would do. "I've got to direct movies," he said. "That's why I started writing them, just to kind of keep my career afloat, really." It worked. His 2024 film "A Real Pain" earned him an Oscar nomination for best screenplay and Kieran Culkin an Oscar win. A raspberry was turned into an Academy Award, and pastry chefs everywhere would like the recipe.

His position on capes is now final. "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. Then came the line every acting coach should frame: "They wouldn't have given you a Raspberry Award if they wanted you there. That's an award for bad acting." It is the most reasonable sentence ever spoken about Hollywood, and he may be the only man in town who has ever taken a note.

The industry did want him back for one role: Mark Zuckerberg, which earned him a best actor Oscar nomination in "The Social Network." He declined Aaron Sorkin's follow-up, "The Social Reckoning," and Jeremy Strong took the part. So the official record reads: not wanted as a fictional billionaire, begged to return as a real one, and he said no to the real one. That is not a career slump. That is taste.

His latest film as director, "The Debut," starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti, closed the festival on Sunday night. Wherever that little raspberry lives now, it deserves a thank-you card. Every other trophy in town promises a future and delivers a fee. The Razzie told one actor exactly what it wanted, he listened, and it remains the only award in Hollywood that worked exactly as intended.