Before embodying the megalomaniac that we see in the trailers and clips for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, it’s been revealed that Jesse Eisenberg was once set to play a totally different character in Zack Snyder’s superhero ensemble, according to the director himself.
Speaking with LA Times, Snyder didn’t divulge the identity of Eisenberg’s original part (Jimmy Olsen, possibly?), though he did tease that said character was “the exact opposite of Lex Luthor.”
Fresh off his glowering shot on the front cover of Wired, Eisenberg was the subject of conversation in Snyder’s interview, where the director merely hinted at the original character that The Social Network star had been in line to play. “Let’s call it a secret,” Snyder confirmed with the outlet, “but nevertheless, it was the exact opposite of Lex Luthor.”
Switching gears to his true role as Lex Luthor, Eisenberg himself weighed in on the power-mongering CEO, and the reasons fuelling his dastardly crusade in Dawn of Justice.
“[Lex Luthor] has a back story that’s tragic and an emotional inner life that’s authentic,” says Jesse Eisenberg, “That’s in the movie. It was my interest in playing the character with a real emotional core, and this writer, Chris Terrio’s interest in creating a character that seemed viable in reality… To call him self-aggrandizing is to say that the Titanic was a sailboat. He is a narcissist of the first order but complicated in that way as well in that he is terribly troubled and competitive and vengeful. He looks at Superman not as somebody to destroy but as genuine threat to humanity.”
Jesse Eisenberg will divide the two superhero titans as Lex Luthor when Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice opens in theaters on March 25, 2016.
