Jesse Adam Eisenberg (born October 5, 1983) is an American actor. He has played featured or starring roles in films such as The Squid and the Whale (2005), Adventureland (2009), Zombieland (2009), and The Social Network (2010).
Eisenberg was born in Queens, New York City, New York, the son of Amy, who worked as a clown, and Barry Eisenberg, who ran a hospital and later became a college professor. He has two siblings, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, a former child actress, and Kerri. His family is Jewish. Eisenberg was raised in Queens and New Jersey, attending the East Brunswick Public Schools at Frost School, Hammarskjold Middle School, Churchill Junior High School, and spending his sophomore year at East Brunswick High School.
Eisenberg studied at The New School in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood. Originally, he had applied and was accepted to New York University, but declined enrollment in order to complete a film role.
Career
Eisenberg made his Broadway debut as an understudy in a 1996 revival of Summer and Smoke. He made his screen debut on the 1999 television series Get Real, which was canceled in 2000. 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), 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 also starring Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels. His stage credits include Scarcity at the Atlantic Theater Company (2007) and a workshop production of Lyle Kessler's Orphans in Los Angeles (2006). In 2007, he starred opposite
Richard Gere and
Terrence Howard in The Hunting Party, a comic thriller in which he plays a young 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. He played a young Hasidic Jew who gets lured into becoming an ecstasy dealer. Filming took place in New York in 2008. He also played the role of Cheston in Solitary Man. He stars in the role of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in the film The Social Network.
After Zombieland 2, Eisenberg will star in another horror film, Camp Hope, directed by George Van Buskirk. He plans to write for stage and screen.
Eisenberg appeared at the 2010 MTV VMAs on September 12, 2010.
Biography courtesy of
Wikipedia
