Jesse Eisenberg

Early life

Jesse Adam Eisenberg was born in Astoria, Queens, and grew up in East Brunswick, New Jersey. His mother, Amy, who now teaches cross-cultural sensitivity in hospitals, previously worked as a clown named Bonabini at children's parties and as a director/choreographer for a high school for 20 years; she was also a Socialist Zionist and member of the Hashomer Hatzair youth organization. His father, Barry Eisenberg, drove a taxicab, then worked at a hospital, and later became a college professor teaching sociology.

He has two sisters: Hallie Eisenberg, a former child actress known as the "Pepsi Girl," and Kerri Eisenberg, now Kerry Lea, who also acted and ran a vegetarianism- and animal rights-based children's theatre troupe. Eisenberg was raised in a secular Jewish household with ancestors from Poland and the area that later became Ukraine. He attended East Brunswick Public Schools through his junior year, then transferred to the Professional Performing Arts School in New York for his senior year.

His breakthrough role in Roger Dodger prevented him from enrolling at New York University; he instead studied anthropology and contemporary architecture at The New School, majoring in liberal arts with a focus on democracy and cultural pluralism.

Career

Jesse Eisenberg found school difficult because of an anxiety disorder, so he turned to acting early. At age seven, he played Oliver Twist in a children's theater production of Oliver!. By twelve, he was an understudy in the 1996 Broadway revival of Summer and Smoke, and at thirteen he understudied Young Scrooge in a musical A Christmas Carol with Tony Randall. His first professional role came at sixteen in Arje Shaw's off-Broadway play The Gathering.

He once explained that performing felt easier because it gave him a set way to behave. He began writing screenplays at the same age, and while major studios optioned some, he disliked losing control after selling them. As a teenager, he wrote a play about Woody Allen changing his name and sent it to Allen's representatives, which led to cease and desist letters from Allen's lawyers. Later, Eisenberg acted in two Allen films, To Rome with Love and Café Society.

His television debut was on Get Real from 1999 to 2000. In 2001, he appeared in a UK Dr Pepper commercial as "Butt Naked Boy." After the TV movie Lightning: Fire from the Sky, he starred in the independent film Roger Dodger in 2002, winning the San Diego Film Festival award for Most Promising New Actor. During the nightclub scene, he was ill and can be seen sweating in different shots.

Personal life

Eisenberg dated Anna Strout from 2002 to 2012 after meeting on the set of The Emperor's Club, where she worked as an assistant to Lisa Bruce. He then dated Mia Wasikowska, his co-star in The Double, from 2013 to 2015, before resuming his relationship with Strout; they married in 2017. Their son, Banner, was born in April 2017. They divide their time between Bloomington, Indiana (his wife's hometown), and New York City.

He previously lived with his younger sister Hallie and her boyfriend, singer-songwriter Owen Danoff, until June 2016. Eisenberg has played the drums since age eight; his favorite band is Ween. In 2007 he started an online wordplay website with his cousin, a social design evangelist at Facebook, called OneUpMe, re-launched in 2010 exclusively for Facebook users. Despite portraying Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Eisenberg does not use social media, saying in 2016: "I'm terrified of that stuff.

I live inside a bubble on purpose. He signed on to Facebook for about 20 seconds one time to prepare for the role. He is an alumnus of the Bloomington Playwrights Project and a supporter of Indiana University Bloomington, donating to and volunteering with Middle Way House, a domestic violence program. He is a fan of the Indiana Pacers and the Indy Thunder beep baseball team.

On December 30, 2025, he made an altruistic kidney donation to a stranger at NYU Langone Health, inspired by effective altruism. Eisenberg has Polish-Jewish ancestry; his family lived in Krasnystaw until World War II, and his wife's family is from Łódź.

Charity work and other interests

Eisenberg collaborated with the Child Mind Institute in their #MyYoungerSelf project, speaking about his OCD and anxiety growing up in a video published on May 2. He is fond of cats and has been involved in fostering animals. He has been associated with Farm Sanctuary and presented at several of their galas; in 2015 he stated, "I'm like 95% vegetarian." During the 2014 Gaza War, he visited Beit Lessin Theater in Tel Aviv for the premiere of a Hebrew adaptation of The Revisionist, going against advice from the US State Department not to travel to the region.

In September 2015, he announced he would match donations made to Middle Way House, a domestic violence shelter in Bloomington, Indiana, up to an unspecified amount until April 3, 2016; in a March 2018 interview with Variety, he stated he had raised almost an unspecified amount for the shelter. He is a cast member with Theater of War, a performing arts non-profit that presents readings of Sophocles's Ajax and Philoctetes to military and civilian communities.

Eisenberg said of the organization, "As an actor, sometimes you feel limited by the role you're in; stories without much meaning. [Theatre of War] allows you do something that has more substance and benefits people ... It's a greater purpose than just entertainment."

Did You Know?

• He played a game of one-on-one with Indiana University women's basketball player Tyra Buss for an InStyle article.
• He has contributed pieces to The New Yorker and the website McSweeney's.