The "award" nobody wants turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to Jesse Eisenberg's career.

At a Screen Talk at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 18, Eisenberg said his Razzie for playing Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice froze him out of studio movies and pushed him to start writing and directing, Variety reports. The talk came hours before his latest film as director, The Debut, closed the festival.

"I saw the trajectory"

Eisenberg was named worst supporting actor for the 2016 superhero film at the 37th Golden Raspberry Awards, which were announced on February 25, 2017, according to the Razzies' Wikipedia entry. The film won four Razzies in all, Geo TV notes, even after opening globally with $424.1 million.

"Listen, a lot of it just came from fear," Eisenberg said of his career pivot, as quoted by Variety. "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 described acting as an industry where you are always wondering whether you are on an "upslope or a downslope," and said that as "a paranoid person" he sees the drop coming early. "So I was like, I've got to direct movies," he said, according to Variety. "That's why I started writing them, just to kind of keep my career afloat, really."

His takeaway was refreshingly honest. "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, Variety reports.

The crowd was in stitches

This was not a gloomy session. The Hollywood Reporter says Eisenberg was "wildly entertaining" and had the crowd "in stitches," talking about growing up in community theater and why he refuses to watch himself on screen.

The story that had the room hanging on his every word, THR says, was about Kieran Culkin. "We didn't know if Kieran was ever gonna show up to Poland," Eisenberg said of making A Real Pain, according to THR. Producer Emma Stone ended up flying with Culkin herself. "She sent me a video of him going through customs saying, 'We are here.' And then he was still late," Eisenberg said.

He also admitted he had to rethink the film around Culkin's live-wire energy. Once the camera started following him around, Eisenberg said, Culkin was "so brilliant," THR reports.

The twist: from a Razzie to an Oscar-winning film

Here's where the story comes full circle. The directing career Eisenberg started "to keep my career afloat" produced A Real Pain, the 2024 film that won Culkin the Oscar for best supporting actor and earned Eisenberg a best screenplay nomination, Variety reports. A worst supporting actor "award" for one actor helped lead, years later, to a real best supporting actor Oscar for another.

And there's a sweet connection behind it. Stone, his Zombieland co-star, has financed all three of his films as director through her company Fruit Tree: When You Finish Saving the World (2022), A Real Pain (2024) and The Debut (2026), THR reports. "I met Emma when she was 20 and I was 25, we were doing Zombieland together," he said. Later he added: "We're contemporaries, but she got really, really powerful. Now she can do this kind of stuff and I'm the beneficiary."

What's next for Jesse Eisenberg

The Debut, a musical comedy starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti, was the closing-night film of the 70th BFI London Film Festival, according to Variety and the BFI. Eisenberg told the crowd the whole film depended on Moore, THR reports.

After that? He revealed he wrote six episodes of a TV show a few years ago. "It'll be a series," he said, as quoted by THR. "I know that's boring." From a Razzie to an Oscar-winning film and a festival closer, we're not bored at all.