Anghus Houvouras on how he learned to love Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor…
The internet is a reactionary place. Information is dispensed at a frantic pace and often times we are forced to quickly react to a story and offer whatever knee-jerk initial reaction we experience. Often times these decisions aren’t made with our heads but our hearts. We learn that Ben Affleck is playing Batman, and a hundred thousand reactions hit every media outlet based on your love, hate, or ambivalence to him. Fans are thrilled. Detractors declare it to be the most heinous crime ever perpetrated against pop culture. The ambivalent shrug.
Entertainment news used to be a steady drip, but now it’s a torrential downpour. The traditional cycle moves so quickly that a story is released, we react, and then move on to the next story. It’s rare that we get to pause or even revisit something after our initial prognosis is made. When Jesse Eisenberg was cast as Lex Luthor, my initial reaction was ‘Seriously?’ It felt almost comical. The kind of interesting but misguided choice that brought further head scratching questions into Zack Snyder’s attempt at bringing Batman vs. Superman to the big screen. The cries of “Zuckerberg as Luthor” felt apt. I was pushing for someone like Christoph Waltz to get the gig. An actor who could deliver the kind of crazed, silver age mad scientist version of the character we’d never seen before. Eisenberg is a talented actor but I thought he lacked the weight to create a terrifying and intimidating villain.
Then I saw Richard Ayoade’s excellent The Double.
First impressions are often hard to shake. You categorize an actor or a filmmaker, put them in a box, and label them. It takes something special to change your initial assessment. Like seeing Matthew McConaughey in True Detective or Mud. You realize that there may be more to this actor than you originally thought. Even after a decade of performances, actors can still be capable of surprising you. I remember when they first announced McConaughey had been cast in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. I almost did a spit take. That was before True Detective, Mud and Dallas Buyer’s Club when I was still considering that one of the greatest directors in the world had just cast the lead of Failure to Launch and Ghost’s of Girlfriend’s Past as the lead in his latest big budget blockbuster.
Those of us who write about film are often slaves to our hearts and don’t use our heads nearly enough. We’re steadfast in our belief that our first reaction is right and don’t often enough challenge ourselves to reconsider. Seeing Eisenberg in The Double, I couldn’t help see shades of what his Lex Luthor would be. The dark, surreal psychological drama has Eisenberg playing two roles. A matching pair of people separated by divergent personalities. One is shy, awkward, and fearful of the world around him. The other is arrogant and fearless. Eisenberg’s excellent performance turned me into a believer. If he’s able to combine those two ranges, to deliver an arrogant (and frankly terrifying) Lex Luthor who underneath it all is overcompensating and awkward tortured genius, then I think they’re on to something.
I don’t know what kind of Lex Luthor we’re going to get. But I’ve changed my initial position on Eisenberg playing the role of Lex Luthor. He’s won me over and forced me to reconsider.
Talent has a way of doing that.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published May 18, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
