Several actors have already taken on the role of the villainous Lex Luthor in the past, and this is why for "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," Jesse Eisenberg wanted to breathe fresh life into the character and make it his own.
He read several comic books to prepare for his role, Eisenberg told Vulture, but he did not read them much prior to landing the role of Superman's nemesis.
Eisenberg thinks that it's actually for the best that he is not the "obsequious comic book fan" who was "too excited to stop smiling" while filming, since that would have made his job more difficult. Still, the actor is thrilled that there are a lot of material concerning Luthor.
"There is this trove of stuff about this guy. A lot of it's repetitive, like he always winds up on the roof of his building giving some faux benevolent talk about how he's going to change the city," he said. "It's fun to take that campy cartoony stuff and try to put it into a real person and try to reconcile the two."
Eisenberg is very proud that his version of Luthor is far different from Gene Hackman's portrayal in the Christopher Reeve films, stressing that "this movie is so different... it has real psychological underpinnings, and this movie character feels like a real scary person."
Eisenberg explained that there is a huge difference portraying fictional and non-fictional characters. He said that it's actually easier playing real-life people just like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network."
"That advantage of playing a real person is that they do the homework for you in a way," he said.
What he did to prepare for that role, said Eisenberg, was take up fencing lessons just to get the feel of the social media head's "uptight" approach in life.
As interesting as his characters are on the big screen, Eisenberg said that he's actually boring in comparison. "I'm an actor and I'm not that interesting," he said. "That's why we play other people."
What he does to make life more interesting is push the boundaries of normal day-to-day activities.
"I try to have the most unusual experiences I can possibly have," he said. "If there's a strange man on the street I wanna follow him. If I'm gonna be writing about something, it's going to be unusual, it's going to be something you don't see a lot as opposed to writing some sort of romantic comedy."
