Jesse Eisenberg

Jesse Eisenberg’s Voice Acting Side Story

To millions of moviegoers, the face behind Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network and Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman belongs squarely to live-action film. Voice work occupies a much smaller corner of this actor’s resume. Born in Queens, New York, on October 5, 1983, and raised in East Brunswick, New Jersey, Eisenberg built his reputation on stage and screen long before a jungle bird changed that pattern. His entry into animation came almost by accident, cast against type as a nervous macaw instead of another anxious human.

The Rio Franchise and Blu

Eisenberg’s animation debut arrived in 2011 as Blu, a domesticated Spix’s macaw stolen from his Amazon home and raised in the human world. Blue Sky Studios paired him with Anne Hathaway’s Jewel for a story about a bird who forgot how to fly. He returned for Rio 2 in 2014, sending Blu into the jungle to meet Jewel’s extended family, and voiced the character again in 2017 for the mobile puzzle game Rio: Match-3 Party, a collaboration between Plarium and Fox Interactive built around fully voiced dialogue. For over a decade, Blu remained Eisenberg’s only voice credit.

Minions and Monsters and Dort

That gap closed in 2026 with Minions and Monsters, Illumination’s seventh film set within the Despicable Me universe. Eisenberg voices Dort, a robot alien overlord whose plans for world domination waver once he develops feelings for a human suffragette named Debbit. Critics pointed out how his familiar jittery cadence translated naturally into a character built from wires rather than nerves. Speaking about the role, Eisenberg described joining an animated franchise as a rare kind of enjoyment, free of the self-consciousness that comes with watching himself on screen. The part marked his most substantial voice role since leaving the Amazon behind with Blu.