Lerman gained further recognition for playing the title character in the Percy Jackson film series (2010–2013) and d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (2011), as well as for starring in the coming-of-age drama The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012).

[2] His mother, Lisa (née Goldman), works as his manager, and his father, Larry Lerman, is a businessman and orthotist.

His paternal grandfather, Max Lerman, was born in Berlin, in 1927, to a Polish Jewish family; they left Germany in the 1930s because of the Nazi regime, and lived in Shanghai until the end of World War II.

[14][15] His paternal grandmother, Mina (née Schwartz), was born in Mexico City, to Russian Jewish parents.

Lerman has stated that while appearing in his earliest roles as a child, he did not have "any conscious awareness of what I was doing or what was going on"[26] and "didn't have a good experience".

[29][30] A review in the Boston Globe described Lerman as a "promising newcomer",[31] with the Telegraph-Herald commenting on the character having been "quietly and effectively played".

[6] He made a "conscious decision" to embrace acting as a profession when he was twelve, having developed an interest in the film making process.

The show ran on The WB Television Network during the 2004–2005 season, receiving some positive reviews but low ratings,[37][38] and was subsequently canceled.

[43] Continuing his film work, Lerman had his first starring role in a motion picture, playing Roy Eberhardt in the children's adventure Hoot; his character moves to Florida from Montana and attempts to save endangered burrowing owls.

[46] In 2007, Lerman appeared in the thriller The Number 23, in which he played the son of Walter Sparrow, a man who becomes obsessed with numerology.

That year, he also appeared in the critically acclaimed western remake 3:10 to Yuma, playing William Evans, a teenager who looks up to criminal Ben Wade while shunning his father; Lerman's character did not exist in the original version of the story.

[53] In 2009, he appeared in the science fiction film Gamer, as Simon, a teenage gamer who controls one of the characters in a video game played with live human subjects[54] Also that year, Lerman had a leading role in the comedy My One and Only, playing a teenage character based on actor George Hamilton – depicted as an aspiring writer who, after his parents split, accompanies his mother and brother on a cross-country trip, eventually arriving in Hollywood.

[55][56] Bloomberg's reviewer described Lerman as appealing,[57] with the Los Angeles Times' Betsy Sharkey stating that the character "captures the ease with which an angry teen will use a growing vocabulary to wound a parent".

[6] In August 2010, Lerman appeared in "Change the Odds", a public service announcement video for the Stand Up to Cancer charity.

[64] Lerman trained in sword fighting for three months and wore hair extensions to portray d'Artagnan, whom he has described as "the most different character to me that I've ever played".

[26][65] The film received negative reviews, with Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune writing that "Lerman already has done solid work... but he's a blank slate here".

[68] Lerman has described the film as a "life epic", and stated that he had been "torturing [himself] for... a few months in order to get inside Charlie's head".

[87] Lerman played the lead, Marcus Messner, in Indignation, an adaptation of Philip Roth's 2008 novel of the same name, directed by James Schamus; his character is a student who faces antisemitism and sexual repression while coming of age at a 1950s Ohio college.

Lerman was represented by Creative Artists Agency from January 2011 until September 2017, when he signed with William Morris Endeavor.

[101] In March 2021, Lerman and Jonathan Schwartz were announced as executive producers for the upcoming Sam Taylor-Johnson film Rothko.

[104] In June 2023, Lerman and Schwartz were announced as producers alongside Andrea Iervolino & Monika Bacardi on the Hollywood thriller Skincare, directed by Austin Peters.