Before The Social Network began filming, Jesse Eisenberg tried to meet Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg – but then a producer intervened…
Released in 2010, The Social Network wasn’t exactly a flattering portrait of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. In the hands of writer Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher, the Harvard student who became a billionaire by building a social media empire is roundly portrayed as reclusive, vain and quietly vengeful.
It’s little wonder, then, that The Social Network’s makers weren’t exactly keen to have Jesse Eisenberg – the actor cast as Zuckerberg – to meet the film’s subject in person.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, however, Eisenberg recalls that he was so keen to meet the figure he was playing that he decided to drive over to Facebook’s headquarters in California. He didn’t have an appointment booked, but hoped that Zuckerberg would have heard about the high-profile film, which was about to begin shooting, and agree to a meeting.
“I was driving up to meet him because I was told [by producers], ‘No, we’re not going to [set up a meeting for you],’” Eisenberg said. “So I was literally in my car driving up. I was going to just go to the office and I figured they would let me in. [The film] was announced that I was in it. I just wanted to be in a room with him, just to see what the feeling is like. It just seemed like the bare minimum of research. How could you act in a movie [when] there’s a living person over there?”
Podcast: The Social Network (2010 and The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (1991)
It was on that journey towards Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters that Eisenberg got a phone call. It was producer Scott Rudin, saying in no uncertain terms that he had to turn the car around and head back.
“I got a call from Scott Rudin telling me: ‘Do not go there,’” Eisenberg said. “He was telling me this on behalf of Sony’s lawyers. He was telling me, ‘You can’t do that for a variety of legal reasons.’”
The Social Network was both a financial success and garlanded with awards, including a Best Actor nomination for Jesse Eisenberg and his brooding, fast-talking performance. Fincher’s biopic – unusually for this sort of movie – was also made just six years after Facebook was founded. Since then, Zuckerberg’s empire has grown to include WhatsApp and Instagram; his company, now called Meta, has donated significant sums of money to one Donald Trump, and recently decided to fire Facebook’s fact-checkers.
“When I think about people who have a lot of power and aren’t using it to help people, I’m just mystified,” Eisenberg said of Zuckerberg’s recent antics. “Why wouldn’t you just give away half your money to a good thing? And why are you taking off protections for marginalized people on your website? To me, that’s mystifying.”
At the time, one or two outlets said that The Social Network was too hard on Zuckerberg. A film made about him today would probably be, if anything, more scathing.
