Actor-director Jesse Eisenberg, who is at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival as the recipient of this year’s President’s Award, spoke about not reprising his role as Mark Zuckerberg in Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming “The Social Reckoning,” the sequel to David Fincher’s 2010 drama “The Social Network.”
During an in-conversation event, the actor was asked if he felt any “responsibility” for changing the image of the technology mogul through his performance in Fincher’s drama chronicling the origins of Facebook. Eisenberg responded to the question by stating he doesn’t want to reprise the role as he no longer wants “to be associated” with Zuckerberg. “Succession” star Jeremy Strong stepped into the role of Zuckerberg for Sorkin’s upcoming film. Best actress Oscar-winner for “Anora” Mikey Madison plays young Facebook engineer Frances Haugen, who blows the whistle on the social network’s most guarded secrets to a Wall Street Journal reporter, played by “The Bear” lead Jeremy Allen White.
Eisenberg then recalled first being attached to the film, saying he made an audition tape alongside his young sister and then got a call to meet with the film team in California. “I think they were having trouble finding the person to play the part or something,” he said. “It’s a very strange kind of role.”
“They flew me out to California. I memorized 15 pages of dialogue, and then, when I got into the room with [Fincher], I said: Do you want me to read anything? He was like, ‘Nah, put that away. I just want to tell you about this guy I knew,’” he went on. “And he told me about this guy who was running a studio at the time and said: ‘You have to play a guy like that.’ I was like: What is he like? And he was like: ‘You just never know what he’s thinking and he could just stare at you and you have no idea what he’s thinking. It’s very unnerving.’”
Faced with the chance of playing such a role, Eisenberg said: “Oh, that sounds great. I would love to do that. And that was it.”
As for whether he feels any “responsibility” for helping popularize Eisenberg’s persona in the public consciousness, the actor mentioned how the mogul “wasn’t very known at the time” they made the film.
“In fact, at the time, the movie seemed like such a strange thing to me because no one really knew who he was,” he said. “He was interviewed on ‘60 Minutes,’ which is our big news show, but otherwise he wasn’t in the public a lot. I thought of it like an interesting character. And then he’s become famous and now I don’t want to do the movie […] I don’t want to be associated with him anymore because I don’t really like the comparison.”
“The Social Network” (Courtesy of Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection)
Prodded about how he feels about the growth of social media since the release of the 2010 film, Eisenberg said that, as an actor, he talks about himself “too much.” “It’s not healthy. No human being has ever talked about themselves as much as I talk about myself. So I’m not on any [social media]. All that stuff scares me so much, you know, Facebook and social media, Twitter, whatever, because I already feel humiliated to be in public talking about myself. It’s disgusting. All that stuff terrifies me.”
“Then, being in the movie about it, too, made it even more scary because I see that the person who created this website is not a person who cares about people,” he said. “I’m like: well, if this guy is the creator of this world, I don’t want to live in that world.”
Earlier in the day, Eisenberg received the Karlovy Vary President’s Award ahead of a packed screening of Richard Ayoade’s “The Double.” The actor is currently preparing to release his next directorial effort, A24’s “The Debut,” starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti and scheduled to come out in the U.S. on Dec. 3.
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