Jesse Eisenberg hasn't seen the Social Network sequel — he left Jeremy Strong the Zuckerberg press tour
Aaron Sorkin spent a three-day weekend trying to talk him round, and money only made it harder. Eisenberg's problem was Facebook.
Jesse Eisenberg still has not seen The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin's follow-up to The Social Network, which Sony released on 9 October. He told Deadline as much on 13 October, in an interview about his own new film, The Debut. "I haven't seen the movie yet. It just came out," he said, before admitting to "a thousand million thoughts" about it.
Then he went back over why the part he played in 2010 went to Jeremy Strong. Not the script, not Sorkin: the tour that comes with the job.
"I love the script and I love Aaron Sorkin so much... I just didn't want to be associated with that guy again and go around and do a year of press, where I'm talking about something which I know nothing about, because I'm not on that platform as a user, and I'm not interested in that kind of technology as a person."
— Jesse Eisenberg to Deadline
He did leave one polite line for the film itself: "I'm sure the movie is wonderful." Which is exactly what people say about films they have not seen.
Sorkin never considered a no
Sorkin did not see it coming. He told Entertainment Weekly earlier this month that he was a couple of pages from finishing the script when he ran into Eisenberg and promised to send it over. "He smiled and nodded, and I sent it to him. It never occurred to me that he wouldn't want to do it."
According to Vanity Fair in June, Sorkin then spent a three-day weekend trying to talk him round. Money was no help either. "If anything, money is a disincentive for him," Sorkin told EW, calling it infuriating and admirable in the same breath.
He also insisted he was never part of the tech world, whatever he looks like from the side: "I think I look like somebody who probably spends the day sitting in front of a computer or a television, but I really don't."
The press went to Strong
The press Eisenberg turned down did not disappear. It became Strong's job. His GQ cover story, published on 12 August, was largely about playing Zuckerberg. He told the magazine he had emailed Zuckerberg after being cast, "just to say that I take this responsibility very seriously", and joked that admitting it would give Sony an aneurysm. Zuckerberg wrote back. What he said, Strong would not reveal.
He also made the case Eisenberg had walked away from making:
"I know that he is a reviled person and not a popular person in our culture, but I do not think you should have an actor playing him who wants to set out to condemn him."
— Jeremy Strong to GQ
One detail sums up the gap between the two men. Strong does not do social media, but according to GQ he signed up for a Facebook account to read Zuckerberg's posts from the very beginning.
One actor turned the part down because he is not on Facebook. The other joined Facebook to get the part right.
Weeks of answering for it
Strong's promotional round ran from August into early October. On 2 October he sat down with David Remnick on The New Yorker Radio Hour, and the conversation turned to his reputation for Method acting. He said he did not feel he needed to apologise to anyone who thought he took it "too seriously". Weeks of answering for Zuckerberg and for himself: precisely the job Eisenberg declined.
The film opened in the US on 9 October with an estimated $5.5 million from 2,606 cinemas. Eisenberg, meanwhile, has his own film to promote. The Debut, which he wrote, directed and stars in alongside Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti, premiered at Telluride and reaches cinemas through A24 on 11 December. He will be doing the press for that one. He has, at least, seen it.
Read more: Well, that stung — The Social Reckoning is a major box office face-plant