Another consideration here was another performance of Mark Zuckerberg as a young man by Jesse Eisenberg in an earlier film written by your director, Aaron Sorkin. I would like to know what role this plays and what role Sorkin plays; Or does he leave it entirely up to you to create the character?
I loved the first movie and think Jesse is a great actor. But I didn’t really think about what he was doing in that movie. I just thought of Mark Zuckerberg; Just like when I play Roy Cohn, I don’t look back at James Woods. I didn’t go back and look at Pacino because anxiety about influence may have had an effect. And I think the goal is to own it, find your own version, connect with your own undeveloped instincts, and let your intuition guide you.
Is this harder to do when you’re playing a “real” person as opposed to someone a screenwriter made up?
Yeah, I think that’s a different set of challenges. And in this case, I had to try to embody a character with faith and conviction that you could accept and suspend your disbelief. You can forget about Jesse, you can even forget about Mark’s appearance before Congress in 2019. That was my only purpose. And I threw away everything that didn’t serve that purpose.
As for Aaron, I think Aaron is the best writer cinema has ever had. So he gave me a near-perfect piece of text—like a gold record—which is very rare. In a sense, all you need is text. You have to prepare life to meet the text, but the text will take you there.
I think by now a lot of people are, to say the least, fed up with Mark Zuckerberg in a way that they weren’t when they went to see “The Social Network.” And he has now reached a level of wealth, power and influence unimaginable even for himself. And you reached it; You wrote him a letter, didn’t you?
I wrote him an email.
What was he saying and what were you looking for?
Essentially, I said, “You’ve probably heard that I’ll be playing you, or a character based on you, in this movie. And I want you to know that I’m taking this very seriously, trying to learn everything, and approaching it with as much respect and integrity as possible.”
So what did you hear from him?
I don’t think I can talk about it because the response is private and I don’t want to violate that.
What was the spirit of the response?
I think the spirit of the answer is preserved but sensitive. I can’t say he’s grateful. I think if I were Mark, I’d be rightfully wary of another movie being made, given that there was so much in the first movie that was fictional. This is Aaron Sorkin’s version.
Definitely. And you can hear it in the conversation; Very Sorkin-esque. Even to the point where he did impersonations of himself a few times. I think at one point someone said, in a West Wing-style way, “Can we have the room?” he says.
I think one of the things I was trying to understand was his transformation into the wartime CEO, someone who was beleaguered and embattled but still determined. In my belief, someone who is idealistic and principled, if he is wrong.
At the time the movie started, we were faced with the intervention of state actors in the 2016 elections. We carried out a misinformation campaign by Macedonian trolls. In 2014, we experienced violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. All of this leads to an intensification of the pressure on this person, this crucible of pressure, to control the content of hate speech, to combat terrorist content, harmful content, child abuse, misinformation about the election. They were under investigation by the FBI, DOJ, SEC, and FTC until 2019. Additionally, as of 2019, hundreds of billions of pieces of information flow through their platforms every day.