Fifteen years after the release of David Fincher’s biological drama film The Social Network based on the collegiate life of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, lead man Jesse Eisenberg revealed that he was barred by the film's producers from meeting the tech giant.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, the 41-year-old actor said that he wanted to meet Zuckerberg before the filming began as part of a character study, and recalled, “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]. 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?”
The Now You See Me actor further recollected receiving a phone call from one of the producers of the film. “I got a call from Scott Rudin telling me: ‘Do not go there’. 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 is a 2010 film based on the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three – Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing.
Recently, Eisenberg starred in the road dramedy film A Real Pain. Directed, written, and produced by the actor himself, the film has been receiving high praise a secured two Oscar nominations – Best Supporting Actor for Kieran Culkin and Best Screenplay for Eisenberg.
