Jesse Eisenberg turned down The Social Reckoning because he didn’t want to spend months talking about social media, a subject he “knows nothing about”.
Jesse Eisenberg turned down The Social Reckoning because he didn’t want to spend months talking about social media.
The 42-year-old actor played Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the 2010 movie The Social Network but declined to return for the new film, even though he “loved” Aaron Sorkin’s script, because he didn’t want to be caught up in discussions about something he “knows nothing about”.
He told Deadline: “I haven’t seen the movie yet. It just came out… I have a thousand million thoughts about the movie.
“I love the script and I love Aaron Sorkin so much, and it was such an honour to be in the first movie, if you can call it the first movie, and 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.
“I just don’t want to be a representative of it. But, no, I’m sure the movie is wonderful.”
Jesse insisted he has never felt part of the “tech world”.
Asked how it feels to have left the role and the tech world behind, he added: “Well, I was never in the tech world, again, despite what you think, by looking at me from the side, I’m not in the tech world… 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.”
Aaron – who subsequently cast Jeremy Strong in the role – recently admitted it “never occurred” to him that Jesse would turn down the film when he first told him about The Social Reckoning.
The West Wing writer had kept the script under wraps but when he was “just a couple of pages from being done”, he ran into Jesse at a party.
He recalled to Entertainment Weekly: “[I said] ‘I’m gonna be sending you something in a couple of weeks.’ And he smiled and nodded, and I sent it to him. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t wanna do it.'”
Over the course of a three-day weekend, the screenwriter tried to change the actor’s mind.
He admitted: “This is the only time I’ve written myself an outline. I don’t do it for the movies, but I did it for my conversations with Jesse.
“It was arguments for why he should do it. They included, ‘We already know you’re gonna be great because you were already once.’ You know, ‘Here are the great moments that you’re gonna get to play in the movie.’ And I laid it out for him.”
Aaron joked it was “infuriating” that even the offer of a huge payday didn’t sway Jesse.
He laughed: “I knew what the studio was offering him to do it, but money does not motivate Jesse. It’s infuriating.
“If anything, money is a disincentive for him. It’s admirable. He’s very concerned about raising his kids with too much money.”
Aaron recalled how he “wrote a list of all the things he could” do with the money, like “he could produce X number of Broadway plays of his own”, but it still failed to sway the star.
However, the 65-year-old director did claim one victory of sorts.
He said: “I do remember Jesse saying at one point during the third or fourth back and forth, ‘You have come closer to changing my mind than I thought you were going to.’ So I was pleased about that.”
Jesse Eisenberg explains why he turned down The Social Reckoning
