Aaron Sorkin says he personally pitched Jesse Eisenberg on returning as Mark Zuckerberg for The Social Reckoning, even sketching out an outline of arguments, but the actor said no anyway.
Aaron Sorkin really did not want to make The Social Reckoning without Jesse Eisenberg, and he's finally said how far he went to change the actor's mind.
Eisenberg played Mark Zuckerberg in 2010's The Social Network, the role that arguably defined his career. He's sitting this one out. Jeremy Strong takes over as the Meta chief in the sequel, which lands in theatres on October 9.
Sorkin told Entertainment Weekly that money was never going to be the thing that worked on Eisenberg, even though the studio put a serious pay bump on the table.
"I knew what the studio was offering him to do it, but money does not motivate Jesse. It's infuriating," Sorkin said, laughing about it now. "If anything, money is a disincentive for him. It's admirable. He's very concerned about raising his kids with too much money."
When the financial angle didn't land, Sorkin tried a different pitch entirely, suggesting Eisenberg could funnel the extra money into producing his own Broadway plays. That didn't work either.
The writer-director had kept the script close to his chest while working on it, so close that he ran into Eisenberg at a party before it was finished and just told him something was coming. He sent it over a couple of weeks later, fully expecting a yes.
"It never occurred to me that he wouldn't wanna do it," Sorkin said.
What followed was a three-day stretch of back-and-forth, and Sorkin went as far as writing himself an outline, something he says he's never done for an actual screenplay.
"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," he said. The notes apparently laid out why Eisenberg should sign on, including the line, "We already know you're gonna be great because you were already once."
Asked if Eisenberg ever wavered, Sorkin recalled one specific moment. "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."
In the end it wasn't about the script, which Sorkin says Eisenberg liked fine. It came down to Eisenberg not wanting to be pulled back into a role he's been tied to for over a decade.
"He just doesn't like being conflated with Mark Zuckerberg anymore," Sorkin said. "He doesn't like that he kinda resembles the guy physically. That role is probably what he's most known for."
The Social Reckoning opens next Friday, and the conversation now shifts to whether Strong can make audiences forget Eisenberg was ever offered the part at all.
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