The Social Network’s Jesse Eisenberg [Interview]

Earlier this month, I sat down to interview Jesse Eisenberg, an actor on the verge of something great in his acting career with his role in The Social Network, playing the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.

Known for his turn as Columbus in Zombieland, landing this part couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. It was great chatting with him about working with the legendary David Fincher, his thoughts after playing one of youngest billionaires ever, and his thoughts on social media.

A note of warning the interview does contain spoilers about the film’s ending.

What was it like portraying Mark Zuckerberg? Did you actually meet prior to taking the role?

I was unable to meet him unfortunately, when I auditioned for the film I had only Sorkin’s great script to use as a resource. I didn’t know anything about Zuckerberg and hadn’t seen any tape, pictures or audio of him. So when I auditioned for the film I felt I had enough just based on the wonderful script.

During the rehearsal process for the film, which was pretty lengthy, I got every audio clip, picture and video I could find and it helped me in the preparation process.

But the script was so wonderful, the characterization by Aaron was so wonderful that there was enough to use.

How was listening to the audio of Zuckerberg?

It was good, it was very helpful. I put his tracks on my iPod, that I made from the video that I put through Garageband to get the audio then I made an MP3, and put it on my iPod; so I could listen to it everyday on set between takes it need be.

It was helpful not because I was trying to mimic the voice, but it really got me into the spirit of Zuckerberg. Somebody who has created something so successful at such a young age and has to do these interviews, which is where most of the audio came from and is a bit disengaged personally.  On one hand he is doing the interviews and has to be personable on the other hand you get the feeling he doesn’t want to be there.

Can you tell me a bit about creating your character that who while is a bit likable is still very sad?

For me it always comes out of loneliness for the character, its what drove him to create this tool that is Facebook and it is what drives him to feel like an outsider. He goes to parties and he is in the corner looking at the party, he doesn’t feel part of it.

That is what’s upsetting, but at the same time with Mark being able to look at the party as an outsider allowed him to think about how to throw the best party which is Facebook.

The opening scene in the film is brilliant. Your acting, the dialog, the action… how long did it take to shoot that?

That was the first scene we filmed, it was a 10-page scene; which is kind of unheard of in a film. A long scene in a script is usually a page at the most, most scenes in the movie are “Hey! Look at that”, “I will look at that too!” and next week you film what they were looking at.

This scene was incredibly unique, my background is in theater so a 10 page scene is actually somewhat short in theater. I was really have that just because you so rarely see that in films.

It was filmed over the course of 2 nights we started at 7pm both nights on location at a bar in Boston. David Fincher is well known for doing many, many takes of each scene… so we did that scene 99 times. I even asked if we could do it one more just to round it out to an even 100 and he said “nope, that’s it we’re done.” The girl who played Erica is also playing in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that Fincher is working on now.

There are some great subtleties in your performance as Zuckerberg. How much of that was on the page and how much did you bring as an actor?

To me it was all on the page, Aaron’s script is so remarkable. He is able to write both for actors and for studio executives. I will explain the differences: Actors tend to get offended when the writer writes, like “begins to tear up” or “Torn by this, he walks into the other room.” That’s what my job is to decide what the emotional experience is, and yet when a movie studio executive reads it and it doesn’t say “Torn by this, he walks into the other room” then they don’t have a place to  frame emotional experience of watching the film.

Aaron like no one else is able to write to appease both you understand as an actor what the emotional experience is and yet there is nothing excessive to tell you how to play it. It was immediately clear to me how things should be played and what his loneliness was and how sad he was even though his behavior appears angry.

Do you use social media, Twitter or Facebook at all?

I don’t. Because I do interviews for films and I get recognized on the street, I value my privacy much more.

Some of my favorite scenes in the film are the ones with you and Rashida Jones, who plays one of Mark’s lawyers. Can you shed some light on your motivation in those scenes?

She is a girl who in any other context he would date, it just happens she is defending him in this billion-dollar lawsuit against his best friend. So it colors the relationship a little bit.

So in kind of sweet ending scene, he is just desperate to be seen as a person and not in the way he has been present by the people whom he had to defend himself against. He just want to be seen in a more human way and she rejects him, so he then goes to Erica from the beginning of the film. He may have fended off these billion dollar legal battles but he is still in the room alone.

There were some other scenes (that are not in the film) where I am saying things that were not going to be good for my case, when I am yelling at some of the lawyers. And I know some of the direction for her, and some of her character choices were mortified that her client was saying these things.

So I think she ultimately knows that he is better than what some of his behavior may indicate.

If Mark were to call you for a meeting what would you say?

I would be on the first flight out. I am eager to meet him, my cousin who actually went the University of Pennsylvania who is a brilliant computer programmer and designer, a week before we finished the film got a job at Facebook.

He is actually working side-by-side with Zuckerberg now and has the most wonderful things to say about him personally, professionally so I am eager to meet him because he is my cousin’s boss.

I also want to meet him because I spent six months, fourteen hours a day defending him in his shoes and thinking about him because of that I have great reverence for him. I would love to meet him.

And I have to ask finally, being a huge fan of Zombieland people just love that film did you have any idea it would become what it has in mainstream media?

No, I was surprised that people liked it so much because when we were filming it, it was very hard to tell what it was because the tone was so unique. The script for that film was really great and the director really knocked it out of the park the movie I finished on Friday, he was also the director on that as well.

I was actually in another horror film called Cursed a few years ago that also had comedic elements and I thought the script was great but no one really liked that film. So I was actually afraid Zombieland might suffer from the same fate on the contrary people just loved the film, including my mother who is scared of all that kind of stuff.