Jesse Eisenberg has played a few career-defining roles, but one of the most notable is his dead-eyed take on Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. So it was natural that Aaron Sorkin would want him to reprise the role in the upcoming follow-up The Social Reckoning, something Sorkin told Vanity Fair he spent three days trying to convince the Oscar-nominated actor and writer to do.
Sorkin explained that he felt the role of the Facebook founder “belonged to [Eisenberg], and he was certainly battle-tested.” However, it was for just those reasons that Eisenberg turned down the opportunity. In Sorkin’s words — he said he wasn’t speaking for Eisenberg — “He simply did not want to be conflated with Mark Zuckerberg anymore, that he has his problems with the guy. He doesn’t like kids coming up to him in airports with business cards that say ‘I’m CEO, bitch’ for him to sign.”
The good news was that Jeremy Strong, an Emmy winner for Succession and Academy Award nominee for his turn as Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, was up for the challenge. In fact, at the same 2025 Oscars party where Sorkin first approached Eisenberg about the role, Strong “indicated” that he would be interested in doing it.
