Aaron Sorkin says it “never occurred” to him Jesse Eisenberg would skip The Social Reckoning

Aaron Sorkin says it never crossed his mind that Jesse Eisenberg would refuse to play Mark Zuckerberg again in The Social Reckoning, according to Deadline and The A.V. Club, which both drew on his interview with Entertainment Weekly. The sequel opens in theaters on Oct. 9 with Jeremy Strong in the role, and Strong has been talking about how he approached the part and what he thinks the real Zuckerberg will make of the film. Sorkin was among the most searched topics in the United States on Sunday morning, according to Google’s daily trends.

Key facts: The Social Reckoning

Detail	What was reported
Release date	Oct. 9 in theaters (Deadline, Variety)
Writer-director	Aaron Sorkin, who also wrote The Social Network (2010)
Mark Zuckerberg	Jeremy Strong, cast last September (Deadline)
Story	The 2021 Facebook leak by whistleblower Frances Haugen and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz
Cast	Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Bill Burr, Wunmi Mosaku, Billy Magnussen, Betty Gilpin
Eisenberg’s role	Declined to return, per Sorkin’s Entertainment Weekly interview

Sorkin on Eisenberg: “It never occurred to me”

Deadline reported that Sorkin, who wrote The Social Network, had assumed Eisenberg would reprise the role he played in that 2010 film. “I knew what the studio was offering him to do it, but money does not motivate Jesse. It’s infuriating,” Sorkin told Entertainment Weekly. “If anything, money is a disincentive for him. It’s admirable. He’s very concerned about raising his kids with too much money.”

Sorkin said he was “just a couple of pages from being done” with the script when he ran into the actor and told him something was coming 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.” Deadline described the exchange as Sorkin logging back into Facebook only to have his friend request to Eisenberg denied.

The three-day pitch

Before Strong was cast last September, Deadline reported, Sorkin spent a three-day weekend trying to persuade Eisenberg to come back. The A.V. Club, which called it “a hard sell,” said Eisenberg had been telling people he did not want to play Zuckerberg again since February 2025, months before the sequel entered formal development, and that he had told Sorkin directly.

Sorkin told Entertainment Weekly that he wrote himself an outline for these conversations, which he never does for his movies. “It was arguments for why he should do it,” he said. “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.’” According to The A.V. Club, he also presented Eisenberg with a list of what he could do with the money, including producing “X number of Broadway plays of his own.”

Sorkin offered his own explanation for the refusal. “He just doesn’t like being conflated with Mark Zuckerberg anymore,” he said. “He doesn’t like that he kinda resembles the guy physically; that role is probably what he’s most known for.” The A.V. Club recalled that Eisenberg once said, “It’s not like I played a great golfer or something, and now people think I’m a great golfer.” Sorkin said he did make some progress: by the third or fourth back-and-forth, he recalled, Eisenberg told him, “You have come closer to changing my mind than I thought you were going to.”

Strong: defending Zuckerberg to the director

Strong, meanwhile, spoke to David Remnick on The New Yorker Radio Hour on Oct. 2, Deadline and Variety reported. Remnick asked whether he cares how Zuckerberg will react to the film, and Strong said yes, which is why he reached out to the Facebook founder in the first place. “I was defending him a lot when we were making the film, to my director,” Strong said, adding that his hope is “that the film is a dialectic rather than a polemic,” rather than the idea that everything is Facebook’s fault.

Deadline reported that Strong at times emailed Sorkin as though he were Zuckerberg himself. He explained that on those occasions he would take “Jeremy out of this,” which he said sounds crazy “but it’s really not. It’s about sort of negative space.”

Method acting, and no apology

Remnick also pressed Strong on his method approach. According to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, Strong said it is “never my intention to interfere with anyone else’s experience or anyone else’s way of working. First, do no harm, right?” Asked whether he gets frustrated with colleagues who are less committed, he said no: “I’m just there to commit utterly to serving the material.” If some people think he takes it too seriously, he said, “that’s something that I don’t feel that I need to apologize for,” because he and the directors he works with believe it is “in service of the material.” He added that he thinks many reactions to his process “are of a personal nature.”

Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both recalled that Sorkin told The New York Times in September that Strong treated his co-stars “the way he imagines” Zuckerberg treats people. The Hollywood Reporter quoted Sorkin saying Strong “did not speak in his own voice on the set or walk the way Jeremy walks,” and that the other actors were warned he would not be socializing between takes. The Hollywood Reporter also recalled that Strong has called the publicity around his process “painful,” while insisting that among his co-stars there is “deep respect and even love.” Variety noted that Strong’s Succession colleague Brian Cox has criticized his method acting on several occasions but has also said Strong “was wonderful to act with.”

Deadline reported that Remnick also raised Strong’s request, during The Trial of the Chicago 7, to be sprayed with real tear gas. Strong, who played Jerry Rubin in that Netflix film, said he wanted to “demythologize” the story and that the request involved no one else and was only for a close-up and “the physiological effects.”

Frequently asked questions

Why isn’t Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Reckoning?

Aaron Sorkin told Entertainment Weekly, as reported by Deadline and The A.V. Club, that Eisenberg does not like being conflated with Mark Zuckerberg anymore and that money did not motivate him. Sorkin spent a three-day weekend trying to persuade him before casting Jeremy Strong.

When does The Social Reckoning come out?

Deadline and Variety reported that the film opens in theaters on Oct. 9. It dramatizes the 2021 Facebook leak by Frances Haugen and Jeff Horwitz.

What did Jeremy Strong say about method acting?

On The New Yorker Radio Hour, Strong said it is never his intention to interfere with others and that he does not feel he needs to apologize because his approach is “in service of the material,” Variety and The Hollywood Reporter reported.