Fourteen years after incomes an Oscar nomination for enjoying Mark Zuckerberg in 2010’s The Social Community, Jesse Eisenberg has very proudly shed his former character’s hoodie and fuck-you flip-flops.
However that hasn’t stopped the world from asking the actor about his most well-known function. Eisenberg has been ceaselessly questioned about Zuckerberg whereas Oscar campaigning for his movie A Actual Ache, which earned him a best-original-screenplay nomination. Throughout a current look on BBC Radio 4’s Today, Eisenberg mentioned that he hasn’t been following the Fb and Meta chief’s “life trajectory, partly as a result of I don’t wish to consider myself as related to any person like that.”
Distance from Zuckerberg has not made Eisenberg’s coronary heart develop fonder, both. “It’s not like I performed a fantastic golfer or one thing and now folks suppose I’m a fantastic golfer,” he continued. “It’s like this man that’s doing issues which are problematic—taking away fact-checking and security considerations, making people who find themselves already threatened on this world extra threatened.”
In current months, the identical man whom screenwriter Aaron Sorkin depicted as an revolutionary Harvard outcast has entered a darker chapter. In early January, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would dump fact-checking on Fb and Instagram in favor of a “group notes” construction not dissimilar to the one used on Elon Musk’s X. After Donald Trump gained the 2024 presidential election—and threatened to ship Zuckerberg to jail—the Fb founder met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and Meta donated $1 million to his inaugural fund. Zuckerberg additionally attended Trump’s inauguration.
“I’m involved, simply as an individual who reads a newspaper. I don’t take into consideration, Oh, I performed the man within the film and subsequently…’” Eisenberg informed BBC Radio 4. “It’s simply, I’m a human being, and also you learn these items. These folks have billions upon billions of {dollars}, extra money than any human individual has ever amassed. And what are they doing with it? Oh, they’re doing it to curry favor with any person who’s preaching hateful issues.”
Eisenberg, who briefly shared a stage with Zuckerberg in 2011 when the actor hosted Saturday Night Live, mentioned that he disagrees with the billionaire “not as an individual who performed [him] in a film,” however “as simply any person who’s married to a girl who teaches incapacity justice in New York, and lives for her college students are going to get a little bit tougher this yr.”
Earlier this yr, Eisenberg mentioned he as soon as deemed Zuckerberg’s actions “completely defensible,” and famous {that a} performer typically does so whereas enjoying a personality. However with time, the actor informed NPR’s Terry Gross, Zuckerberg’s complete deal has made him “a little bit bit unhappy” and compelled him to ponder, “Why is this the trail you’re taking?” Eisenberg added, “So I principally simply consider it that manner. That is that very same individual that I spent a very long time humanizing and enthusiastic about and attempting to justify and defend his habits.”
Per week later, Eisenberg echoed this sentiment when requested concerning the tech large by The Hollywood Reporter. “Once I take into consideration individuals who have a number of energy and aren’t utilizing it to assist folks, I’m simply mystified,” he mentioned. “Why wouldn’t you simply give away half your cash to a great factor?”
