Although by 2008 he had already become famous thanks to Zombieland, Jesse Eisenberg won audiences over with The Social Network, which earned him an Oscar nomination. Perhaps for that very reason Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the film and has now directed The Social Network Part II, its sequel, was totally convinced that he’d agree to come back without a moment’s hesitation.
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The role of Mark Zuckerberg, previously played by Eisenberg, has been taken up by Jeremy Strong, but even if Sorkin is happy, it’s hard not to see it as a failure. He had only written a couple of pages of the script when he ran into Eisenberg at a party and told him “I’m going to send you something in a couple of weeks”. However, after sending it to him, the screenwriter was left stunned: “It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t want to do it”.
In fact, he even tried to rehearse every conversation with him so that he’d end up saying yes: “It’s the only time I’ve ever written myself an outline. I don’t do it for movies, but I did it for my conversations with Jesse. They were arguments for why he should do it, including ‘We already know you’re going to be great because you already did it once’ or ‘Here are the big scenes you’ll get to play in the movie.’ And I handed it to him”. Although he was close to changing his mind, in the end he backed out at the last minute. Ooooh!
Sadly, not even a good payday made him change his mind: “I found out what the studio was offering him, but money doesn’t motivate Jesse. It’s exasperating. In fact, money actually kills his motivation. It’s admirable. He’s very concerned about his children growing up with too much money”. Fine, Jesse, if you want to get rid of a little, you know where we are. It’ll be a pleasure.
