'Social Network' star Eisenberg slams Zuckerberg as 'obsessed with power'

by Adam PLOWRIGHT

Hollywood star Jesse Eisenberg, who played Mark Zuckerberg in 2010 hit "The Social Network", told AFP the Facebook owner had evolved from having "a sense of righteousness" into "somebody obsessed with power".

Eisenberg took a broadly sympathetic view of the Silicon Valley billionaire when playing him in the David Fincher-directed movie, which helped shape Facebook's public image.

"As an actor, your job is to empathize with the character, not only empathize, but justify," Eisenberg told AFP in an interview to promote his widely acclaimed new movie "A Real Pain".

"I was thinking of the (Zuckerberg) character as somebody who was able to understand certain things so much quicker than other people, and who had a kind of sense of righteousness that was born out of his own brilliance," he explained.

But 15 years later, with Zuckerberg shifting his political views to align with Donald Trump's new administration and cutting fact-checking on the U.S. platform, Eisenberg has revised his opinions.

"You kind of wonder like 'oh, so this person didn't evolve into a profile in courage'. This person evolved into somebody obsessed with avarice and power and so that's kind of interesting for me as an actor who at one point thought about this person a lot," the 41-year-old New Yorker added.

"The Social Network" brought Eisenberg worldwide fame and an Oscar nomination for best actor.

He is set to return to the Academy Awards on March 2 with "A Real Pain", which he wrote, directed and acted in alongside "Succession" star Kieran Culkin.

The unlikely comedy about two Jewish cousins who go on a Holocaust tour in Poland picked up two Oscar nominations: Eisenberg for best original screenplay, and Culkin for best supporting actor.

- 'The depths' -

The film has won rave reviews since it was first shown at last year's Sundance Film Festival and has been released widely in American and European cinemas over the last three months.

Many critics have noted the deft dialogue between Eisenberg and Culkin's characters -- David and Benji -- with their humour and mental health struggles bringing new twists to two classic Hollywood formats, Holocaust and road movies.

For Eisenberg, the script and setting were intensely personal, returning to the land of his Polish grandparents who fled the Nazis and drawing on his experience of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety.

"David's life is very similar to my life... the pills that David takes are the pills that I take to the point where the prop department asked me if they can borrow my pills," he explained.

"But I've also been Benji. I've been to the depths that Benji has been to emotionally," he added.

The core of the film reflects Eisenberg's contemplation of existential guilt.

"How is it possible that I have self-pity, or that I spend an hour every morning trying to get out of bed when my grandparents' generation were two inches away from being slaughtered?" said Eisenberg, who applied for and gained Polish nationality after filming.

"How is it possible that all of us don't wake up every morning and kiss the ground that we're alive?"

- 'Great timing' -

Culkin was cast in the film despite not being Jewish, something Eisenberg said he was initially "hesitant" about.

"Once we relieved ourselves of that very specific consideration, he seemed like far and away the only person that could do the part," he explained.

Culkin brought his "unusual energy" and "great sense of timing and intelligence" to filming, which also saw him repeatedly reject instructions from his co-lead and director, who was nominally in charge of the shoot.

"I was directing the movie, sure, but Kieran was leading the day. I would set up a shot, and Kieran would make fun of me and say that the shot was stupid," said Eisenberg.

The married father-of-one says he sees himself carrying on in front of and behind the camera, with "A Real Pain" a follow up to 2022's "When You Finish Saving the World", which he also directed.

But nothing in the movie business compares to the satisfaction he felt doing volunteer work during the Covid pandemic, however.

"I was volunteering every day at this domestic violence shelter that was run by my mother-in-law. And I had never been happier in my life," he said.

© Agence France-Presse