Jeremy Strong reveals why he emailed Mark Zuckerberg before playing him in 'The Social Reckoning'

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Jeremy Strong revealed in a GQ interview published on Wednesday, August 12, that he reached out to Mark Zuckerberg before portraying him in 'The Social Reckoning,' the sequel to 'The Social Network.'

Strong also revealed that he approached the role with a deep sense of responsibility toward portraying Zuckerberg.

This comes after Jesse Eisenberg chose not to reprise the role, distancing himself from his earlier portrayal of the Meta CEO.

Jeremy Strong contacted Mark Zuckerberg before filming

Strong reached out to Zuckerberg before filming 'The Social Reckoning' and felt the need to contact the Facebook founder.

“I wrote to him, I’m probably going to give Sony an aneurysm, I sent him an email,” he revealed in his GQ profile.

He continued, “Just to say that I take this responsibility very seriously, and the veracity of it seriously, and I’m approaching it with respect.” 

He also confirmed that Zuckerberg responded, although he did not share any details about their correspondence.

The 'Succession' star said he felt “an enormous sense of weight and responsibility” while portraying Zuckerberg in the follow-up to Aaron Sorkin’s 2010 drama.

“It feels incredibly fraught to talk about the movie, to talk about Mark and being the person who is playing Mark and representing Mark in a sense to the world and to posterity,” he explained, adding, “And listen, my job is to understand and defend his point of view and fight his fight.”

While 'The Social Network' featured Eisenberg as Zuckerberg creating Facebook alongside Andrew Garfield’s Eduardo Saverin, the sequel presents the tech giant in a different light.

Written by Sorkin, the film follows 2021 Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who leaked internal documents to The Wall Street Journal, which published them as the investigative series 'The Facebook Files.'

Jesse Eisenberg explains rejecting Zuckerberg role

Eisenberg declined to return as Zuckerberg despite Sorkin spending three days trying to convince him, prompting the writer-director to approach Strong for the role.

“It’s the kind of role that fascinates me,” Strong said, comparing his portrayal of Zuckerberg to Sebastian Stan playing President Donald Trump in 'The Apprentice' (2024) and Jeremy Allen White portraying Bruce Springsteen in 'Deliver Me From Nowhere' (2025). 

“You are wearing the cape,” Strong continued, adding, “It’s like, the perils of that could not be greater. To commit to it, and to be free within it, is a great challenge.”

He added that he did not want to portray a fictionalized version of Zuckerberg.

“I wanted to play Mark Zuckerberg,” he told GQ, calling Zuckerberg “the mother lode” for research.

Eisenberg discussed his decision not to reprise Zuckerberg during a discussion at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where he received this year’s President’s Award.

“At the time, the movie seemed like such a strange thing to me because no one really knew who he was,” Eisenberg said, adding, “He was interviewed on 60 Minutes, which is our big news show, but otherwise he wasn’t in the public a lot.”

He continued, “I thought of it like an interesting character. And then he’s become famous and now I don’t want to do the movie [...] I don’t want to be associated with him anymore because I don’t really like the comparison.”