Revelation: Jesse Eisenberg was asked by ‘The Social Network’ producers not to meet Mark Zuckerberg

Producer Scott Rudin informed the actor, on behalf of Sony's lawyers, that he cannot visit the Facebook (now Meta) founder due to a variety of legal reasons

Los Angeles: Hollywood actor Jesse Eisenberg, who played Mark Zuckerberg in 2010’s ‘The Social Network’, says he wanted to meet the Facebook founder for research, but producers advised against it because of “a variety of legal reasons”. Based on the 2009 book ‘The Accidental Billionaires’ by Ben Mezrich, ‘The Social Network’ will mark the 15th anniversary of its release in October.

Directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, the movie won Oscars in the best adapted screenplay for Sorkin, original score, and film editing categories.

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Eisenberg, who received an Oscar nomination for best actor for ‘The Social Network’, said he nearly visited Facebook’s Menlo Park office in Northern California to request a meeting with Zuckerberg. “I was driving up to meet him because I was told (by producers), ‘No, we’re not going to (set up a meeting for you).’ So I was literally in my car driving up. I was going to just go to the office and I figured they would let me in.

“(The film) was announced that I was in it. I just wanted to be in a room with him, just to see what the feeling is like. It just seemed like the bare minimum of research. How could you act in a movie (when) there’s a living person over there?” he said during ‘The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter’ podcast.

Scott Rudin, the film’s producer, then called up Eisenberg. “I got a call from Scott Rudin telling me: ‘Do not go there’. He was telling me this on behalf of Sony’s lawyers. He was telling me, ‘You can’t do that for a variety of legal reasons’,” added the actor.

Eisenberg recently received an Oscar nomination in the original screenplay category for his latest directorial ‘A Real Pain’ in which he also stars. The film follows two cousins, played by Eisenberg and Kiernan Culkin, who travel to Poland together to visit Holocaust sites.