Actor Jesse Eisenberg was keen to meet Mark Zuckerberg before he portrayed the role of the Facebook founder on screen in the 2010 film "The Social Network". However, the film’s makers warned him against doing so for "a variety of legal reasons", the actor recalls.
The film is based on the 2009 book "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich and will mark the 15th anniversary of its release this 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.
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."
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“(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.
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