Jeremy Strongโs portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in the new movie โThe Social Reckoningโ did not end when the cameras stopped filming for the day.
Director Aaron Sorkin shared on TODAY Oct. 5 how the Emmy-winning โSuccessionโ star brought his famously immersive acting method to the role of the Facebook and Meta co-founder.
โJeremy Strong who gives a thunderous performance in the film is, yes, heโs an immersive actor,โ Sorkin told Craig Melvin. โHe showed up on the first day, I never heard him speak in his own voice. He only spoke, moved, behaved as Mark Zuckerberg, not just on the set, but when he went home too, 24 hours a day.โ
A 2021 profile of Strong in the New Yorker broke down how he fully inhabited the role of Kendall Roy in โSuccession,โ which he called โidentity diffusion,โ rather than Method acting. The story describes Strong dressing like Roy in his regular life and staying in character to the point of concern from castmate Brian Cox.
Strong, 47, brought that same dedication to his portrayal of Zuckerberg, one of the most well-known tech moguls in the world.
โI know it seems weird, I know it seems perhaps even unnecessary, but the results speak for themselves,โ Sorkin said. โItโs not silly, itโs not nonsense, itโs not like he doesnโt know weโre making a movie. He sees the crew and the cameras. This is his process, and I donโt think he knows any other way to do it.โ
The new film, which hits theaters on Oct. 9, is the sequel to Sorkinโs Oscar-winning 2010 film โThe Social Networkโ about Zuckerberg and the controversial origin of Facebook.
The movie tells the story of a 2021 leak by former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen, played by Oscar winner Mikey Madison. She told the U.S. Senate in a 2021 hearing that itโs โclear that Facebook prioritizes profit over the well-being of children and all usersโ and said the company is โaccountable to no one.โ
Zuckerberg responded publicly by sharing an internal memo to staff that the companyโs work has been mischaracterized.
Sorkin called the sequel โa whistleblower storyโ in the vein of iconic journalism films like โAll the Presidentโs Men,โ โThe Insiderโ and โSpotlight.โ
โThe film shouldnโt be political, unless youโre somebody whoโs anti the truth,โ Sorkin said. โThe film is saying that the truth is important, and weโre not getting it. So unless youโre anti the truth, you shouldnโt find the film political, but yes, itโs going to be seen as political, primarily because of the final climactic sequence.โ
