PARIS, Feb 7, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - 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 empathise with the character, not only
empathise, 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 US
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.