Jeremy Strong on Playing Mark Zuckerberg and Other Unpopular Characters
In Aaron Sorkin’s latest film, “The Social Reckoning,” the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg deals with multiple federal investigations and a whistle-blower’s revelations about the damage that the company was causing young people. It’s a dark sequel to the 2010 film, “The Social Network,” and, this time around, Zuckerberg is played by Jeremy Strong, who’s best known as Kendall Roy on “Succession” and as Roy Cohn in “The Apprentice.” Strong undergoes an unusually intense level of preparation to inhabit his roles; he tells David Remnick that he would send Sorkin e-mails, while in character as Zuckerberg, at night after shooting. They discuss why Strong was rankled by The New Yorker’s 2021 Profile of him, and his interest in playing characters who are “right on the fault line of everything that’s going on in our world right now.”
Further reading:
- “On ‘Succession,’ Jeremy Strong Doesn’t Get the Joke,” by Michael Schulman
- “ ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere’ Tamps the Boss Down,” by Richard Brody
- “ ‘The Apprentice,’ Reviewed: The Immoral Makings of Donald Trump,” by Richard Brody
- “Masterstroke Casting in ‘An Enemy of the People,’ ” by Vinson Cunningham
- “Farewell, Kendall Roy,” by Michael Schulman
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