Networking has been really important to me: Jesse Eisenberg

Actor Jesse Eisenberg plays a social networking tycoon in an upcoming film.

You play Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Have you met the real Mark?  
My character probably has the most kind of public image – there’s so much to find, online or elsewhere about Zuckerberg. But the most useful resource I had was Aaron’s wonderful script which created a character that was so interesting and multi-dimensional that it almost didn’t require any other resources.  But of course I was fortunate to have them as well.

How much research did you do on your character?
The first meeting I had with director David Fincher, I asked him, how similar do you want my character to be to the real guy? He said it was never his intention for us to do impressions. He wanted us to play real characters. I actually made a tape in New York of some scenes with my sister and sent it in to LA. I was cast from that tape.

How much does social media itself influence the way you do your work creatively?   Do you think it’s changed anything?  
Well I have my own website which I use to get movie roles, so [laughs] social networking has been really important for me.  Of course it’s changed things for actin. Some friends of mine are actors so they attribute some of their success in their careers to having websites and being able to kind of network through websites like Facebook, so I’m sure it is very advantageous. But I personally don’t engage.

Have you ever been on Facebook?
I signed up for Facebook about two weeks before we started shooting to see what all the kids were talking about, besides I didn’t have a Facebook page. But more significantly actually probably the closest relationship I have to Facebook now, aside from the movie, is that my first cousin, Eric, has like a great job there, that he got while we were shooting the movie, and he’s working like side-by-side with Mark Zuckerberg. And, you know, not incidentally, has the nicest things to say about him.

How good are you with computers?
Well, I always thought I was good at computers until I met people who actually are and you realize how much you don’t know. You always thought if you could open a Word doc and write a paragraph, you’re a computer whiz until you meet someone who’s stealing credit cards off of other people’s computers.