Biopics tend to be fairly formulaic and can be somewhat dull if you already know the story before seeing the movie, but when screenwriter Aaron Sorkin decided to tackle the story of Mark Zuckerberg and his greatest creation, the social network site Facebook, he took a different approach. Sure, he ended up talking to a lot of people who were at Harvard and Palo Alto when Facebook was growing from a home-grown site to a full-blown phenomenon, but Sorkin quickly learned that not all the stories lined up.
Undaunted, he assembled the pieces into a fascinating character study and director David Fincher turned that screenplay into The Social Network, starring Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland) as Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker who takes Mark under his wing, and Andrew Garfield as Mark’s friend Eduardo Saverin, who was unceremoniously booted from the company so he sued his former friend for $600 million. He isn’t the only one suing Mark though, as fellow Harvard students Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, identical 6’5″ Olympic-level rowers played by Armie Hammer, accuse Mark of stealing their idea.
This past weekend, ComingSoon.net attended the film’s junket held at the highly-exclusive Harvard Club in Manhattan and we had a chance to talk with Eisenberg, Garfield, Hammer and Aaron Sorkin himself. Unfortunately, Timberlake was under the weather, so we didn’t get a chance to talk to him.
In the interviews below, we talk about what was involved with each of the three guys getting their roles, Jesse and Aaron talk about what went into creating their take on Zuckerberg, they talk about Sorkin’s trademark dialogue and the actors talk about their expectations of working with David Fincher and whether they were met.
The Social Network opens this Friday, October 1.
