Jeremy Strong is opening up about his upcoming role as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network sequel.
Strong will play the tech billionaire in The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin‘s follow-up to the 2010 film that saw Jesse Eisenberg portraying Zuckerberg’s creation of Facebook. The sequel, set for October 2026, centers on a young Facebook engineer named Frances Haugen (played by Mikey Madison) who teams up with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) on a risky mission to bring attention to Facebook’s biggest secrets.
At the Academy Museum Gala on Saturday, the Succession star — sporting a bright red suit and lighter hair that he said was “for work” — told The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s one of the great scripts I’ve ever read. It speaks to our time, it touches the third rail of everything happening in our world. It’s a great character — fascinating, complex — and I’m approaching it with great care and empathy and objectivity. I’ve made two films with Aaron [with The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Molly’s Game] and third time’s the charm.”
When asked if he had talked to Eisenberg — who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the first film — about taking over the Zuckerberg role, Strong said, “No, I think that has nothing to do with what I’m going to do.”
The sequel is set 17 years after the events of The Social Network, with Strong — who is currently on the awards circuit for Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere — portraying an older version of the CEO. Sorkin is directing as well as writing; he won an winning an Oscar for penning the first movie, which had David Fincher in the director’s chair.
