In an interview to promote The Social Network, which debuts today, Mark Zuckerberg stand-in Jesse Eisenberg told Reuters that in the final weeks of filming the movie, his cousin nabbed a “great job” at Facebook and is now an employee there.
As with all news that comes about Facebook these days, it’s hard not to read something sinister into this development, but it seems like a simple coincidence.
According to Mr. Eisenberg:
Mark came up to him at a party during his first week on the job and said: “I think your cousin is playing me in a movie; that’s really cool.” I couldn’t have heard better things from my cousin both personally and professionally about Mark. It coincides with how I feel having played him as well.
And Mr. Eisenberg does strive for realism. In his week’s Observer, he told Irina Aleksander that his trademark Zuckerberg hoodie-and-flip-flops outfit was not only “comfortable, which is not really relevant to me, but also accurate.”
If there’s anything weird about this, it’s that Mr. Zuckerberg would think anything about the movie was “cool.” It was made without his cooperation and he’s been on something of a goodwill campaign ahead of its release.
