Jeremy Strong would be "sad" to win a Razzie for playing Mark Zuckerberg

With Zuckerberg, “It feels incredibly fraught,” he tells GQ. “Listen, I know that he is a reviled person and not a popular person in our culture, but I do not think you should have an actor playing him who wants to set out to condemn him.” He acknowledges that the role is an “ideological minefield” and that Sorkin’s film will likely upset people across the political spectrum. “I feel an enormous sense of weight and responsibility. And listen, my job is to understand and defend his point of view and fight his fight,” says Strong. He also wants his Zuckerberg to resemble the real person more than Jesse Eisenberg’s did in 2010’s The Social Network. Though Strong’s never met the real man, he says, “I wrote to him—I’m probably going to give Sony an aneurysm—I sent him an email. Just to say that I take this responsibility very seriously, and the veracity of it seriously, and I’m approaching it with respect.” Zuckerberg wrote back, though Strong declines to share the response. 

At one point, the reporter shows Strong a tweet posted in response to The Social Reckoning‘s trailer which suggested that Strong was as likely to win a Golden Raspberry Award for his performance as he was to win an Oscar. Strong actually takes this in stride. “I thought that was the greatest endorsement,” he says. “Because to me, it was like—listen, I’ll be sad if I win a Razzie, but that’s the place you want to be. That’s the wager you have to make. To me, that means, Okay, I put it on the line enough.”