127 Hours star James Franco and The Social Network star Jesse Eisenberg were recently featured on THR's Awards Watch Actor's Roundtable. Franco recently portrayed real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston in Danny Boyle's 127 Hours, while Jesse Eisenberg portrayed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in David Fincher's The Social Network. Both films have garnered quite a bit of oscar buzz and both Franco and Eisenberg are likely to recieve best actor nods at next year's Academy Awards for their respective portrayals.
At one point in the hour-long discussion, both actors were asked to share their approach on taking on a real-life character. Director Danny Boyle was very much involved with Aron Ralston throughout the entire process of making 127 Hours, as he wanted to make sure to depict Aron's situation accurately and faithfully. As James Franco stated in the roundtable discussion, he did spend some time with Ralston, but mainly entrusted Danny Boyle to steer him in the right direction with the performance.
Also, an interesting point that James made is that no one really knows what Aron Ralston acts like in real life; the general public isn't familiar with the way he speaks or his mannerisms, so this allowed James the freedom to make the character his own in some ways, but while also honoring the fundamentals of Ralston's story.
On the other hand, it is pretty well known at this point that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg hasn't put his seal of approval on Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of him in Fincher's The Social Network, or the film itself for that matter. In fact, Zuckerberg has gone on record to say that many aspects of Fincher's film are misleading or just totally fabricated. This surely isn't Eisenberg's fault, as he stated in the roundtable discussion that he really wanted to meet and get to know Zuckerberg before filming the movie, but the producers wanted no part of this.
Needless to say, Eisenberg's depiction of Zuckerberg shouldn't evoke many positive feelings about the guy. Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter, basically reduces him to being a socially inept, greedy, selfish asshole. Sure, Sorkin uses Zuckerberg to personify capitalism and corporate america, and I guess he's making the point that Zuckerberg functions more as a computer with all his mechanicalness and social malaise. However, this narrow perspective offers little to no sympathy or redeeming characterization for the guy.
Speaking of Aaron Sorkin's screenplay, it is actually pretty brilliant in many ways. Fincher is obviously a great filmmaker, but in this case I give the most credit to Sorkin, who really made it easy for Fincher. The story is pretty enthralling from the first shot to the closing credits, no matter how skewed it is. The pacing is wonderful, and the dialogue is so sharp that it brings to mind the rythmic, cynical "Mamet Speak" of David Mamet's brilliantly written Glengarry Glen Ross. By the way, that film also has some major capitalist/corporate america subtext.
That said, I do have some small gripes with Sorkin's screenplay, which basically reflect a general problem that I have with the film itself---that being a feeling that the film doesn't know if it wants to glorify or condemn Zuckerberg's behavior. It's a fairly one-dimensional portrayal, and I for one was not very emotionally invested in the character. However, I can't help but feel that Fincher and Sorkin might want us to side with the hipster-cool wit of Mark Zuckerberg as opposed to the douchebag-demeanored Harvard twins whom Zuckerberg maliciously screwed over. We most certainly feel for Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) but I really can't get behind anyone else.
More on The Social Network and 127 Hours after the jump.
