Justin and Jesse Dish "The Social Network"

You are probably on Facebook but might not know how it was invented. The Social Network is the film that tells you about socially inept, 19-year-old Harvard undergrad/computer whiz Mark Zuckerberg who created the original site in his college dorm room six years ago as a way for Ivy Leaguers to keep tabs on one another. Now the site has at least 500 million users and is "the" way to share with friends and much, much more.

Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland, Adventureland) plays Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Timberlake (Alpha Dog, Southland Tales and a load of great music) plays Sean Parker, Napster creator, Facebook advisor and eventual President of the Facebook company. 

Since Zuckerberg is now amazingly rich and has been in the news for donating a million dollars to help improve Newark, New Jersey schools, his story is even more relevant to teens than ever.

Picture Justin looking way cute and scholarly in his black glasses and a suit and skinny tie. Jesse is wearing a brown jacket and pants, suede boots and grey checked shirt. Let's "friend" these guys!

TeenHollywood: First, do you guys have and maintain a Facebook page? I realize that would be hard as a celebrity. 

Jesse: I signed up for Facebook the first day of rehearsal so I could understand what my character was taking about and when we started shooting and I had to learn all those lines, I stopped using it. 

Justin: I don't have a personal Facebook page but it is nice to know that, through the world of philanthropy for instance, you can send out a message and, for instance, raise money for free health care for kids. So, it is a fantastic thing. But, no, I don't have a personal Facebook page. It's hard to do voice work in animated films (he's joking because he recorded the voice for Boo Boo Bear in a new animated film) at the same time that you're on Facebook. With the double duty of it all I just didn't have time to look at pictures of my friends. 

TeenHollywood: Was there any research into the real life people you guys were playing or did you take most of your cues from the script?

Jesse: I did a lot of research during the rehearsal process but if I didn't and only had Aaron (Sorkin's) script, that would have been perfectly sufficient.

I was looking up Mark Zuckerberg online. Prior to the movie I didn't know what he looked like. I had never heard him speak and all I had was Aaron's incredible characterization and felt that was more than sufficient to make my audition tape. 

Then, we had three weeks of rehearsal and, in order to feel more prepared and understand who this guy was, I found every interview and watched every video that was online and got every picture that I could find of him but this is not a traditional biography picture where I'm trying to do an imitation of Mark Zuckerberg so I was focused on playing Aaron's characterization of him.

Justin: I think there was a collective movement with Andrew (Garfield), Jesse and myself where we felt like so much information that we needed was there on the paper and then moving into the wonderful mind of (director) David (Fincher) to find out exactly where this film was going to go. Just for playing my character, I actually stayed as far away from anything on the internet that I could. You meet my character when he's needy. You meet him when he meets Facebook pretty much. So, I wanted to be excited by that but the themes and ideas are so much bigger than what the invention of Facebook in the film services.

TeenHollywood: These guys don't come off as all that wonderful or heroic in the movie. What was the challenge in playing characters that some people might even think of as big (jerks)?

Jesse:  Well, it's impossible to play a role and look at it objectively at all. My main responsibility was to not only understand where my character was coming from but be able to defend all of his positions and his behavior and, ultimately, sympathize with him over the course of the movie.

Over doing publicity for the film, I've developed an even greater affection for my character. You have no choice. It's impossible to disagree with a character you're portraying.

We shot the movie for about five and a half months and there are very long days and you're spending a lot of time working hard to defend your character's behavior so even if the character is acting in a way that hurts other characters, you still have to understand and sympathize with all of that behavior. It's just impossible to play it any other way.

Justin: Yeah. It became clear to me after my first reading of the script that my version of this character in the film wasn't going to be a hero so to speak but you never play anything sitting behind a laptop twirling your mustache (like a villain). That's the beauty of this film to me, that you really get to pick who you side with. I had a friend who screened the film recently and said to me "I don't agree with anyone in this movie but I don't disagree with anyone" and I think that's what makes the dynamic of these characters tick. I feel like you defend your character. No one believes that what they're doing is wrong in life. So, I feel like you attack it that way. 

TeenHollywood: A lot of people have talked about Zuckerberg as if he had Asperger's Syndrome, where he's very personally muted and not outgoing. Did you think that, Jesse?

Jesse: I certainly don't want to diagnose him but in Aaron's script and in watching these interviews (with him), there's a certain kind of disengagement that you see. It's not dissimilar to the kind of disengagement I express when I'm doing interviews because they can be incredibly uncomfortable but to contribute it to some extreme diagnosis, doesn't feel right to me.

TeenHollywood: Okay but what did you hope to bring out in your portrayal of him?

Jesse: I wanted to bring out this difficulty connecting with others which makes his invention that much more ironic and fitting that he would create something that connects to everybody else. It makes the character far more interesting to play, that he has trouble connecting with others yet feels perfectly comfortable connecting everybody else and perfectly comfortable in the social environment of Facebook.

It was something to make me feel that the character was a full person. He appears reserved or detached and there's still something happening beneath that. He's feeling lonely.

At the end of the movie, he's a billionaire and he's created something out of nothing almost by himself, and he feels alone. So even though (his behavior) appears mysterious, it's coming from a real place.

TeenHollywood: And can you relate to that at all?

Jesse: In the movie, the character that Aaron created is a guy who is desperately trying to fit in and doesn't have the social wherewithal to do so. I could certainly relate to that. He creates this incredible tool to interact in a way that he feels comfortable. Because of his incredible insight, five hundred million other people also feel comfortable using that tool. He's a fascinating character and complicated in all the right ways.

TeenHollywood: Justin, what do you feel is the draw for people to create their page on Facebook?

Justin: It's a party and you're throwing it. I think that's the intrigue behind having your own Facebook page and creating your own profile. It's your world. I would assume that's what it is. I get the idea and none of us (on the movie) are that savvy about using Facebook or any other social networking site but I would think that would be it. I'm still ridiculously stupid when it comes to computers and social networking. The question is 'is it a good thing or a bad thing?'. I think there's always a medium being pushed to show us how human we are; how kind we are, how cruel we are.

TeenHollywood: Justin, can you compare what do you go through making your music versus acting?

Justin: Obviously, I've spent a lot of time on stage and the rehearsal process for getting ready for a tour, that alone is probably like writing a screenplay and putting together the shot sheet. Putting together a stage production, my last tour took about ten months from concept to actually getting to the first show.

It's very similar to theater obviously. You have a very long, drawn-out, methodical rehearsal process (in doing stage) because you only get one take. You step up on stage and get one pass at it and it has to be something that has been workshopped in front of different crowds. 

TeenHollywood: For this film, especially with multi-take director David Fincher, you aren't gonna do it just once.

Justin: David said, 'I'll try to be cognizant of you not liking to do as many takes as I like to do'. I stopped him right there and said that I wasn't going to be whiny. I came into this movie knowing my role and excited about it. If he wanted me to, I'd do it 99 times. (Making movies) is a fulfilling process. It's more collaborative. Everything I put together on stage, the buck stops with me and you have to trust what you're doing.

But, to get to toss the ball around with such great actors is a completely different fulfilling, collaborative, creative experience. To have the freedom to go in and mess it up for 97 takes and when you get to the 98th, if David says it's okay and we're moving on, I think we all just wanted to please David. If we did that, we were satisfied with our performances. We felt free to get out on the floor and mess it up to find out what was great about the dynamic between all these young, brilliant minds that we were playing.

Jesse: Every actor I know would sit there all day if there was more film in the camera. The alternative is sitting in your trailer. So it was a blessing (to do multiple takes) and we're all thrilled with the amount of time we were able to spend actually acting and not sitting around waiting to act.

Justin: I don't think any of us had a normal-sized trailer either, just little cubby holes.

Jesse: Another reason why we wanted to stay on set. (laughter)