Jesse Eisenberg Said He Was Driving To Facebook To See If He Could Meet Mark Zuckerberg But Was Told To Turn Back For 'legal Reasons'

Mark Zuckerberg at Donald Trump's inauguration and Jesse Eisenberg in "The Social Network."

Kenny Holston/AFP/Getty Images/Sony Pictures Releasing

• Jesse Eisenberg played Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network," the 2010 movie about Facebook.
• The actor said he wanted to meet Zuckerberg, so he decided to drive to the Facebook offices.
• One of the film's producers told Eisenberg he shouldn't go "for a variety of legal reasons," he said.

Jesse Eisenberg said he decided to drive to Facebook's offices so he could meet Mark Zuckerberg before playing him in "The Social Network."

But during the journey, Eisenberg said, a producer told him he couldn't go "for a variety of legal reasons."

Eisenberg was nominated for best actor at the 2010 Oscars for his performance in the film, which charts the creation of Facebook in the early 2000s.

The actor relayed to The Hollywood Reporter's "Awards Chatter" podcast the discussions he had with producers after the film was announced.

"I was driving up to meet him because I was told, 'No, we're not going to.' So I was literally in my car driving up. I was going to just go to the office, and I figured they would let me in," he said of Zuckerberg.

"I just wanted to be in a room with him, just to see what the feeling is like. It just seemed like the bare minimum of research," he said, adding that he questioned how to act in a movie when "there's a living person over there."

Referring to the film's producer, he said: "I got a call from Scott Rudin telling me, 'Do not go there.' He was telling me this on behalf of Sony's lawyers. He was telling me, 'You can't do that for a variety of legal reasons.'"

"The Social Network" was adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book "The Accidental Billionaires," which was based on court documents. The Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield in the film) was a consultant for the book.

It was a huge success: it made $224 million at the box office, received eight Oscar nominations and won three, and has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Representatives for Scott Rudin, Facebook, and Sony didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.