Social Network star Jesse Eisenberg hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend – and headed up a skit in which he meets the real Mark Zuckerberg.
Having played Zuckerberg in David Fincher’s Oscar-nominated film without ever meeting the man himself, the sketch plays up the awkward factor.
And Zuckerberg does look genuinely uncomfortable – is it because he’s not a fan of being on camera? Or is he resisting smacking Eisenberg in the chin?
The whole scene is pretty painful from the outset, as Eisenberg plays up his unconfident screen persona to the audience, before Andy Samberg hits the stage in his best Zuckerberg outfit (namely, a hoodie).
"Misrepresenting people is something you have a lot of practice with!" yells Samberg. "You got nominated for an Academy Award for playing me. What do I have to feel good about?"
Eisenberg gets in a swift retort of "Wasn't Facebook just valued at like, 50 billion dollars?" to appease Zucker-Samberg, before a cut to reveal the real Zuckerberg is watching the action backstage.
'The Zuck' gets faux-annoyed with the "nerds", dubbing Eisenberg "my evil twin": "Those guys are such nerds. I mean, c'mon, I invented poking!"
Despite Eisenberg's onstage claim that he was playing a fictional character from a movie script, it's extremely tense when Zuckerberg enters the stage to meet the actor for the first time.
"Yeah, I did [see The Social Network ],” says the Facebook founder. “It was interesting.” We think our brains just exploded.
Though we're pretty grateful that David Fincher cast proper actors in his movie, as Zuckerberg's leaden delivery leaves a lot to be desired...
Check out the clip below…
