The Social Network Trivia (2010)

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The Social Network Trivia

• "Erica Albright" is one of three names changed from their real life counter parts according to Aaron Sorkin, but hasn't mentioned what the other two are.
• The actor who plays Bill Gates in the movie is a professional Bill Gates impersonator who apparently makes a living off of pretending to be Bill Gates.
• Aaron Sorkin intended Rashida Jones' character to be a stand-in for the audience. She acts as the only objective party in the entire film that has no association to either side. Her character was meant to exist so that Mark had someone to "open up to."
• Andrew Garfield didn't meet Eduardo Saverin before shooting and instead worked with an accent coach who described how a person of his upbringing would speak.
• Garfield and Eisenberg chose to be on set when the other was filming scenes that involve both of them speaking over the phone. These scenes took all day to shoot and are typically filmed with the shown actor with an off-screen stand in reading the lines of the other actor who's not in the shot.
• Eisenberg suggested to Fincher that Mark should be seen eating Tuna fish out of a can and Twizzlers for the film. Fincher was apparently against the idea, but despite his protests, Mark can be seen eating Tuna during the facemash aftermath and Twizzlers when Eduardo shows up in California.
• Garfield broke thirty laptops over multiple takes for when Eduardo confronts Mark about removing him from the company.
• The deposition scenes were filmed chronologically compared to the rest of the film's events. The intent was to keep the actors looking youthful during the creation of facebook and more aged and mature during the legal deliberations.
• Justin Timberlake claims the scene where Sean flinches at Eduardo's physical threat was shot "a million times." Fincher kept asking Timberlake to contort his face more and react more expressively. The shot shown in the film was the last take filmed, after which Fincher was so pleased with the result he re-watched it with Timberlake in the monitor several times.
• All emails between Mark Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss twins are read verbatim from the real emails.
• Denise Grayson who plays Gretchen (Eduardo's lawyer) is a real life lawyer who got interested in acting shortly before casting for The Social Network began.
• Max Minghella, who plays Divya Narendra in the film, is not actually Indian and had to use excessive amounts of tanning lotion to look like he had darker skin.
• The cocaine snorting party scene was the second scene edited to remove racy content to keep a PG-13 rating, the other being the note Mark receives during his class which originally said "cunt."
• During the scene where Mark films his friends ziplining into the pool, it was originally planned that Mark would also zipline into the pool but Jesse Eisenberg was terrified of this scene since he wasn't sure how his character would look like when he's having fun. Coincidentally, Fincher decided against the idea and had Mark only film the fun.
• Director David Fincher made a point to use very few close ups in the entire film, he explained to Eisenberg during one of their conversations that if you use less in total people will notice the few that are actually in the film.
• After Mark gets the idea for the relationship status for Facebook he runs through the snow in sandals. Jesse Eisenberg puked during this scene after taking an anti-depressant before shooting without drinking any water and being forced to run across the cold snow multiple times.
• During the opening credits, Mark runs past a student playing violin on Harvard's campus, the song being played was purposefully chosen to be off key with the soundtrack's to cause discordance and unease the audience.
• Aaron Sorkin originally wrote in his script for Mark's scene of running across Harvard's campus that a high-tempo pop song from the 80s would be playing. David Fincher made the choice to sign on Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the soundtrack and used their song instead.
• Armie Hammer provides the face and voice for both Winklevoss twins but for some scenes Josh Pence acts as a body double. However, Josh Pence can be seen in one scene in the film after Mark and Eduardo guard the bathroom for Christy and Alice, Josh Pence plays the extra who attempts to enter the bathroom.
• Similar to Eisenberg's experience, Max Minghella (who plays Divya Narendra) puked after having to run across a bridge multiple times for a transitional shot.
• After seeing the final film at it's premiere, the real life Tyler Winklevoss' only complaint of Armie Hammer's depiction of him was that he did not own a pair of earmuffs (Tyler is seen wearing earmuffs early in the film).
• Aaron Sorkin wrote Sean Parker's dialog so that the character would be perceived as unlikable but his advice and predictions would be correct, and thus a vital asset of the creation of Facebook despite his shady persona.
• Aaron Sorkin, the script writer for The Social Network, has a cameo as an ad executive that Eduardo and Mark try to sell Facebook to. This is the same scene where Eduardo says he "wished Mark was asleep."
• Ironically, Andrew Garfield (Eduardo in the movie) originally auditioned for Mark Zuckerberg and Jesse Eisenberg (Mark in the movie) read for Eduardo Saverin, but never formally auditioned for the part.
• Douglas Urbanski who plays President Larry Summers of Harvard tried to convince David Fincher not to cast him in the role. Urbanski is not an actor and is mostly known as a political commentator. Fincher insisted and Urbanski eventually accepted the role.
• After the Winkevoss twins lose the rowing race in England, the following scene is shot in the Gray Stone Mansion in Beverly Hills California. That particular mansion is considered "haunted." The sound designer for The Social Network put a microphone in the mansion over night and heard the next day a series of foot steps, banging, ripping down of walls and slight yelling. The cast was noticeably more eager to finish filming after hearing the footage.
• Originally, the club scene between Mark and Sean was filmed as any other scene with the actors speaking normally. After a few takes, Fincher placed both actors on opposite sides of a large table so that they had to yell to each other to hear the lines. Since the on set scene wasn't as loud as perceived in the film, this allowed the actors to yell realistically but not feel uncomfortable yelling at one another a few inches from each others' face.
• In the scene where Mark attempts to talk to Erica in a restaurant in front of her friends, the location of filming is a real restaurant that's owned by co-star Justin Timberlake.
• The house the Winkevoss are in after losing the rowing race in England is also the same set where the "I Drink Your Milkshake" scene from There Will Be Blood was shot.
• The first scene of Erica and Mark in the bar was shot on the third day of filming, Eisenberg described it as a monumental scene that he was glad to get out of the way early since in previous films he would get panic attacks throughout filming if important scenes were saved last for filming.
• The first shot of the film took 99 takes. Aaron Sorkin asked David Fincher to do another take to make it an even 100 but Fincher responded with "I've got what I need."
• Mark Zuckerberg reportedly rented out a theater in Northern California and brought all the employees of facebook to see the film, afterwards the entire crew went to get Apple Martinis based off of the scene where Christy, Eduardo, Mark and Sean all drink multiple glasses of the drink. Apple Martinis are now jokingly "the drink of facebook."
• Justin Timberlake found the club scene the most difficult to film due to the yelling in each take and Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher kept changing lines and rearranging their placement in the conversation
• The Winklevoss' Introduction scene was shot on the Charles river at 5:42am. Armie Hammer and Josh Pence explained that the exact type of lighting desired for the scene only last for six minutes which gave them enough time to run the scene twice per day.
• Josh Pence, who rowed crew in college, explained the scene where the Winklevoss lose was "insane" conditions for rowing. That day there were 40mph gusts, these conditions are usually never rowed in for being too much strain on the rowers.
• Mark and Sean's phonecall after Sean gets busted for cocaine possession was purposefully orchestrated so that Mark would be on the opposite side of Sean during the cuts. When Sean goes left, Mark goes right, when Sean goes right, Mark goes left.
• The Social Network was screened for President Obama a week before release, Obama said his favorite scene was between the Winkevoss twins and the President of Harvard.
• Brenda Song (Christy, Eduardo's girlfriend in the movie) would say flirtatious comments to Andrew Garfield (Eduardo in the movie) off set to make their romantic encounters more natural.
• David Fincher was hesitant to cast Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker in fear of overshadowing the rest of the ensemble cast. Scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin and Fincher called Timberlake in for multiple follow ups and auditions to "find an excuse not to cast him" but were impressed with his consistent dedication to the performance.
• Costume design for each actor was chosen based off of pictures found of real life counterparts' facebook pages. Specifically Mark Zuckerberg, the Winklevoss Twins and Eduardo Saverin.
• Both deposition scenes are meant to juxtapose one another with the Winklevoss' case taking place in an old mahogany building that has lower lighting and Saverin's case in a more glass/metallic environment with bright lights.
• The rowing scene where the Winklevoss twins lose was filmed with other Olympic rowers. The team where Armie Hammer and Josh Pence were rowing rowed as fast as they could to beat the other boat, while the Olympic rowers kept a casual pace to stay a few feet in front of them for the film.
• Director David Fincher's most common direction to Jesse Eisenberg was "again but with less emotion."
• Tilt lenses were used during the rowing defeat of the Winklevoss to give the appearance of very shallow depth of field, leaving some elements of the picture in clear focus and others entirely distorted.
• After casting, David Fincher forbade principal actors from meeting their real-life counterparts until filming was completed.
• Mark Zuckerberg originally planned never to see the movie. He ended up taking several of his employees to see it. He later remarked that, despite some of the film's inaccuracies, they got his clothing right.
• Natalie Portman revealed during "Newsweek's 2011 Oscar Roundtable" that she gave a dinner party for writer Aaron Sorkin, while he was writing the script for this movie, to which she invited a bunch of her friends from Harvard. She wanted to give him the chance to listen to first-hand stories about the social life at Harvard University.
• Main video editing was done with Final Cut Pro, with extensive work on tweaking, conforming and fixing up shots done with Adobe software, namely After Effects and Premiere.
• The note "U dick" that Mark is handed by a girl in class is a replacement of a more profane word that the MPAA wouldn't approve for a PG-13 rating.
• The only scene Jesse Eisenberg had a problem with was the scene where Zuckerberg films his friends jumping into a swimming pool from a rooftop. Originally Zuckerberg, instead of just filming it, was supposed to join in as well. Eisenberg couldn't imagine Zuckerberg having that kind of fun. By the time it came to film the scene he was relieved the script had been changed so he just observes it instead.
• The sequence where Mark leaves a classroom and meets the Winklevoss twins in the hallway was filmed at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The classroom he exits is in a different building (Taper Hall of Humanities) from the hallway in which he meets the twins (Grace Ford Salvatori Hall).
• Armie Hammer was forced to eat a lot of junk food to keep his weight up. All of the rowing he had to do for the film would have made him lose too much weight otherwise.
• A good deal of the shots in the film depicting "Harvard's Campus" were in fact filmed at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, including the opening scene in the trailer for the film.
• Armie Hammer studied Jeremy Irons performance in Dead Ringers to get an idea of how to play twin brothers.
• The notepad that Mark carries in the deposition scenes was Jesse Eisenberg's own idea, explaining that he believed Mark wouldn't be able to communicate in the court room without keeping his creative mind stimulated by doodling.
• Aaron Sorkin directed the last shot in the film. David Fincher announced he was leaving- Sorkin thought it was a joke until the production crew came up to him asking how to film it. It only amounted to a second's worth of footage anyway, but Sorkin got to announce the final wrap at the end.
• Josh Pence, who acted as the "body" for Tyler Winklevoss, rowed against the Winklevoss twins while he was at Dartmouth.
• Actress Natalie Portman was a student at Harvard at the time the events of this film took place. She is vaguely referenced in the film and was apparently a creative consultant to Aaron Sorkin during the writing of the script.
• Aaron Sorkin directed the final shot of principal photography.
• Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg are the only cast members to meet their real life counterparts. Both actors only met their counterparts after the film was completed.
• In a scene where Mark Zuckerberg is taking art images from a Facebook profile to fulfill an Art History class requirement, the Facebook profile he is viewing is that of Tyler Durden, a character from another film directed by David Fincher.
• The film is adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book 'The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal'.