As audiences prepare to see Jeremy Strong’s portrayal of Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning, the film’s writer and director, Aaron Sorkin, detailed the actor’s methods for playing the role in an interview on The New York Times podcast, The Interview. “Jeremy does a lot of his own work,” said the Oscar-winning filmmaker. “He does a tremendous amount of work before he shows up on your set.” Sorkin then continued:

I told all the other actors in his scenes: ‘Guys, he’s not going to be hanging out with you at craft service. He’s not going to be yucking it up with you between takes. He’s probably not going to speak to you at all. He is going to treat you the way he imagines Mark treats the people around him.’ And that’s what happened. You cannot argue with the results.

The Social Reckoning serves as a spiritual sequel to 2010’s The Social Network, the Oscar-winning drama that featured Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg. In taking over the role from Eisenberg, Strong revealed in a recent interview that he emailed Zuckerberg directly, saying he takes “this responsibility very seriously, and the veracity of it seriously. I’m approaching it with respect.” Where The Social Network follows Facebook’s founding, The Social Reckoning focuses on the 2021 document leaks that revealed Facebook’s many harms to society. In addition to Strong, the film also stars Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Wumni Osaku, Bill Burr, Billy Magnussen, and Betty Gilpin.

The film will be released in theaters on October 9th.