Aaron Sorkin defends controversial The Social Reckoning star Jeremy Strong after their film bombs at the box office: 'He's not a nut'

Aaron Sorkin is addressing longstanding complaints that his latest leading man Jeremy Strong's extreme acting style is bordering on a disassociation from reality.

'He’s not a nut. He’s not crazy,' Sorkin argued at the 2026 New Yorker Festival this week, defending the actor who plays Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg in Sorkin's new movie The Social Reckoning.

'He, of course, understands when he’s making a movie that he’s making a movie,' Sorkin said of 47-year-old Strong, who won an Emmy for his equally intense performance as Kendall Roy in HBO's Succession from 2018 to 2023. 

'He sees the crew and the cameras and everything. He just-he is a guy who studied at the knee of Daniel Day-Lewis for several years after studying at Yale.'

Sorkin, 65, also maintained that the undeniably talented Strong takes no pleasure in the 'immersive acting' that some consider to be disruptive on-set behavior.

'I don’t think it’s the way he likes to work. I think it’s the only way he knows how to,' the Oscar-winning Social Network screenwriter said.  'I think it’s the only way he knows how to do it.'

Filmmaker Aaron Sorkin elicited laughter from the audience while discussing Jeremy Strong's infamous method style on stage with host Tyler Foggatt during The New Yorker Festival 2026 at Webster Hall on October 25 in New York City

Strong, seen here as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning, even stayed in character while emailing director Sorkin to argue various positions on the Meta founder's behalf.

Oscar nominee Strong and Oscar winner Sorkin at the Social Reckoning world premiere on October 4 at Regal Union Square in New York City

Succession star Brian Cox made headlines in a 2023 Town & Country profile by publicly deeming Strong's acting style 'f**king annoying ... pointless, selfish, an enemy of the imagination,' and disrespectful to the show's ensemble cast.

Strong, who earned an Oscar nod for his chilling turn as infamous attorney Roy Cohn in 2025's The Apprentice, bluntly responded that he is 'just there to commit utterly to serving the material.'

The actor also previously told the New Yorker Radio Hour podcast: 'If some people feel that I'm taking it too seriously, or it changes the molecules in the room in a way that makes something uncomfortable, I guess that's something that I don't feel that I need to apologize for.

'I believe, and I think the directors that I work with all believe, that it's in service of the material, and I personally think that a lot of the reactions to it are of a personal nature.'

The Daily Mail has reached out to both Sorkin and Strong for comment. 

The Social Reckoning - a sequel of sorts to the hugely successful 2010 biopic of Zuckerberg titled The Social Network - bombed following its release earlier this month after it opened to tepid reviews. 

'I was just supposed to understand,' Sorkin said of Strong's intense acting style. 'He has a wife and a couple of young kids at home, and I don’t know what life is like.'

Meanwhile, Strong's on-screen brother from Succession, Kieran Culkin, has similarly critiqued his acting method —and took special umbrage with one aspect of his co-star's technique. 

During a chat with Colman Domingo for Variety's annual Actors on Actors series in December 2024, Culkin, 44, said, 'I object to when actors call themselves "storytellers." I don't really like that. Sorry, Jeremy.'

Meanwhile, Sorkin has revealed from Strong's very first day on The Social Reckoning set, he 'only heard' the actor 'speak as' Zuckerberg, 'using Mark’s voice, walking as Mark, dressed as Mark.'

'It wasn’t until his last day of shooting, after his last shot, I called cut, checked the gate, and he just walked right up to me and in his own voice said, "If I had been playing Jeff [Horowitz], I’d have been defending Jeff," ' Sorkin said, adding that Strong even sent him emails defending various positions while in character as Zuckerberg.

Sorkin also admitted he's still feeling the residual effects of Strong's commitment to keeping it real as the Zuck—even from the set of his next film, a remake of The Boys From Brazil.

'He called me a month or two after we wrapped just to tell me, "If you look at the third take on this setup, I think I was better than"— that kind of thing. But without any introduction, without any preamble, he was talking to me as a Polish Nazi-hunter,' he said, according to a Decider report. 

'I was just supposed to understand. He has a wife and a couple of young kids at home, and I don’t know what life is like.'