Los Angeles, California - Hollywood star Jesse Eisenberg, who played Mark Zuckerberg in 2010 hit The Social Network, told AFP the Facebook owner had evolved from having "a sense of righteousness" into "somebody obsessed with power."

Eisenberg took a broadly sympathetic view of the Silicon Valley billionaire when playing him in the David Fincher-directed movie, which helped shape Facebook's public image.

"As an actor, your job is to empathize with the character, not only empathize but justify," Eisenberg told AFP in an interview to promote his widely acclaimed new movie A Real Pain.

"I was thinking of the [Zuckerberg] character as somebody who was able to understand certain things so much quicker than other people, and who had a kind of sense of righteousness that was born out of his own brilliance," he explained.

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But 15 years later, with Zuckerberg shifting his political views to align with Donald Trump's new administration and cutting fact-checking on the US platform, Eisenberg has revised his opinions.

"You kind of wonder like, 'Oh, so this person didn't evolve into a profile in courage'. This person evolved into somebody obsessed with avarice and power, and so that's kind of interesting for me as an actor who at one point thought about this person a lot," the 41-year-old New Yorker added.

The Social Network brought Eisenberg worldwide fame and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

He is set to return to the Academy Awards on March 2 with A Real Pain, which he wrote, directed, and acted in alongside Succession star Kieran Culkin.

The unlikely comedy about two Jewish cousins who go on a Holocaust tour in Poland picked up two Oscar nominations: Eisenberg for Best Original Screenplay, and Culkin for Best Supporting Actor.