The Social Reckoning stars Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White each had their own unique anxieties about following up 2010’s beloved The Social Network.

When I last caught up with Madison in February 2022, I made a meal out of the overlap between her roles in Scream (2022) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). She was a great sport about it, but two points she made stuck with me. She was eager to move beyond the kinds of roles audiences had come to associate her with, and she actively sought out parts that scared her. She clearly meant it. Just three years later, she won the best actress Oscar for Anora, in which she delivered one of the most audacious performances in recent memory.

Naturally, the pressure of revisiting the world created by Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher in The Social Network — which her Once Upon a Time in Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino has called the best film of the 2010s — certainly weighed on Madison.

“I definitely felt that way,” Madison tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of The Social Reckoning’s Oct. 9 theatrical release. “I often have minor panic attacks before starting a movie, but the idea of being scared to start something means that I could potentially be doing some interesting work that is pushing me outside of any comfort zone.”

Madison was all set to undergo a major transformation into Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager who, in 2021, blew the whistle on the company’s continued prioritization of profit over public safety. But Sorkin, now serving as both writer and director, threw her for a loop when he advised her against trying to mirror the real Haugen.

“I assumed that would be the vision. But after hearing Aaron very adamantly say that he did not want me to do that, it took me a while to wrap my head around it,” Madison says. “Ultimately, I did fall in love with the character that he had written on the page. So that approach did allow me to have more creative freedom in a sense, which I’m grateful for. But in the future, I look forward to possibly having the opportunity to authentically and faithfully represent a real person.”

Two-time Emmy winner White plays former WSJ tech reporter Jeff Horwitz, who helped Haugen expose Facebook’s wrongdoing through The Facebook Files, a series of reports based on data from the 22,000 documents she leaked. Unlike Madison, White wasn’t as overwhelmed by the reputation of The Social Network, largely because he viewed The Social Reckoning as more of a companion piece than a direct sequel.

“My focus and real place of interest was, Is this a movie I would want to see? Is this a compelling film? Is it saying something? Are the characters interesting?” White says.

White did hesitate at the prospect of playing another real-life figure so soon after his intimidating portrayal of Bruce Springsteen in Scott Cooper’s underappreciated gem, Deliver Me from Nowhere. However, the same creative freedom that initially irked Madison actually intrigued White. Compared to Springsteen or Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Horwitz and Haugen were largely unfamiliar to the public, giving White more room to make the role his own.

“I shared with [Sorkin], ‘I’m really hesitant about playing another real person next. I’d like to do a new story about a character that I can create on my own and not feel handcuffed to other people’s ideas about this person,’” White recalls saying. “So Aaron just said, ‘At the end of the day, this is my version of Jeff. This is my story. I want you to use the text in my script.’ So it was the best of both worlds. I got to gather a lot of extra information [about Horwitz], but I also had a tremendous amount of freedom on set.”

Below, in a conversation with THR, Madison and White also discuss their near-total absence from social media and how The Social Reckoning only reinforced their decisions to stay away.

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Actors tell me all the time that the jobs they want the most are often the ones that terrify them the most. I can’t think of anything more terrifying than making a companion film to what might be the greatest film of the 21st century, The Social Network. Did fear motivate both of your commitments to The Social Reckoning?

MIKEY MADISON That’s a good question. I often have minor panic attacks before starting a movie, but even though it’s torturous, the idea of being scared to start something means that I could potentially be doing some interesting work that is pushing me outside of any comfort zone. I never want to play a character where I’m like, Yeah, this is inside my wheelhouse. I’ve done it before. I want to push myself outside of limits that feel comfortable. So, yeah, I definitely felt that way.

JEREMY ALLEN WHITE I agree that The Social Network is a great film, but I don’t think I necessarily attached the two films too much. Aaron wrote both of them, so they’re obviously attached in that way. They’re in the same world, and there’s one character [in common] played by another actor [Jeremy Strong] in our film. But my focus and real place of interest was, Is this a movie I would want to see? Is this a compelling film? Is it saying something? Are the characters interesting? Is this film a good film? Does it have the capability of being a really good film? It does, and it did.

Mikey, you’ve always been a ghost as far as social media is concerned. And Jeremy, you have one or two accounts, but you seem to do the bare minimum. They feel obligatory.

WHITE That is correct.

Has this story only validated your existing beliefs about social media?

WHITE Yeah, I think so. You’re right that I have a distant relationship with my social media account. I was late to the game, too. I waited a long time before getting any of that stuff. It wasn’t for any moral reasons. It was more just out of self-preservation. I’ve had seeds of doubt and fear about the effects of social media for a long time, just an uneasy feeling around it. In recent years, it’s become clear why, and those fears and doubts have been more easily realized. Then, though the process of preparing, learning and making this film, all those ideas have been reinforced even further.

So I’m comfortable at my distance, but outside of my personal relationship with social media, I think more about young people, my children and kids their age. We have a responsibility as the adults in the room to make sure they can enter this world safely and comfortably — and then form their own relationships with these apps at a certain point. But hopefully, we’re able to keep their worlds as small as possible for as long as we can.

Mikey, once you read this script, did you playfully gloat to your reps that you were right to not be on social media all this time?

MADISON (Laughs.) Honestly, I’m really lucky in that my agents and managers have always respected my decision to not be on social media. Maybe they saw it as slightly stubborn at first, but it’s just the best decision for me overall.

WHITE It turns out you don’t need TikTok when you have an Oscar. It’s fine.

MADISON & WHITE (Laugh.)

Touché. Jeremy, you went from playing one of the most famous people on the planet in Bruce Springsteen to playing another real guy named Jeff Horwitz who most people couldn’t pick out of a lineup. Was your blood pressure a lot lower playing this real-life person?

WHITE For sure. When I met with Aaron, Deliver Me From Nowhere was about to come out. I had a really great time making that film and spending so much time with Bruce. But it was a tremendous amount of pressure, and I was a nervous wreck as I was meeting with Aaron. I shared with him, “I’m really hesitant about playing another real person next. I’d like to do a new story about a character that I can create on my own and not feel handcuffed to other people’s ideas about this person.”

Aaron heard me and immediately spoke to my hesitation, saying, “Look, I understand you had to play Bruce that way.” He was already speaking to Jeremy Strong about playing Zuckerberg, and he said, “Mark Zuckerberg is a very public person like Bruce, and people already have ideas of each person. They know how they move and how they speak. They already have their own interpretations.”

While Jeff and Frances are public people to an extent, you’re right that the majority of people do not know who they are. So Aaron just said, “Look, read as much as you want, watch videos, listen to his voice and do all the work you want. But at the end of the day, this is my version of Jeff. This is my story. I want you to use the text in my script.’” So it was the best of both worlds. I got to gather a lot of extra information because Jeff is a real person who’s left an imprint in this world, but I also had a tremendous amount of freedom on set.

Mikey, you were fully prepared to transform into Frances Haugen, but Aaron pulled you back from going too far with it. Do you think that was partially because Jeremy Strong was already doing such a hardcore replication of Zuckerberg? Do you think Aaron wanted his two leads to be freer and looser in comparison?

MADISON I think that’s a possibility. I was prepared [to transform] and was very open to doing so. I assumed that would be the vision. But after hearing Aaron very adamantly say that he did not want me to do that, it took me a while to wrap my head around it. Ultimately, I did fall in love with the character that he had written on the page. I was like, The most important thing is that I just tell this story as honestly and truthfully as I can tell it. I hope that when the real Frances watches The Social Reckoning, she feels the integrity and love we put into it. So that approach did allow me to have more creative freedom in a sense, which I’m grateful for. But in the future, I look forward to possibly having the opportunity to authentically and faithfully represent a real person.

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The Social Reckoning is now playing in movie theaters.

Skydance‘s CEO Business Leadership Team unveiled on Monday features only Co-Chairs, with everyone in the group sharing oversight of a division alongside someone else. All pairs come from the same side of the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery company (WBD’s Casey Bloys & JB Perrette for DTC and James Gunn & Peter Safran for DC; Paramount’s Dana Goldberg & Josh Greenstein for film) except for one crossover duo: Paramount’s George Cheeks and WBD’s Perrette, who will serve as co-Chairs of Skydance TV.

The move marks the latest shared leadership position for Cheeks and also a new role he has not been in yet — at least by title — as Chief Content Officer of Skydance TV, a unit spanning Skydance’s three TV studios, Warner Bros. TV, CBS Studios and Paramount TV Studios, CBS and about 30 basic cable networks. As Skydance TV Chief Business officer, Perrette will oversee the division’s ad sales, distribution, content sales and international operations.

For a decade now, Harvard Law graduate Cheeks has been the business partner to a creative executive, whether it was as Co-President of Universal Cable Prods. and Wilshire Studios alongside Dawn Olmstead or as NBC Entertainment Co-Chairman alongside Paul Telegdy. Now he is the creative executive alongside Perrette with a title matching that of Skydance DTC Chief Content Officer Bloys, one of TV industry’s most accomplished development executives.

That caps a long evolution for Cheeks that can be traced back to one of his first Hollywood jobs, while having Perrette as Chief Business Officer across DTC as well as TV Studios and linear networks corrects a structural flow that existed at both Paramount and WBD.

The Business Guy

After stints at entertainment law firms Loeb & Loeb and Hansen Jacobson Teller and the BA & legal department of Castle Rock Entertainment early on, Cheeks landed a business and legal affairs job at MTV Networks. There, along with drafting deal memos, he also started doing script coverage for then-top programming executives Tony DiSanto and Liz Gateley.

Cheeks got his first formal assignment on the creative side — and showed his talent relations skills — when, as EVP Business Operations for NBC and Universal TV, he was put in charge of NBC Late Night in 2014. Lorne Michaels took a liking to him (while disliking his predecessor) and took him under his wing, valuing his creative sense by asking for his feedback on writer packages and taking him to auditions.

Cheeks has acknowledged that getting the NBC Late Night gig changed his career, fueling his aspirations to straddle business and creative. He would later be handpicked as the main liaison to NBCUniversal’s other uber TV producer, Dick Wolf, for similar reasons (the procedural king wanted to switch executives), proving that he can work well with top-level talent.

Still, when Bonnie Hammer announced Cheeks and Olmstead’s appointment as UCP co-Presidents in early 2018, she called Olmstead a “talented creative executive” while praising Cheeks’ “business savvy” as “second to none.” Similarly, Steve Burke’s statement about Cheeks’ promotion as NBC Entertainment co-Chairman alongside Telegdy later that year called him “a strategist and masterful dealmaker.”

That is a perception Cheeks carried over in his 2020 move to then-ViacomCBS as President and CEO of CBS Entertainment, with David Nevins initially serving as the division’s Chief Content Officer. That changed in 2021. Overseeing CBS-branded operations in various roles over the past five years — including another shared one as co-CEO of Paramount Global — varnished Cheeks’ creative credentials as he worked closely with such executives as CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach and CBS Studios President David Stapf.

Now Cheeks, who also has been overseeing Paramount’s basic cable networks, will be focusing on programming and marketing content while expanding his portfolio to include Warner Bros. TV, Paramount TV Studios as WBD’s cable brands, leaving most of the business areas to Perrette. (Given his business background, Cheeks is still expected to get involved in some decisions.)

Bundling Linear & Streaming Business Ops

Legacy media companies such as Skydance are faced with managing the transition from linear TV to streaming, and Perrette serving as Chief Business Officer across both direct-to-consumer and linear networks/TV studios will help facilitate that as the two areas have become intertwined in many key areas such as carriage agreements, ad and content sales.

For instance, in affiliate distribution deals for linear networks, carriers increasingly insist on bundling the streaming service. The same goes for ad buyers who package ad time across linear and digital.

And then there is content licensing, which could be a lot more efficient if the studios’ distribution divisions and their sibling streamers are overseen by the same business op executive. For instance, CBS and Paramount+ had been siloed, with Paramount+ automatically asking for exclusivity on virtually all CBS series. A holistic approach would help determine whether certain shows need to stream exclusively on Paramount+ or, based on their engagement and other metrics, they could be licensed to other platforms too, bringing in revenue that can be used to produce more shows.

Straddling both areas will also give the business executive in charge more ownership over next-day CBS series to better integrate them into the platform alongside the Paramount+ originals. (CBS fare, a big viewership driver in-season, is expected to stay largely on Paramount+ until the streamer’s merger with HBO Max is completed within the next couple of years.)

Additionally, the new streamlined structure with Perrette across both linear and streaming business ops makes for simplified and expedited decision-making. At WBD, where he was CEO of global streaming, it was a quartet of executives collaborating on these decisions: Perrette, CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, Chief Revenue and Strategy Officer Bruce Campbell and President of International Gerhard Zeiler.

‘The Odd Couple’ 2.0?

In addition to being the only cross-company pair in the top Skydance executive echelon, Cheeks and Perrette share another distinction — Cheeks is the only former Paramount Global and Perrette the only former Discovery executive in the group.

As for compatibility, both are bringing in good track record. Perrette already has his successful partnership with Bloys, and Cheeks has showed that he could work with anyone.

Cheeks joked about it when asked in 2019 how he gets along with Telegdy, a flamboyant, larger-than-life personality.

“We literally could not be more different. It’s like Casting 101: ‘Let’s cast this dude and that dude and they’re so different, they’re an odd couple,’” he said at NATPE.

Cheeks clearly impressed Hollywood moguls with his performance as he keeps getting cast as half of executive couples.

EXCLUSIVE: In a highly competitive situation, Apple TV has landed the rights to develop All the Little Houses, a drama series based on the recently published novel from The Hunting Wives’ May Cobb.

Cobb is co-creating the show with Naomi Sheldon, of Prime Video’s The Girlfriend, who will be its writer. Fifth Season will serve as the studio and Kristen Campo’s Campout Productions and Linden Entertainment will serve as executive producers.

All the Little Houses is set in the wealthy enclave of Longview, Texas, where Charleigh Anderson has clawed her way from outcast to undisputed queen bee. But when a seemingly perfect, prairie-kissed family arrives in town — complete with a trad-wife mother, woodworking father, and wholesome daughter — Charleigh finds her carefully constructed world under threat. As two formidable women go head-to-head, their battle for the soul of Longview exposes the secrets, resentments, and desires lurking beneath its picture-perfect surface.

A native Texan screenwriter and bestselling author of page-turners, Cobb is best known for The Hunting Wives, which served as the basis for the hit Southern gothic Netflix series, on which she’s an executive producer. The show premiered last summer as the third most popular on the global English-language chart, hitting the Top 10 list in 40 countries and reaching No. 1 in 10, including the U.S, with billions of minutes viewed. Starring the likes of Brittany Snow and Malin Akerman, The Hunting Wives returns for its second season on November 26.

Cobb released All the Little Houses in January; its sequel, All the Little Secrets, is out November 17. She is repped by Victoria Sanders Agency, Jordan Cerf of Linden Productions and Darren Trattner from Jackoway.

Sheldon is a playwright, screenwriter, and actress known for co-creating The Girlfriend, a limited series based on the thriller novel by Michelle Frances, for Amazon and Imaginarium. Starring Robin Wright and Olivia Cooke, and directed by Wright, the show premiered last fall and was nominated for Best Limited Series at both the Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Awards.

In a multi-studio bidding war, Sheldon sold her next project, an original erotic thriller, to Netflix with Media Res. Most recently, she wrapped the writers’ room for The Spot, Ed Solomon’s Hulu/A24 crime drama series starring Claire Danes and Ewan McGregor. Currently developing original projects with Carnival, Firebird, and David Jonsson’s Grey Area, she is represented by CAA, Independent Talent, and Ziffren Brittenham.