“A Real Pain” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won positive reviews for Jesse Eisenberg’s direction, screenplay, and performances from him and Kieran Culkin. The film, only the actor’s second directorial feature, is already being talked about as a potential awards season player, and we were lucky enough to chat with Eisenberg for a few minutes during the theatrical promotion of the film to gather his thoughts on the reception toward the movie, hear interesting tidbits from behind-the-scenes in working with Culkin, what he learned from his last film “When You Finish Saving The World,” and more. Please be sure to check out the film, which is now playing in theaters from Searchlight Pictures and is eligible in all categories for the upcoming 97th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Eisenberg), Best Supporting Actor (Culkin) and Best Original Screenplay. Thank you, and enjoy!
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Hi Jesse. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. I know you’re incredibly busy right now, but man, I love this movie. I’ve seen this film now three times at this point.
Oh wow!
And yeah, no. Truly, man, you made a great film. I told you that in person the last time I saw you. I know that you’ve been talking about it a lot right now, so I want to ask you, first and foremost…
Okay.
The film’s been around for a little bit now, going back to Sundance and various festivals, and it is out now in limited release. In terms of all of the positive feedback that you’ve received and all of the great notices, what is the one positive notice that you’ve received that really stood out to you the most?
Yeah, no; thank you so much for that question, Matt. And thank you for saying that nice stuff about the movie. And I hope you’re aware that this is the first time I’ve actually ever been asked that question. So that is a delight. And the answer I would give you is probably when I hear from people whose life experience was very different than mine, saying that they relate to it. I have a friend whose family is from Haiti. And he told me, “Oh, this. I took this exact same trip. I had this the same experience.” And so I was really hoping that the movie would speak to communities beyond my community. And I’m so happy to hear that it does.
Yeah, I think including the Eloge character in the story, coming from Rwanda and speaking to his own experience of what he went through, I think the film does a good job of touching upon that while also maintaining that specific Jewish culturalism. And I agree. I think we all have a Benji in our lives. I think we all go through pain that we sometimes want to bottle up and hold inside, and I think it’s trivial and it’s not worth sharing with the world.Curious to know, from your point of view, what is the great pain that you’re carrying with you right now? If you’re willing to share, that is.
Oh, yeah.
I know that’s a deep question.
No, yeah, I guess that it’s ironic because it dovetails with the movie, which is that I play a character who is in a materially comfortable, living a materially comfortable life. And yet he is struggling with OCD and general anxiety, and he feels this great sense of guilt that he has those feelings because he thinks that his feelings are meaningless compared to the greattraumas of history. And if I could relate it to myself, I would say I made a movie about that. Very feeling that I have, and now I’m like living like a king while I promote the movie and you know, having nice calls like this with you and staying at fancy hotels as I travel around in promotion of the movie and so in a way, it just exacerbated the thing that I was writing about, to begin with, which is how can I possibly feel bad for myself when my life is so materially comfortable?
That’s a good answer. I really like that a lot. I understand from various interviews that you’ve given that Kieran Culkin almost dropped out of the movie. He’s so incredible in this role. I can’t imagine this movie without him. When you were writing the character, what qualities did Kieran possess that you envisioned for Benji that made him the perfect person to play him?
When his name came up, my first thought was, does he do comedy or drama? I asked myself that question. Does he do comedy or drama? And that was, in some ways, the question that I needed. The answer is that he’s somebody who’sincredibly funny but never at the expense of an emotional inner life. He’s somebody that can be really caustic. But always lovable. It’s he’s a million things that are unique to him that are this character. He’s totally unpretentious. He is successful but unambitious in his career. And he’s just in touch with his own feelings. He says what’s on his mind, just like Benji does. He has great sensitivity but is not sentimental. He’s just a million contradictory things like this character is a million contradictory things. Then the other thing is that when I met him, it was for an audition for “Adventureland,” and he came into the audition for a movie that I was already acting in. I was auditioning for that movie, And he came in, he was so brilliant in the audition, and he started manhandling me and attacking me in the audition in the way that the character was supposed to but also in a way that no other actor had done that day. And I just remember thinking, this guy who did not have the security of having the role came in, owned this room, physically manhandled me, and just won us all over. And when I was thinking about who could play Benji, I realized that it was that experience that I had with him that rang true for me, too, for this character.
In a similar way, I think you’re perfectly matched for David. Correct me if I’m wrong in saying this, but when you originally wrote it, you didn’t envision yourself playing it, right?
Yeah, exactly. I didn’t envision myself in any of the characters because I was just writing a script, and I don’t really think about actors that much. After it was finished, I looked at the script and thought that Benji was the fun role, so I should do that. And then it was Emma Stone, who’s the producer of the movie, who told me it would be very hard to play a kind of character who’s unhinged while also trying to manage a set. And she was exactly right. And I just saw Ciarán. Ciarán was like living in the spirit of this character, and he’s so brilliant in the movie, and I’m so lucky I didn’t play the part. But I think if I did play the part, I think it would have just been incredibly difficult to switch gears from a character who’s spontaneous and loose to a directing which requires a lot of kind of self-control and planning and logistics and managing of other people.
Yeah, and you’re right. I think the David character fits in very nicely with that. So you don’t have to switch gears. Like you said, what would you say from your first feature film that you directed, “When You Finished Saving The World,” are the big lessons that you took with you into making “A Real Pain?”
In my first movie, we were shooting during the height of the pandemic before vaccines. And so we were literally capped at the number of hours we could shoot. And we were also capped at the amount of film we could use because we were shooting on film. So the amount of footage, sorry, we were kept at the amount of footage we could get because we were shooting on film. And I had a very specific shot list, and we stuck to it, and we didn’t shoot more than what I wanted to shoot with this movie. I had learned that I just needed to overshoot any; I needed to overshoot. I needed to shoot my shot list and then some. And so, I tried to have two cameras going every day if possible. We were still a tiny movie, but possibly to have two cameras going every day. You have that second camera shooting the second unit to get shots of Poland that I couldn’t get with the first unit. And it proved to be really helpful going forward. I’ll really try to get more footage than I think I need.
Yeah. And obviously, being on the other side of the camera as an actor, it’s so evident in your two films how much depth and humanity you bring to the characters and their roles. I’m curious to know how important it is as a still new filmmaker to lean on your cinematographer, Michał Dymek, in this case, with “A Real Pain.” I’m just curious: where is your technical knowledge when it comes to operating the camera, and how important is Dymek in assisting you with that?
Yeah, no, he’s a genius, and I gave him one movie to watch. We talked about tons of movies, but the movie I gave him to watch was the movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors” because I wanted to have a more traditional approach. I didn’t want to do the kind of American indie handheld following the cameras, following the character’s approach. I wanted to have a more lyrical, traditional approach, which allowed me to show off both the characters as well as the backdrop. It was soimportant for this movie to have that travelogue feel where the audience feels like they’re getting a sense of place, not just a sense of character. And what else can I say about it? He’s incredible; he’s an incredibly confident, talented young man. It was really important for me to have somebody who could give me very specific feedback because I was acting in the scene and didn’t often have an opportunity to watch playback. So we had choreographed the scene together, but then he was really the eyes of the film. And I would often really lean heavily on him. Did that look good or bad? And please just be honest. And because we didn’t have time for me to go back and watch it. And I would really lean heavily on him and also my producers to say if a take was good or not because I was not behind the monitor.
Yeah, and I have to ask, this has been bugging me since the first time I saw the film, and I just need to know at this point: is it a fashion trend to have just a top button on a long-sleeved shirt? What is that? I need to know.
You win the award for asking me not just the first unique question but the second unique question I’ve ever gotten as well.That’s really nice. Basically, I just wanted to dress like me, so I wore my hat and my glasses, and I buttoned the top button of my shirt; I don’t know why, and I just noticed whenever I’m in a movie where the director tells me that we’re doing something very specific and doesn’t have a great reason for it, I still love it. I just love doing anything specific in a movie.I don’t even really care if there is a reason. In the case of this movie, it’s just how I would wear my shirts. I don’t have a good reason for it, but I just thought, oh, better to put something specific in general. And the costume designer did want me to button up my shirt. And I would say no, this is good. This is good. Let’s just do something that’s unusual, and we don’t have to explain it. It doesn’t require an explanation.
I can already tell Jesse, just from talking with you and obviously in the output that this is such an exciting new career path for you. And I can’t wait to see what fervor films you write, direct, produce, and just put out there into the world, whether it be in front of the camera but definitely especially behind the camera. Thank you so much for your time here, man. I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for saying all that.
Absolutely. Best of luck to you, man.
“A Real Pain” is now playing in theaters from Searchlight Pictures
You can follow Matt and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars and Film on X @NextBestPicture
