We’ve all known that person who makes us equal parts nervous and envious. The person who dares to behave in a way that sort of makes us cringe, but also makes us wish we had the same guts.
That’s how David (Jesse Eisenberg) feels about his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) in “A Real Pain,” the new film also written and directed by Eisenberg. The movie follows the two cousins as they come together for the first time in years to tour through Poland as a way to honor their late grandmother. Along the way, there’s both humor and angst as they face more than a few hard truths about their lives and their relationship.
“A Real Pain” features a small, but talented cast, including Jennifer Grey as Marcia, a recent divorcée who’s a part of the tour group that David and Benji are traveling with; and Will Sharpe as James, their intrepid tour guide. I recently sat down with Grey and Sharpe to talk about the production and what drew them to the film – it was a lively conversation, one that I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I did.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
First of all, I want to say I really enjoyed the film. I’ve listened to a lot of interviews with both of you talking about what drew you to this project in particular, which I do want to get into. But I was sort of curious in general, when you first get a project, what draws you to it initially? Is it the script, the character? What is the first thing that makes you want to say yes?
Jennifer Grey: I mean, for me, I’ll go for any of them. If there’s a great part, if there’s a great costar, if there’s a great producer, if there’s a great director. It’s so rare to have any of the elements be great. It’s always thrilling to have one good [thing] – just like a tentpole. But in this particular situation, it was everything. The only thing that was better than everything on the page and everything in the set up, was everything in the shooting. Every day of the shooting, every personality, everyday was just like – I don’t know. Pretty perfect.
Will Sharpe: Yeah, I agree. I think for me, it’s probably the script more than anything. But everything is a factor, and obviously I was excited to be sent something by Jesse [Eisenberg], and knew that you yourself [Jennifer Grey] and Kieran [Culkin] were attached, and that was exciting for me. But I think sometimes it’s just a gut feeling, how you feel as you’re reading the script. And of course the character plays a part, and whether you feel like you’re right for it could bring something to it. I just thought the script was so fully formed and so clear in its tone, so clear in its purpose and what Jesse was trying to say. Then [I] met with Jesse and found him very inspiring. It’s just kind of a feeling, isn’t it?
Grey: I mean, the truth is, for me, that there is something that really is so startling when you’re hearing a clarity of a voice, of an auteur, of somebody who has a script that needs nothing. You read the script, and you see the movie. I felt like my part was very small, but I just wanted to be part of the piece. Sometimes it’s like, oh this is a great part for me. Let’s hope the movie is as good as my connection to the part. But in this case, my part was a very small part of it, and I just wanted to be in the group.
You’ve both talked about the script a lot in interviews I’ve seen with you. I wanted to ask if either of you had ever met Jesse before this project – Jennifer, I remember you saying in particular that when you saw he was attached and it was his script, it was kind of a done deal for you. I wanted to start there and dig into what it was about him that drew you to this project.
Grey: I never had met Jesse. I did a Zoom with him after I got the offer, and it was, I guess, contingent on the Zoom [laughs] and that we didn’t rub each other the wrong way. But I just knew him to be a wonderful actor. The intelligence is, you know, like the wet quality of the ocean. The intelligent quality of Jesse Eisenberg. It’s just – it’s it. I’m very attracted to humor and intelligence and depth, and this movie just had all of those values in spades.
Sharpe: I hadn’t met Jesse either, but I felt like there was a very easy, immediate chemistry. He’s so open and collaborative, and kind of confident in himself, confident in his vision. That gives you confidence, and it makes you feel safe in the project, and safe with him as a director. I feel like that openness and clarity of vision kind of fostered this atmosphere where we all felt like we could kind of surrender to the project in aid of the film.
Grey: I also felt that his anxiety is so palpable, and so naked with his vulnerability and his foibles, and his humanness –
Sharpe: And funny, too.
Grey: The funny and the self-effacing, but also the deep angst of what it is to be him. It’s so unmasked. So, to me, as an anxious person, I find that to be so disarming because it gives me the bandwidth to be whoever I am – all of my pieces. I get to bring everything to the party because he’s bringing everything.
I am definitely with you on the anxious person wavelength.
Grey: Nothing like hanging out with other people who are anxious, because then you have so much empathy for them, and you go – Oh! I could do that for myself! There’s no shame in it. It’s just part of some people’s neuro situation [laughs].
Will, I’m glad you brought up the collaborative aspect of it. I think the majority of the world knows Jesse Eisenberg as an actor first. And Will, I know you’ve written and directed as well, so you might have an interesting perspective on this – is it different, as an actor, working with a director who is also primarily an actor? How is that relatioship different?
Sharpe: You know, I found it very seamless, and [I] never felt, almost didn’t notice, that he was playing both sides of the camera, because he was so attentive to everyone’s needs, and so present as a director. I remember the day when we shot the long scene around the dinner table, where he had like, a one-and-a-half page monologue and at the same time was handling the stress of an 18-set-up day, or whatever it was.
Grey: We did that scene, from beginning to end, all day long. So we never did pushing in for a close-up. It was the whole scene, for 10 hours or something?
Sharpe: And obviously, he’s at the center of that scene. I remember watching his performance and just feeling a lot of respect for [him]. He had the presence to land the scene as an actor, but also was so attentive to everyone else in the scene. I sometimes feel like directors who have been on the other side of the camera, there’s almost maybe – like Jesse is a very empathetic director. I don’t know if it comes partly from that, like an awareness of how it feels to be in the actor’s shoes, and how that might feel, and what the vulnerability of that is and so on. I don’t know. I mean, I grew up making films, just friends and a camera – everyone muddling together. So that style feels very natural to me.
Grey: I also thought it was so interesting that no matter whose coverage it was – there were maybe six of us? Everyone at the table had their coverage – his performance, and so was Kieran’s, was every single take. I mean, I was riveted. I was riveted to everyone’s performance, but I couldn’t believe, as a director, that he was able to [do that]. There was just incredible focus.
Sharpe: Also Kieran was so committed. He must have downed like, 14 non-alcoholic beers [laughs].
Grey: Oh, and his burping! He was so on fire. I think Jesse had to give a full performance every time just because Kieran was leading the fray. Do you say leading the fray, is that right? It sounded weird.
Leading the fray? I think that’s right.
Grey: Leading the charge! Something.
Sharpe: Yeah, yeah. Leading the fray works.
Grey: You know, from now on, it’s leading the fray.
It is a small cast. Obviously both of you have worked on larger sets and smaller sets. What is special about having that smaller cast, especially traveling around like you were? It feels very meta, in a sense.
Grey: Oh, it was very meta. You are correct. I mean, we were on a tour together, getting to know each other, all strangers, none of us having met each other before. When we go to the concentration camp, we are walking through it. [Jesse’s] choice in not putting dramatic scenes in that space allowed everyone to come along with us in just witnessing what it was to be in that space without making more of it, or manipulating anything.
Sharpe: This feels to me like a kind of indie film in spirit.
Grey: Oh it is, though!
Sharpe: I mean it is, literally.
Grey: I mean, I thought it was [laughs].
Sharpe: But also I think it has that kind of energy. Everything about this film felt so precise. The script was precise, his directorial choices were precise, the number of characters was precise. And that’s because of the means that they had to make the film. But it means that all of your focus is just on the stuff that matters.
Grey: You don’t have all day to get it right. So I think that pressure, it lends its own kind of energy to a piece. It kind of brings an immediacy and an urgency, and it has a different vibe than if you have, you know, all day to shoot a scene, where you can actually lose a lot of the tension, or lose some of the focus. It just felt very in real time, and beautiful, and joyful, and also funny. I mean, there was a lot of laughter. I think that’s also a great coping mechanism when you’re dealing with material that is the heaviest, and awkwardness, and the drama within the piece and within the characters’ interaction. Thank God we had the laughs. Thank God we all had similar senses of humor, and we could have raucous laughter. Because otherwise, how do you get through that, right?
That feels really true to life, no? There’s a lot of humor wrapped up in life’s painful moments.
Grey: I just don’t want anyone to be afraid of the movie because of some of the material being as heavy as it is, because I think it is such a joyful human movie about so many things. Not about the Holocaust – it’s not a movie about that. It’s really about human beings and pain, and personal pain and historical pain, and identity, and empathy, and connection, and loneliness and mental illness, and interaction. Benji [Kieran Culkin’s character] is giving to all of us. And meanwhile – I was thinking last night – he doesn’t get. No one does for him what he does for us. I found the ending of the movie – not to ruin it for anyone – particularly melancholy, the tone of it. I thought that was a really interesting, unexpected choice.
Sharpe: I think there’s a real light-handedness to how [Jesse] kind of delivers the more serious aspects of the film, if you like. That was part of what I loved about the tone script, and like you say, there was a lot of humor in the making of the film, and obviously a lot of comedy in the dynamic between Benji and David – Kieran and Jesse’s characters. I feel like the more profound aspects, they just sort of sneak up on you in a way that’s almost like a kind of mirage or something, because of how delicately [Jesse] allows them to float through.
Grey: He so deftly created this fabric – this piece of music, if you will – that is original and fresh and accessible, and nothing you have to gird yourself, or prepare yourself to be watching – [like] those bummer movies that you don’t want to bring yourself to watch. You’re also not going to it for a rom-com. You know you’re coming to a human movie. I think anyone could identify with it.
I think that precision that you were talking about earlier, Will, really helps with that. I was actually listening to an interview with you where you were talking about the fact that your character had a different accent originally – maybe he came off a little more condescending than you wanted him to be. I was interested in asking both of you, for those little details for your characters, how do you go about finding that precision? I’m sure some of it’s there in the script, but how do you work on those character details, and bringing that character to life?
Sharpe: It’s piece by piece. The day before we started shooting, we did a read through. Conversations with Jesse were all about how James is someone who has, like, zero bad intentions. He just wants to entertain and inform this group. He’s genuinely passionate about history. And doing it in a received, slightly posher voice, somehow made it feel cold, I felt, in the read through. Later that day, I was sort of pitching him, what if it was a more regional accent, just to warm it up and also give him a kind of specificity. For somebody in the U.K., it’s also kind of interesting, I think, when somebody who looks like me, who’s mixed race, has a kind of regional accent. Sometimes that sort of makes you immediately think about, oh, what’s your story? Where did you come from?
Grey: All of your choices made me wonder those things. The fact is, this character – how it was written, and what you ultimately did with him – it was a little bit of a magic act, dude. I mean, the nerd level – the level of nerd that this handsome, kind of cool smart guy, filmmaker [found]. It was just like, who is this dude you’ve come up with? It was very specific. It’s just cool to watch, because it was so different from you.
Sharpe: The costume was fun. I remember in the fitting, there was everything from kind of smart, Oxford blazers, to …North Face. And then in the end, we just went for – I think the costume designer described it as, “This is the saddest jacket.” [Laughs]. I put it on, and I was like, this is great.
Grey: Yeah! And your thermos, and your journal. His arm was always like, tucked with his little thermos. I thought you were like, an action doll … you know what I mean?