Jesse Eisenberg had to let go of what he thought “A Real Pain” was going to be once Kieran Culkin was cast.
The writer/director/star told Esquire that working with “Succession” Emmy winner Culkin was an eye-opening experience, and even changed his own perspective on including improvised takes in films.
“A Real Pain” stars Eisenberg and Culkin as two cousins who travel to Poland to honor their beloved late grandmother. The Sundance breakout film is a predicted Oscar contender.
“I really don’t like improv, but Kieran is such an unusual performer. He would say things that deviated from the script, and a lot of times they were just better,” Eisenberg said. “When I first heard something that was a deviation, it rang a false note for me because I had to look at the script for so long. But in the editing room we ended up going with some of Keiran’s improvs because they just felt natural to him.”
He added that while Culkin was hilarious, some of the funniest quips did not make it into the final cut on purpose.
“Our best jokes are not in the movie, because they stand out — which is not the thing you want,” Eisenberg said. “I remember the director of ‘Zombieland,’ Ruben Fleischer, said, ‘The six best jokes I’ve seen in a movie in ten years were cut out of our movie.’ Those jokes, when kept in, usually ruin a movie.”
Eisenberg continued to cite Culkin’s “unusual” acting approach as reshaping how critically acclaimed “A Real Pain” turned out.
“Kieran won’t stand on a mark,” he said. “Once I realized how amazing he is at being a spontaneous actor and how much life he’ll bring to the movie if he’s not on a mark, that’s so much more important than the shot we had planned. So we scrapped a lot and followed Kieran. It’s the nature of making a thing with a hundred different people and personalities. You have to change course.”
And this isn’t the first time Eisenberg has had to deviate from what he thought a production would be. After his directorial debut “When You Finish Saving the World,” Eisenberg realized that he had to “write characters that were more explicitly understandable.”
“I knew and loved my characters so much,” he said of the “When You Finish Saving the World” storyline. “I assumed that an audience would find them just as endearing. Then I realized that the audience did not have that same feeling. […] I’ve been shocked, genuinely shocked to read people accusing me of writing cringe comedy. To me, this is exactly the way the world works and, usually, the nicer version of it. Maybe I live in a cringey world. But to me, this is the way I view the world.”
Eisenberg previously told IndieWire while at Sundance that he actually never saw “Succession” before casting Culkin in the “buddy comedy” set against the backdrop of a Holocaust tour.
“The movie is trying to balance these two things, trying to balance these big, thematic questions about pain and history and trauma and you know, historical generational trauma, et cetera,” Eisenberg said of his sophomore directorial effort. “But it’s also trying to be this kind of intimate, almost buddy comedy. And so trying to do those two things. So if I have showcased anything as a director, my hope is that it’s showcasing the ability to maybe like combine those two elements. That’s the goal at least.”
He added of Culkin, “Kieran is not a person who likes to jump at work from project to project. He’s incredibly picky. There was a poll, there was even an article about him trying to drop out of a movie. So we were worried he could do it. It was hard to get him, but he’s so good in the movie. We both are good in the movie but he’s great.”
Culkin also told Interview magazine that he tried to “get out of” starring in “A Real Pain” to have a break after “Succession,” but that he couldn’t say no to Eisenberg’s “beautiful script.”
“A Real Pain” premieres October 18 in theaters from Searchlight. Read the IndieWire review for “A Real Pain” here.
