Actors are supposed to be narcissistic. They are supposed to relish the spotlight. Either Jesse Eisenberg is the exception to the norm or an amazing f***ing actor because he’s one of the most humble, self-deprecating artists we’ve ever met in this business. Although, in theory, two things can be true, right? He could be both. And maybe it’s that personal creativity that transformed his second directorial feature, “A Real Pain,” into one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2024.
In the 11 months since “Pain” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, the Searchlight Pictures acquisition has won so many accolades it already has a separate wiki page for them. Many of those are split between one of Eisenberg’s co-stars, Kieran Culkin, who is now a lock for a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, and Eisenberg himself, who has been celebrated for his screenplay by the LA Film Critics Association and numerous other critics groups.
“I feel just like my goal as a person in the arts is just to try to stay busy,” Eisenberg says. “My friend always tells me a successful artist is somebody who stays busy constantly, not who is just trying to be on top. Maintaining a career in the arts is the difficult thing. And so, for me, all of this attention I’ve been incredibly grateful for and extremely surprised by, and what I take away from it on a practical level is that this will help me get my next one made much more easily. The greatest prize is that this movie might allow me to make two more. The success of this movie might allow me to make two more.”
We moderated back-to-back Q&As in early November with Eisenberg and Culkin. It’s incredible how much has changed for them from an awards season perspective since. But last week, Eisenberg just called on his way to pick his kid up from school. He had been working all day recording music for his untitled new project starring Paul Giamatti and Julianne Moore. And he was as frank and kind as ever.
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The Playlist: The first thing that’s top of my mind is what is your reaction to this movie making a million dollars in…Poland?
Jesse Eisenberg: Oh, I mean, this is the kind of thing when an American makes a movie about another country, one of two things can happen. It’s rejected as ignorant, artifice, or embraced for its attention to a place that’s not often seen in films. So yeah, we had the latter. That was great. But I mean, it could have easily gone the other way. There is a scene where we’re taking pictures at an important monument in downtown Warsaw, but ultimately, the movie shows Poland in the way I think of Poland, which is a beautiful, warm, welcoming place.
It is interesting because it’s the one country you guys opened before the rest of the world.
Yeah, yeah, that’s true. I did do press there, and we went there and it opened the Polish Jewish Film Festival. It was the one country besides England that several of the main actors went to and did Polish press. I mean, I’m not surprised. The quote that they put on top of the Polish poster was a Polish translation of me saying, “This is my love letter to Poland,” which I said in an interview. And they asked if they can use it on that poster, and I said, “Sure.” So, I think there was a feeling there that there was a feeling there that was basically in accordance with my intention, which is that I wanted to show Poland the way I saw it, which was unlike a lot of American movies, especially Holocaust-themed American movies, depict Poland.
From the time that I’ve spent with you, which is limited, you have always been super humble. I don’t know if you know this now, but the Wikipedia page for “A Real Pain” now has a separate page just for all the accolades that the movie has gotten.
Ooh, that’s a big step, a milestone.
A big milestone. [Laughs.] Let’s step back a bit. You take this movie to Sundance, you hope someone picks it up, and you get a nice award from the Sundance jury. Is everything since more than you expected?
Two things. One is it’s surprising and destabilizing in the sense that why this and not other things. And also it’s not just why this and not other things, but also a feeling of…God, how can I put this? Yeah. I’ve been involved in so many movies, not in this capacity, and it’s really hard to predict or sometimes even understand why certain things connect with audiences or, even more confusingly, awards, awards, awards. It’s really hard to predict or understand. And so I’ve learned to kind of not expect that kind of thing. This movie got rejected from every independent studio except one, Topic, who financed the three and a half-million dollars budget for a movie quite big in scope. Allie Herting, my producer, we were talking about when we submitted to Sundance, the conversation was not, “It would be great to get picked up there.” The conversation was, “This is going to be a really tough year to get into Sundance because all these movies held back because of the strike.” So, our conversations were always from a place of, “Can we squeak by? Can we squeak by and get enough money to actually make the movie? Can we squeak by and sneak into Sundance?” And then we got into Sundances. “Do you think there’s any distribution company that might be interested in this?” And then things kind of changed overnight, which is to say there was a bidding war of the movie, and that was the biggest difference for this movie by far. And all of everything that followed is just surprising additions to what that day indicated to us and felt like. And then I feel just like my goal as a person in the arts is just to try to stay busy. My friend always tells me a successful artist is somebody who stays busy constantly, not who is just trying to be on top. Maintaining a career in the arts is the difficult thing. And so, for me, all of this attention I’ve been incredibly grateful for and extremely surprised by, and what I take away from it on a practical level is that this will help me get my next one made much more easily. The greatest prize is that this movie might allow me to make two more. The success of this movie might allow me to make two more.
When we did the Q&A in November, you mentioned when your debut, “When You Finish Saving The World, received a sort of mixed reception, you were sort of taken aback by it. Has this given you more confidence, or do you sort of feel like you never know what it’s going to be?
Well, as an actor, I’ve been in things that were really well received, and then the following year, something that I thought was as good or better was ignored or criticized. And so I really don’t have a confident sense of being able to make consistently lauded projects. I don’t know how many people actually do have that sense, but I certainly don’t have it. And even if I made 10 movies that were all lauded, I think I would still be panicking on the 11th one, just the way I’m incorrectly wired.
