New York Film Festival: Kieran Culkin tried to drop out of ‘A Real Pain,’ but producer Emma Stone cleverly kept him in
“A Real Pain” tells the story of a pair of cousins who visit Poland in honor of their late grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. “My wife and I drove pretty much the journey that these characters take, and since then I’ve been wanting to make a movie there,” said actor, writer, and director Jesse Eisenberg, who beamed in from Budapest to discuss his film “A Real Pain” at the 62nd New York Film Festival. He discussed why it was “a dream to get to go there and be able to tell what felt to me like an American-style independent film with all the trappings of an American-style buddy road trip movie, but over there.” Above, watch his entire discussion about the film with co-stars Kieran Culkin and Jennifer Grey, and producers Emma Stone and Dave McCary.
“We all just think he’s absolutely brilliant and have loved his writing, his plays for so long, and it’s so incredible to see him blossom into this truly wonderful director,” explained Stone about why she and McCary came on board the project through their Fruit Tree production company. As for Culkin, who plays Benji, the more outgoing of the two cousins, Eisenberg actually “wasn’t very familiar with his work.” “You were completely unfamiliar,” Culkin corrected, “and you act like this is a normal thing to cast somebody without an audition and not having seen their work.” But Culkin had the right “essence” for the role that Eisenberg picked up on despite only meeting him twice.
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“I clicked with the guy right away when I read it,” Culkin said of his tragicomic character. “It was one of the very few things I read and was laughing out loud and for some reason went, oh I know that guy, and I felt like I knew what to do. There wasn’t any work. I just do the words.” “Wait, there is a more interesting story,” Eisenberg interjected. “You tried to drop out multiple times.” Indeed, Culkin “spent a long time trying to get out of it,” but Stone knew how to keep the kid in the picture. “I can help you find somebody to play Benji,” Culkin offered at one point, to which Stone graciously explained, “No, if you’re out the whole thing falls apart, but it’s fine, it’s not on you.” That’s when Culkin realized, “F*ck, I’m going to do this movie now.”
Suffice it to say, it all worked out in the end. And for Culkin especially, it might end with an Oscar. The film was a spotlight selection at NYFF and opens on November 1 from Searchlight Pictures.
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