'A Real Pain' star Jennifer Grey joined The Hollywood Reporter for a conversation at the St. Regis Deer Valley during the Sundance film festival in Park City, Utah. The actress, who is best known for her work in movies like Dirty Dancing and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, was considering a role in the story (written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg) about two cousins who join a Jewish heritage tour in Poland to reconnect with their late grandmother and visit the town that she fled before the war. Grey shares her reaction with THR after she read this script for the film.
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00:00 Hi everyone, thanks for joining us. We are here to talk about obviously your films,
00:06 but I imagine that most people here are like a little bit familiar with the Sundance lineup,
00:11 but just forgive me if I just want to like a little bit of an overview.
00:14 I mean, I would like an overview.
00:16 [laughter]
00:18 I'm like going in alphabetical order, luckily yours is first. A Real Pain is the movie that
00:22 Jennifer is in, and it's the second film that Jesse Eisenberg has written and directed,
00:28 and it's like a really personal story of his, and it's based on a journey that he took,
00:35 oh gosh, I want to say you would know better than me, 15 years ago maybe? Does that sound right?
00:39 Back to Poland in the town where his grandmother was from before they were forced to flee
00:44 before and during the war, and it stars also Kieran Culkin, and Kieran and Jennifer and
00:51 Will Sharp from White Lotus and a few others are on a tour group essentially, touring through
00:58 Poland, and so I want to ask you obviously some questions about that, but one thing that I was
01:03 really curious about, and it does relate to you being in this film, but like do you have something
01:09 that you look for in your roles? Like when things come to you, do you have a, is it a gut feeling?
01:16 Is it like certain things you're looking for it to accomplish, or like kind of how do you know
01:21 that you want to say yes to something?
01:23 I love that question because it's very visceral for me, and for me it's almost always the company,
01:32 the writing, the other cast members, and it's really about when something resonates with my soul.
01:43 I always know, I don't know this may sound a little too woo-woo for you guys, because
01:48 you know you're, you have real jobs. I know you're like, you know, you're the client.
01:52 This is a safe space for woo-woo, at least right here. You guys can let us know how far that bubble
01:56 goes.
01:57 But I always feel like there's a reason I get every job that I get, and I don't, I never know
02:03 what it is at the beginning, and it usually has something to do with a part of me that needs to
02:09 be processed or healed, and it's usually unconscious, and I just feel like things are brought to me
02:16 to help me. I don't know.
02:18 So when you say like the visceral reaction, is that something that you've always been in touch
02:25 with and in tune with since the beginning, or did you kind of have to figure out how to listen to
02:30 that as your career went on?
02:32 I would say one of the best things about having been around a long time is having learned how
02:40 poorly things go when I don't listen to my intuition. Almost everything really going,
02:47 you know, pear-shaped is because I knew that it wasn't right, and I just have gotten,
02:54 only recently become almost religious about listening to that, that feeling, because that
03:02 is such an important, it's a blessing, it's a gift to be able to listen to your body, to listen to
03:11 what, if your heart is beating faster when you read something, that's always a good sign for me,
03:16 but it's usually more subtle than that. It's usually more about, I look for, why me? Why
03:24 would they pick me of all the people? And then I just, the more I look at it and read it and work
03:30 on it, the more I see that it's perfect, and it's about something bigger than a job, a paycheck.
03:36 Something that, and forgive me, I can't remember who it was that I was interviewing who said this,
03:42 but they had this really good comment about if they are looking at a script or thinking about
03:46 a role, if there's someone else anywhere out there who could do a better job or be more
03:52 fit for it, then that's how they know that it's probably not right. I'll Google after we get off
03:56 this and I'll circle back to give proper credit for that, but that sounds like it's kind of what
04:02 you're saying too. I think so many people could play many parts, and many parts get offered to
04:09 many people before it sticks, or they agree to what they're free or whatever, but there's something
04:16 bigger going on in my, just because I've been doing this for a really long time, and every
04:21 time I haven't gotten a job, and I was like, wait, I was about to make the deal, the deal was coming,
04:28 everyone told me on the movie that it was happening, and then at the last minute something
04:34 happens, and it goes to someone else who I actually think is much less right for it,
04:41 and I can't make sense of it. I know that the job that I didn't get, two weeks later, I get a job
04:48 that makes no sense, that I'm completely wrong for. Like when I was playing Gwen Shamblin last
04:54 year in this Lifetime movie, I'm a Jew, I was playing a Christian cult leader from Tennessee
05:00 with like giant hair and anorexia, and just like a crazy person, and I was like, well I have
05:07 craziness, you know, I have crazy parts of myself, but I mean, I couldn't understand why they gave
05:15 it to me, and then all of a sudden I thought, well I have to do an accent, I have to get a wig, and I
05:20 have to, oh my, oh my god, I have to learn how to do sermons for giant, I mean a cult leader,
05:27 I mean, I didn't understand, and then I understood everything. I just have learned that to wait and
05:35 watch, and I have, I'm amazed at how many beautiful opportunities are coming my way,
05:43 just, I always want to be like, I'm gonna hustle, I'm gonna go out there, I'm gonna get stuff,
05:48 those stuff, those things don't happen. For me, it's just like, out of nowhere, it drops in,
05:53 and I'm like, oh, okay, let's go. - So for A Real Pain, what dropped in,
06:00 out of, was it, did you get the script, did you hear about it, or kind of what was the,
06:05 your origin story of starting to join this movie? - I got an email saying,
06:12 "Jesse Eisenberg's doing a movie, it shoots in Poland, and he wrote it, he's directing it,
06:19 he's starring in it," immediately, I was like, I'm in, because I, you know, I love smart people,
06:26 he's really smart, and he's really talented, it turns out he's a really good director,
06:31 a really good writer, and a lovely human being, he's a smart, deep human being, and I,
06:39 I don't know, I just knew he'd be smart, and I knew he'd maybe be a little nervous,
06:43 and it was just so nice to meet someone more nervous than me, and then I just felt like,
06:47 don't sweat it, man, everything's cool, it's gonna be fine, because I'm always like,
06:53 "Eh, I'm just a nervous, I'm a nervous person, what can I say?" And I just felt very chill around
06:58 him. - Do you, what was the, what was your visceral reaction when you read the script,
07:03 what was like the, the thing that then, with the story, that made you intrigued or interested,
07:11 or connected to the material? - Okay, so firstly, when it came to me, I knew that Kieran Culkin was
07:17 set. - So you were able to read it picturing him in it? - And I had been, I had just, when I got
07:23 the script, it was right after I was seeing the last couple of episodes of "Succession," and I was
07:31 losing my mind over his performance. I was, I was, it was like, it was messing, it was wrecking my
07:38 head. He was so brilliant, and to me, I just want to play with those guys. So I read the script,
07:47 and of course, I went from excited to elated, because it's a very deep movie, and it's about
07:55 very many things, and it's not about concentration camp, but there is a concentration camp portion
08:04 of the movie, but it's about relationship, it's about grief, it's about loss, it's about identity,
08:11 it's about resilience. So when I read it, what I noticed was Jesse's ability, this is the virtuosic
08:21 part of him, is that his tone is so human, and so accessible, and so vulnerable, and so funny,
08:32 and you think, people go, how can that be funny? Because it's Jesse, it's Jess, it's not about
08:39 the Holocaust, it's about these cousins who have grown apart, and who are grieving the loss of
08:45 their grandmother, and then they get put into this group, this very intimate group, I think
08:52 there are six of us, and our group leader is a very unattractive man named Will Sharp. I don't
08:58 know if you guys know him from White Lotus. He gets to use his real British accent in this.
09:03 He's really naughty, he's not attractive, and with the English accent, it's even worse,
09:09 and he actually plays, I don't want to ruin anything for you, but he really is playing
09:14 against handsome. - There's a backpack at all times.
09:19 - Let me just say, I just was like, okay, I just thought of this whole movie as a love story
09:25 between me and Will, and Kieran, and Jesse, and Kurt. I just thought, okay, that's what I felt
09:32 the whole time I was making the movie. I didn't feel the heaviness of it all the time, I felt it
09:39 in the appropriate moments, not because it was appropriate, but because it was impossible to
09:47 deny because it was so big. We shot in this concentration camp in Poland called Majdanek,
09:55 and Majdanek, I'd never heard of, but it is very preserved, so it looks like everyone left this
10:03 morning. There were no places for people to line up, it didn't feel like a tourist place, and I
10:12 think it might be the only concentration camp that has ever allowed a movie to be shot there.
10:18 - Yeah, and if anyone has seen Zone of Interest from this year, one of the producers on your film,
10:26 I believe, got in touch with that because that film was from Poland, and I think that was how
10:30 they were able to... There's a really interesting history, and something that really struck me about
10:36 those scenes was how light of a touch Jesse gave it, and nothing was too long, nothing was overly
10:46 sentimental, it was truly so perfect. - So deft.
10:52 - Yeah. - He's so deft, and there's something so
10:57 enjoyable about the movie, and that's a very strange thing to even say or think, but I don't
11:04 want to ruin it for you, I just don't want you to be afraid because it's a pleasure, this movie,
11:11 it's a very small, it reminds me of the old movies that I loved before the big popcorn movies,
11:18 it just feels like Dirty Dancing, like an independent movie that was made because it's pure,
11:25 it's... And a tour is his vision, it's his story, and it's authentic, and I think it's really
11:32 beautiful. Do many of you have tickets? I know it's a hard ticket to get. Any of you have tickets?
11:37 - Yeah, some do. - Okay, well, I hope you can get a ticket,
11:39 and if you can't, you can see it when it comes out, and I hope you don't hear too much about it
11:43 before so you can be surprised that it's a love story between me and those guys.
11:50 - Do you have, 'cause I imagine that it was a really intimate filming experience as well,
11:57 right? It's an indie film, it's a small group of cast, you're traveling around. Do you have
12:02 any sort of process for getting to the right place with people that you work with? And I think,
12:10 I would also be curious to kind of know, especially you've been on a lot of different
12:14 television shows as well, and if you feel like there's a different approach or a different way
12:19 into something like this that's really a true company versus you're coming into an existing
12:24 company, and do you approach that differently? - Okay, so I think, maybe just may I clarify?
12:30 - Yes, please. - You wanna know if I come into the movie
12:35 differently depending on the group? - Mm-hmm, of course.
12:38 - Yeah, the same way if you went to a party. Every party's different, every love affair's
12:43 different, every friendship's different, and it brings out different parts of you,
12:47 and there's a different hierarchy in every group, and sometimes you're the star, and sometimes
12:52 you're a supporting player, and sometimes you wish you were the love interest. No, just, no,
13:00 there's no, it's not, no, no, it's really about tailoring, just feeling the room, feeling the
13:08 energy, and feeling what the dynamics are between us, because I mean, I've never laughed so hard,
13:15 like when we had breakfast every day, a bunch of us, when we weren't working, or we weren't
13:20 working late, or we weren't working like that morning, and I was hoarse going to bed at night,
13:25 I was laughing so hard, and really smart, funny people, that's all I wanna do is just work around
13:31 funny, smart people. I wish the same for you guys. I wish that every day at work,
13:36 you can surround yourself with funny, smart, kind people.
13:39 - Had you seen the finale of Succession? 'Cause I saw Kieran talk about how he missed
13:47 the finale, obviously he was in it when it was happening, but he missed watching it on Max,
13:51 because you guys were in Poland. That was his excuse for why he hasn't seen the finale of
13:57 Succession, but do you remember, like, had you, or did he know how it was gonna end while you
14:02 guys were there? That's what I'm really getting at, is were you, was there anything that you
14:06 like were trying to get into? - I mean, I've never met a less
14:08 actory actor in my life. I mean, it's very refreshing. It's very nice. I mean, nothing
14:14 wrong with actors, but he is very non-actory, and he is, he's just about the work and his family,
14:22 and he is, I don't think he had seen it. - Yeah. Do you have a certain way that you
14:32 measure success, and how has that changed throughout your career? And I would ask that
14:39 both in terms of for yourself, and also what feels good in the reception of a project that
14:44 you're on to, 'cause I imagine it could be a little bit different for each of those.
14:48 - I love that question. I think that's a really good question, by the way. Thank you.
14:51 - Thank you. - What was it? No.
14:53 I was so into it, I was like, okay. Okay, so this is something I think about a lot,
14:59 and I don't know if you guys do too, but it's very, I think it's an important thing to always
15:05 check in with, at least for me, because how the metrics that I have, how I define success
15:13 is so different from the way it was when I was a kid, so different from the way culture dictates,
15:22 and the definition of what success is. And for me, it's being able to make enough money
15:32 so I have a place to live, I have medical, I have food, I can have extra in case there's an emergency,
15:41 and that I get to have quality time in my life, because I took a lot of time off to be with my
15:48 daughter, because I had wanted to be a mom for so long, and I got to be a mom so late in life,
15:55 and I'd been working, and I'd been independent, and I'd never been married, and I'd never had
16:00 a kid, and all I wanted was to be a mom. So when I got this kid, I just, that was me. That was it.
16:08 I was like, oh, I never thought I'd get this, and I got this amazing baby who turned into this
16:14 amazing child, into this amazing young woman, and I literally could not fathom leaving her
16:22 to not pick her up at school, to not be the one to be there, day in and day out. And as soon as
16:28 she left, all of a sudden work started happening again. I was like, this is a miracle, because
16:35 I know I've been really successful, like, in that definition of success that, you know, we all can
16:44 reference as something, like, really flying close to the sun. It wasn't so hot. It wasn't so hot.
16:51 It was, there was good, I liked doing the work. I don't love the other parts. I don't, I'm a very
17:00 sensitive person, and it's a harsh business. So for me, it's about friends, and relationship,
17:08 and kindness, and balance, and health, and understanding what my values are, which really
17:15 comes with age, because, I mean, you always have values. Like, when you're a kid, you know,
17:19 like, you want milk. Like, that's it, you know, and then eventually there are other things that
17:24 interest you, you know, but, but, like, it's just, there's always something changing, and
17:28 my experience is that my values have become very clear about, there's just not enough of the
17:37 outside stuff that would fill up the hole in the soul, and for me, I'm just always looking for the
17:43 balance of, yeah, I want to work. I want to make a living. I need to make a living, and life is really
17:49 intense. Have you noticed? It's uncertain, and this guy I know, Phil Stutz, I don't know if you
17:57 saw that doc last year called Stutz. It was really good. You should watch it. Jonah Hill directed it,
18:02 and he said, "There's three things you can count on, always, for the rest of your life.
18:06 Uncertainty, pain, and work. You're always going to have to work. You're always going to have pain,
18:12 and you're always going to have uncertainty, and then the rest of it is the stuff that you can
18:18 build, which is connection, and love, and romance, and friendship, and helping others, and being of
18:26 service." So, those things really have given me the life of my dreams, and it's always changing,
18:33 and that's also something that I've come to understand is, "Oh, this too shall pass," or,
18:39 "I never want this to pass. I want this to last forever," and it won't.
18:43 Do you find that that... It's a beautiful mindset. Do you find that that allows you to be more free
18:51 from what happens with each project, how successful that project is, whether by
18:56 the way the industry would say it, or reception, or things like that? Are you going into it just
19:02 knowing that you got... Let's use a real pain for an example, which is a bad example because I think
19:08 that's going to have a lot of the very traditional markers of success, critical acclaim, and all that
19:13 kind of thing, but is that the kind of thing where you already feel good enough about it that it
19:19 truly doesn't matter, or how into the weeds of what happens after you release a movie out into
19:25 the world you get? I really feel that the work is itself. The work is the treat. The work is...
19:36 I mean, sometimes work is awful, and then I guess it can go well, and I don't know. I can't even
19:42 think about it. I just know that when you make something beautiful, and you make it with a really,
19:49 really open, devoted heart and soul, that's your deal. You did it. You're a success, and what other
19:57 people think of you is really none of your business. I hope for everyone's sake, because I
20:04 think it's a beautiful movie, it would be really great if it got seen by a lot of people because I
20:10 think it's necessary to have that kind of a movie, that kind of a message, that kind of sensitive,
20:18 soulful entertainment because I think there's not enough of that, and I don't love what I see in the
20:26 movies a lot these days, and I feel for the world it would be nice if the movie was seen by a lot
20:32 of people, and that Jesse and... I hope Kieran can get another job. You know, the poor kid. He needs
20:40 a break. We'll see. But, you know, Will also feels so sorry. I feel sorry for these guys, so I hope
20:44 for them it does well because I think they should all be able... I just want them to work. I'm a
20:50 little worried. It is a film that... What comes to mind is that something that's deep doesn't have
20:56 to be a drag, essentially. So not a drag. And I feel like a lot of times we get into the binary.
21:03 100%. And it's not medicine that you have to take and be like, "Oh, is this going to be a downer?
21:09 What a..." It's not that, but it has so much depth. It's kind of like Flintstones vitamins.
21:15 You know, you think you're eating candy, but you're getting all this goodness.
21:18 As someone who still takes chewable vitamins, that resonates with me.
21:23 That's a wonderful note to end on, and thank you so much for joining us and for making this movie.
21:28 Thank you for having me. Thank you, John. Thanks, everybody.
21:31 Thank you guys so much. I hope you have a great time here. Have a great weekend.