Sporting an injury from the set of ‘Now You See Me 3’, Jesse Eisenberg was in London at the BFI London Film Festival screening of his new film ‘A Real Pain’. He writes, directs and stars in the film alongside Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe and Jennifer Grey.
‘A Real Pain’ is a comedy drama that sees two cousins take an emotional and tense trip across Poland honour their beloved grandmother. Report by Burtonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
‘A Real Pain’ is a comedy drama that sees two cousins take an emotional and tense trip across Poland honour their beloved grandmother. Report by Burtonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello Jesse, thank you so much for your time.
00:02I'm so sure that you're tired of telling the story, but are you okay?
00:06What happened to your finger? It looks quite painful.
00:08I'm doing the third Now You See Me movie, and it's a lot of action.
00:12And it turns out, I don't know what the expression is,
00:16but in my mind I'm more of an action hero than my body would like to agree with.
00:21Well, I'm glad you're here tonight.
00:23Me too.
00:24Can I ask, congratulations on your second feature film, which you've already directed.
00:28Where was the idea sparked from for this screenplay?
00:32Yes, so this movie has been like 15 years in the making,
00:35and my wife and I travelled on the same tour that these characters go on in this movie.
00:39We did that in 2008.
00:41I came back from that trip, and I wrote a play that took place in Poland
00:45and starred Vanessa Redgrave as my second cousin,
00:47and I played a character named David who goes to Poland.
00:49And then I did another play on the West End called The Spoils,
00:52where I played a character named Benji, who is kind of stuck in his juvenile phase in life.
00:56And I took those two characters and I put them in the same room together
00:59and got them talking, and there was a real funny rapport that came out.
01:03And then I realised I can set them on this very kind of serious journey
01:07while still maintaining a levity and a kind of brightness to the story.
01:10The chemistry between yourself and Ciaran on screen in this is just so bloody believable.
01:14Oh, thanks.
01:15Was that because, did you guys put in the work beforehand
01:18to create this chemistry, this dynamico, or did it click straight away?
01:21How was the casting?
01:22I can only attribute that to that the script was quite specific
01:26in how they feel about each other.
01:28It's not just that there's one thing.
01:30It's not just that he intimidates me.
01:33I also intimidate him with my stability.
01:35So it's all this various stuff, and it's very specific in the script
01:38because I played these two parts in different plays and written this kind of thing before.
01:41And then the second thing I would attribute to is just Ciaran's brilliance,
01:45which is just that he's very comfortable on camera being natural.
01:49It sounds like an easy thing.
01:51It's like the hardest thing in the world.
01:52That's the goal of an actor.
01:54And he is just the greatest thing I've ever seen.
01:57I mean, watching him perform every day was like a dream come true
02:00as a director and as an actor, exhilarating,
02:03because he's playing off me in a way that feels so realistic.
02:06It's hard to describe, but it's like, as a director and an actor,
02:09it's like the greatest possible thing in the world.
02:11I've had a lot of fun with you, but you've got to move on.
02:13So thanks so much for your time, and congratulations again.
02:16Cheers.