Jesse Eisenberg on feeling “jealous” of Kieran Culkin in ‘A Real Pain’

So I wanted to play this role, and the first people I sent the script to were Emma Stone, Dave McCarey, her husband, and then the producer Ali Herting. And as the four of us talked, we realized that it would be impossible to direct and then play the part like a living string and this kind of jumping back and forth. And now it’s all done and Kieran is playing the part, I realize how lucky I am that it worked out this way.

There must have been some interesting contrasts between being in your ancestral home in Poland and making the film?

I expected this to be a very enjoyable experience. We were literally shooting inside the house that my family left behind and took back in 1939. I was looking forward to all of these really fun experiences, and what a surprise to me. is what this feels like on any other film shoot, because the concerns of filming are so overwhelming, especially if you’re writing, directing and acting. It just overshadows any kind of emotion you might have. For example, there’s a scene where Kieran and I are actually outside the house where my family lives, and the big thing about the day is that we thought it was going to rain at five o’clock, but before that we thought we were going to rain. It’s about to rain, there’s too much sunshine in Kieran’s eyes. So when he looked up to talk to these strangers, he couldn’t see, and he squinted. So we had to create this wall of flags so the sun wouldn’t get in his eyes, and it took half an hour every day, and I was mad that it took us half an hour. So my interest is really only directed towards movies, instead of immersing myself in the emotional sublimity of history.

I love this line: “You’re like a cool guy trapped in the body of someone who’s always late.”

It’s funny because it’s a line in the entire movie that I begged Kieran to do over and over again on set, and then dubbed over later in post-production, because I wanted it to hang there. [before] “And I have to hook that guy.” But Kieran read it as one line, and I said: “No, no. Trust me, it gets more fun.”