Jesse Eisenberg, the director and star of new film A Real Pain, has talked about how British filmmaker Richard Ayoade is his favourite director, and the advice he took from their collaboration.
Eisenberg was speaking to The Guardian while promoting the film, which stars himself and Kieran Culkin as Jewish American cousins who travel to Poland to visit the childhood home of their grandmother and connect with their heritage.
A Real Pain is only Eisenberg’s second film as director, and his first time as director and star. He has, however, worked with a variety of filmmakers during his acting career, including David Fincher, M. Night Shyamalan, and Zack Snyder. The one that had the most impact on his own directing path, he revealed, was Ayoade, whom he worked with on the 2013 thriller The Double.
“Richard Ayoade, who’s like my favourite director of all time” Eisenberg said, “would always tell me that when the characters are experiencing a lot of emotions explicitly, it can take away from the experience because it unburdens the audience from sitting with something. He explained that to me many, many times when I was overacting in his movie”.
He would go on to say that advice helped him in one scene during A Real Pain. “I had lines I’ve been wanting to say in real life for ever, about how I feel like such a loser and every day is 24 hours of panic to just get out the door” he recalled. “Finally, I was on set expressing them and it just overtook me. I had this over-cathartic experience. It felt like: that’s too much from this person”.
A Real Pain is in cinemas now, and is a strong contender for awards season. It was nominated for three Golden Globes, with Culkin winning Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. Recently, Eisenberg spoke about his past movie Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice and how it hurt his career.
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