{"id":28486,"date":"2025-01-26T00:07:43","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T05:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28486"},"modified":"2025-01-26T00:07:43","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T05:07:43","slug":"a-real-pain-press-conference-with-actor-kieran-culkin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28486","title":{"rendered":"‘A Real Pain’ : Press Conference with Actor Kieran Culkin"},"content":{"rendered":"

@Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures<\/p>\n

A Real Pain<\/strong> : Mismatched cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin<\/a>) reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd-couple’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.<\/div>\n
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Director<\/strong> : Jesse Eisenberg<\/a><\/div>\n
Producer<\/strong> : Jesse Eisenberg,\u00a0Ali Herting,\u00a0Dave McCary,\u00a0Ewa Puszczy\u0144ska,\u00a0Jennifer Semler,\u00a0Emma Stone,\u00a0Ewa Puszczy\u0144ska<\/div>\n
Screenwriter<\/strong> : Jesse Eisenberg<\/div>\n
Distributor<\/strong> : Searchlight Pictures<\/a><\/div>\n
Production Co<\/strong> : Topic Studios, Fruit Tree, Extreme Emotions<\/div>\n
Rating<\/strong> : R (Some Drug Use|Language Throughout)<\/div>\n
Genre<\/strong> : Comedy, Drama<\/div>\n
Original Language<\/strong> : English<\/div>\n
Release Date (Theaters)<\/strong> : Nov 15, 2024, Wide<\/div>\n
Release Date (Streaming)<\/strong> : Dec 31, 2024<\/div>\n
Box Office (Gross USA)<\/strong> : $7.9M<\/div>\n
Runtime<\/strong> : 1h 29m<\/div>\n
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\"A<\/div>\n
@Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
\u00a0Press Conference with Actor Kieran Culkin<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Q: How did you decide to work in A Real Pain after Succession? Was it an easy yes?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Kieran Culkin: It was an easy yes but also a tough one, because the script came to me right before we started shooting the last season of Succession. It was an instant yes upon reading it, it was beautifully written and I immediately clicked with the character. You want to hit those three things when you read something: you want to love the whole scope of the script, then you need to like the character and know how to play it, and then there’s you being right casting.I got a real sense of their background, I could picture them as kids, where they came from, which is something huge about the writing.<\/span><\/p>\n

So about a year later I was finishing up Succession, but we finished the season two months later than we thought. So there was no time and I really wanted to be home with my wife and kids. The way the schedule was gonna work out was that I was going be away from the family for a <\/span>25 days. And I had just made a rule with myself that I wasn\u2019t going to be away from the family for eight days. So when I saw the schedule, I was like:\u00a0 \u201cYou know what? I’m out\u201d. It was like trying to weigh the personal versus the professional. But creatively I really, really wanted to do it. I watched Jesse’s first film and it was great. So I did it, and I’m so glad I did it. That said, I’m gonna try hard to stick to my eight day rule from now on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: How was the collaboration with an actor who is also the writer-director? What did surprise you about Jesse? Not just as an actor, but especially as a director.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Kieran Culkin: I knew the script was great and I knew him to be a very good actor. We met at this shitty little diner a year before we got started and I thought that was going to be good. I knew his first film to be good, so he was obviously not a bad director, I just wasn’t sure about what he was going to be talking to the actors. As it turns out, he’s fantastic. I don’t know that I could direct, but if I were to, I would wanna do it the way he did it. The way he ran a set was very inclusive. He wanted everyone’s opinions on the thing. <\/span><\/p>\n

I knew I had a voice when it came to my character, but he also was willing to hear my opinion about other things. On set I had to make a bit of an adjustment: I’d never been directed by somebody I was also gonna be seen with, and it\u2019s a huge no-no for an actor to tell another actor how to do something. I got my defenses up and I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, it took a moment to readjust and go: \u201cWait, this is the director talking to me. It’s fine.\u201d It took a couple of days. I adjusted pretty well eventually.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/ins>\n

Q: Among other producers of A Real Pain there is also Emma Stone. How was the collaboration between you, Jesse, and Emma as a producer?<\/b><\/p>\n

Kieran Culkin: Emma and I had a phone call two weeks before we got started, which was mostly her convincing me to do the movie, which she did in a very brilliant way. She was there that first day of shooting. Her sense on that first day was: \u201cThis is going to be okay. I don’t need to be here every day\u201d, Dave McCary was there for one more day, maybe two. They weren’t there every day, which it\u2019s a good sign that there wasn’t a lot of management or cleanup that needed to be done.<\/span><\/p>\n

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@Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures<\/p>\n

Q: A Real Pain discusses not only grief, but the different ways of processing grief. Do you think Benji will ever find peace?<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kiera Culkin: The movie is about grief, about pain. Anybody that has grieved for someone knows there isn’t a right way to do it, a right or wrong way, sometimes a certain way that might work for someone and might not work for another person. David has actually been rather jealous of someone like Benji who can just feel things freely. If David gets depressed, he’ll take a pill or go outside and do breathing exercises. <\/span><\/p>\n

But Benji will just lay it on someone else and go: “Can I have your shirt? I need to cry into it.” That’s the way he is. He doesn’t know how to conceal the feelings. I don’t think he’s quite figured out a lot of things in life. I feel most people unfortunately don’t like to go through huge fundamental changes. He is kind of who he is, whether or not he’ll find peace with that. Maybe he already has to some degree, but I don’t know that he’s ever gonna really figure it out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: What was it about Benji that you were able to relate to? What were your points of connection with this character?<\/b><\/p>\n

Kieran Culkin: The time I saw the movie, I realized I knew somebody quite like this. I just didn’t acknowledge it while we were doing it. Watching it at Sundance, sitting next to my wife, the first like two, three minutes she leans over and says the name of the guy. I went: \u201cOh man, you’re totally right.\u201d I just compartmentalized it and tucked it away somewhere.That was not conscious. The way I wanted to go in was to not prepare at all. Let’s not rehearse because I don’t even want to know how I’m going to respond. He was such a spontaneous person, you never quite know what’s going to come out of him, I didn’t want to plan that ahead of time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 How did filming in Poland, specifically the scene at that concentration camp, inform the performance in a way that you weren’t prepared?<\/b><\/p>\n

Kieran Culkin:\u00a0 Let’s speak generally to the lack of rehearsal in preparation, which I’m really happy we did. I got a little bit nervous the first day I got there: I got to Poland and we were shooting the next day, but there was a table read and they’d set three hours for the rehearsal, the scene with the statue. I remember I didn\u2019t wanna rehearse that, it was going to be embarrassing. We did a 15 minute rehearsal and then Jesse said right away we didn\u2019t need to rehearse, this was going to be fine. From where I’m sitting, this is a great script. Let’s just do that. As long as we’re saying the words, it’s not my business how to shoot the movie. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you have a competent cinematographer, which Jesse had, you know how to shoot the thing. There was a spontaneous nature to the character that blended itself to that way of working. The fact that we really didn’t get to know each other. I didn’t really get to know these people so I’m getting to know them as we’re on this tour through Poland. That was capturing this actual trip, this true group getting to know them in real time while taking these sites. That was very well captured because it was pretty genuine. <\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to going to Majdanek, I remember seeing it in the script and really appreciating the way that it was written. They did use practical lighting whatever lights were in that room or sun so there wasn’t a lot of setup and we shot it the way he wrote it, we just took it in like an actual tour group and he filmed it. So in character, not in character, whatever that was, we were all taking it in as it was filmed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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@Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures<\/p>\n

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Q: How was it for you to intensify your relationship between you and Jesse during and throughout the filming of the movie? Did it get better with time?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Kieran Culkin: I think we’re very different people in life and we have different approaches to acting, but we have the right sensibility. We have the same idea of what the film was supposed to be. We just have different ways of approaching it. I liked to go to the set not wanting to prepare, I didn’t want to do the table read because I didn\u2019t want to do it too much. I had no notes, no questions, I had <\/span>nothing. <\/span><\/p>\n

I never wanted to go to the director and say: \u201cI don’t get this\u201d because it was so clear and evident in the script. So I would show up any day and purposefully not know what scene we were doing the next day. I would get there in the morning. I would quickly put the costume and that would freak him out. He <\/span>would get scared that I wasn’t ready, he wants to be absolutely prepared and planned for everything days ahead if he can but I’m just not that way.\u00a0 Sometimes the director will tell you where the camera is going to be, I don’t need to know that. That said we have the right sensibility, it took like a couple days of figuring out each other’s processes and the right way to work together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/ins>\n

Q: What if you played Jesse’s character and he played yours instead? What would that movie be like?<\/b><\/p>\n

Kiera Culkin: I probably wouldn’t see it. It just would have been a very different take on it. He got talked out of doing Benji by Emma Stone, she talked him out of playing Benji, she’s a very smart woman because I think he’s so right for David. There’s no way I could play David, which shocked him.\u00a0 He was like: \u201cWait, that’s the easy role!\u201d And I was like: \u201cIt’s easy for you because you know how to play it, you wrote it. I would not know how to play David. I couldn’t sit in my skin and feel comfortable as David. So I don’t think I would watch that movie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you liked the press conference, share your thoughts below.<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Check out more of Adriano\u2019s articles.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the trailer for A Real Pain:<\/b><\/p>\n