In ‘A Real Pain,’ Jesse Eisenberg asks: What is the purpose of ‘tragedy tourism’?

Transcript:

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. My guest, Jesse Eisenberg, wrote, directed and stars in the film “A Real Pain.” Oscar predictors expect the film to be nominated for multiple Academy Awards. Eisenberg had his first major film role in 2002’s “Roger Dodger” when he was still in high school. Three years later, when he was 21, he was a star of the film “The Squid And The Whale.” He played Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network,” about the early days of Facebook. He played the journalist interviewing writer David Foster Wallace in “The End Of The Tour.” He starred in the 2022 miniseries “Fleishman Is In Trouble.”

In “A Real Pain,” he plays a husband and father who goes on a Jewish heritage tour in Poland with his cousin, played by Kieran Culkin, who was like a brother when they were growing up. The trip is funded by their beloved, recently deceased grandmother, who left money in her will for the trip so that they could see the home she fled when the Nazis were in power. Each cousin is dealing with mental health issues, which are exacerbated by the trip. Eisenberg’s character is introverted and takes meds for his OCD. He’s constantly hurt and embarrassed by his cousin’s inappropriate behavior.

GROSS: Culkin’s character is dealing with depression. But when around other people, he becomes extroverted, manic in ways that can be seen as charismatic or incredibly annoying and intrusive. Both extremes are intensified by the disconnect Culkin’s character experiences between the first-class train car the tour travels on and the cattle cars that brought Jews to their death. He’s also troubled by the disconnect between the nice restaurants the tour takes them to while, at the same time, the death camp Majdanek is on the tour.

Our critic John Powers wrote, quote, “with the lightest of touches, Eisenberg’s stunning film got me thinking about the different ways we deal with suffering, both past and present. Should we simply get on with life, as David, Eisenberg’s character, seems to, or should we take that pain into ourselves, as does Culkin’s character, Benji? Or is there a way to somehow do both?” – unquote. It’s worth mentioning that the film also has comic touches.

Jesse Eisenberg, welcome to FRESH AIR, and congratulations on the film.

JESSE EISENBERG: Thank you so much.

GROSS: So…

EISENBERG: What an honor to be on your show.

GROSS: Oh, it’s a pleasure to have you. So the movie is based in part in a movie you were making, a kind of road movie, set in Mongolia. And it wasn’t working for you.

EISENBERG: That’s right.

GROSS: And then you saw an ad advertising, like, a Holocaust tour or a Jewish heritage tour, and it said lunch included.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: And you thought, OK, this is something. What intrigued you about that, especially the lunch-included part?

EISENBERG: Well, yeah, I mean, actually, it was even more explicit than what you mentioned. It was – said Auschwitz tours with lunch. So – right. So I was writing this movie that took place in Mongolia. It was about similar kind of characters – David and Benji, the character – you know, characters Kieran and I play in this movie. But it was set in Mongolia, and it was just not going well until – and then an ad popped up online for Auschwitz tours with lunch. And I just thought, you know, well, first, like, I must be the target demographic for that advertisement. But also, like, it was just so profound in its simplicity. It spoke to so many awkward, modern things, which is just, like, you know, we want to tour sites of horror and, you know, kind of wonder, like, why do we want to do that? What are we doing when we’re doing that? And then also, we want to maintain the creature comforts that we have in our lives. So that’s the with-lunch part.

And so, you know, I clicked on the ad, and it took me to a site for, you know, what you would imagine – an English-speaking heritage tour of Poland that culminates at Auschwitz. And it was just so interesting – just, like, posed all these interesting philosophical questions. Like, you know, why do we do tragedy tourism? And why don’t we try to connect to this kind of history in a way that feels less, you know, comfortable?

GROSS: Well, another question the movie raises is, like, what is real pain? Like, what is suffering? Like, if you’re suffering from, you know, emotional or mental health issues – and I know you have issues of your own. The character has OCD. I don’t know if that’s an issue you have to contend with. But if you have your own internal suffering, and let’s face it – people take their lives because of that internal suffering. Like, you don’t even have to have somebody kill you. You end your own life ’cause the suffering is so bad. But you haven’t been in Auschwitz suffering there. But – so is your suffering any less important? Does that count as pain? Yeah.

EISENBERG: Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, one of the kind of ironies with Kieran’s character in the movie – you know, as you said, he kind of plays this incredibly charming and manic guy, but he also just is privately suffering from severe depression – I mean, severe, like, you know, wondering if he wants to go on with his life. And one of the dramatic ironies in the movie is that our grandmother survived, as I say in the movie, by a thousand miracles. You know, the way my family survived the war, they were, you know, hidden in basements with their teachers – you know, like, crazy stories. As you know, from, you know, anybody who survived the Holocaust, there’s usually a story that’s, you know, incredibly shocking and more shocking than the last one you heard. So, like, there’s this irony where we are the products of a thousand miracles, and yet Kieran’s character doesn’t even know if he wants to live. And what is that? Why do we walk around with all this modern pain when our lives are materially comfortable after being the products of incredible stories of survival?

And it’s something I think about all the time because I’m, like, you know, a depressed, you know, person or whatever. And, you know, I – like, I walk around, and I have, like, a materially nice life. And I walk around kind of, like, you know, feeling bad for myself, being miserable over, you know, minor things. And yet I’m also incredibly, like, fascinated by my family’s history in Poland and learning, like, about the suffering. And I don’t know how to reconcile those two things – of feeling bad about my very fortunate life and also understanding the horrors of my family’s past or the horrors of people around the world today.

And because I can’t reconcile those two things, I was trying to sort out that in the movie, which is why the title “A Real Pain” – it’s, like, what – it’s asking the audience that question. What is real pain? Is my character’s manageable, medicated OCD pain valid? Is Kieran’s pain valid, even though, you know, he’s experiencing, you know, the worst of what a kind of psyche can experience, but at the same time, he is in a comfortable life? No one is trying to kill him. Or is the only pain that’s valid and should be kind of acknowledged is the pain of war and of kind of mass genocide and – you know, and mass trauma?

GROSS: OK, so you are a writer and director and actor, and you were not only in Majdanek, the death camp in Poland. You were filming there ’cause you do have a scene there, and it’s a very emotionally moving scene. So I’d like to hear what it was like for you to not only have lunch (laughter) and dinner while visiting Majdanek. You were filming there. You were taking this kind of, like, holy place and setting up your lights and your cameras and your actors. How did you go about it in the most respectful way that you could think of while also making a movie?

EISENBERG: So, like, you know, when I was writing the movie, I set a scene at Majdanek. That’s the camp that was – like, you know, it’s really five minutes away from where I had family. And as soon as I finished the script, I just assumed that we’d be able to, you know, film there ’cause it was in the script until we got Polish producers on board, who told me that they read the script, and they think everything is doable but that it’s going to cost a million dollars to build Majdanek. I was like, what do you mean a million dollars? It’s already there. She said, well, no, you can’t film, you know, a narrative movie, you know, at a concentration camp. These are hallowed grounds, and, you know, they get asked every day to be turned into, you know, essentially, you know, war sets, you know, that – they take place in 1942 and have extras running around in Nazi uniforms. And, like, they just don’t – of course they’re not going to allow that at this kind of site, which is a cemetery, which is a site of, you know, mass horror.

And so over the course of, like, the next eight months before we made the movie, I

EISENBERG: Eight months before we made the movie, I just tried to reach out in any way possible to this concentration camp, Majdanek, to explain what I wanted to do, which is I wanted to film a scene of a modern tour group going through this place, you know, in an attempt to have it be part of the movie but also to show audiences what this place is. And my kind of plea to them was that I want to do the same thing you’re doing. You exist as a museum to show people today what happened on this site, and I’m trying to do the same thing through my movie.

And so once we kind of were able to, you know, speak to the people who work there, who are these unbelievably brilliant young academics – these are not, like, state apparatchiks who are running this place. These are, like, young academics who could be doing anything with their lives and are spending it every day at a concentration camp to, you know, preserve the memory of Jewish history. And so once we were able to be in touch with them, they understood what my motivation was and how respectful we were going to be, how the scenes would be shot. We went over every word in the script. We went over every angle that we wanted to film.

And it took a long time, but they agreed to it. And we had two cameras, and we basically set up the shots in the most, like, you know, un-kind-of-fettered way. You know, it was written in the script even that these scenes will be shot very simply. There will be no music. The actors will walk in and out of the room. That’s how I wrote it in the script, and that’s what we filmed. We set up the shot. The actors walked in. I asked them to not block each other so we can see everybody’s, you know, face or whatever. And they experienced what they experienced looking at the shoes or looking at a gas chamber, et cetera, these places of horror. And then they exited the room. And so it was done with, like, the absolute, utmost simplicity and care and reverence.

GROSS: And also, you were shooting it as a museum. You weren’t shooting it trying to pretend that it was still a death camp.

EISENBERG: That’s exactly it. So, you know, this place, Majdanek, is in Lublin. So it’s in the southeast of the country. Lublin is this really bustling, gorgeous, vibrant college town. And five minutes away from this, again, gorgeous, bustling, you know, cosmopolitan college town is this death camp. And when I say five minutes, that’s not hyperbole. Like, you drive five minutes down the road and you’re in this death camp. And so it’s not a real known one, but what makes Majdanek really interesting, as opposed to, like, Auschwitz, is that it’s so far east that the Russians liberated the camp before the Nazis could really destroy it. So the other camps, as you go further west in Europe, were destroyed by the Nazis as the Soviets or the Americans liberated the camps. But this one, as we say in the movie, is kind of well-preserved, for lack of a better phrase. It looks like it was liberated that morning.

GROSS: You became a Polish citizen. So what moved you to do that?

EISENBERG: Yeah. So, like, I imagine you’re probably familiar with, like, the reputation that Poland has amongst, like, kind of American Jews, which is that – you know, I grew up hearing, oh, they’re antisemitic. And, you know, oh, all the death camps were there, you know? But my experience there was so different. My experience there was really kind of revelatory in the following way. We were going to all these sites of Jewish history, of Jewish, you know, horror. And all the people that I met who were working there were, like, you know, 90% non-Jews, people who had spent their lives doing far more to memorialize my family’s history than I or anybody in my family is doing.

And I just had this great feeling of indebtedness to the Poles who have done a really good job of preserving a lot of this history. I know they’re criticized in various ways, and the government’s criticized in various ways. But, like, the Germans built these camps in Poland, and the Poles are still left with these things. You know, and they’re really well done to preserve Jewish history there. And I just felt this kind of, like, just openhearted indebtedness to that.

GROSS: All right, I need to introduce you again here and take a break. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Jesse Eisenberg. He wrote, directed and stars with Kieran Culkin in the new film “A Real Pain.” We’ll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOAN JEANRENAUD’S “AXIS”)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my interview with Jesse Eisenberg. He wrote, directed and stars in the film “A Real Pain.” It’s about two cousins who are on a Jewish heritage tour in Poland to see where their beloved late grandmother lived before fleeing the Nazis and immigrating to the U.S. Each of the cousins has a different emotional reaction to the tour, which includes a stop at the Majdanek death camp.

So the grandmother in the movie is based in part on your aunt. And tell us something about her. Like, when did she flee Poland? How did she survive the Holocaust?

EISENBERG: Yeah, so the movie is based on kind of, like, two people. So what we speak of in the movie is our grandma Dory. She’s my aunt Doris. And she left Poland in 1918. The person who survived the war is my cousin Maria. And Maria actually stayed in Poland after the war. Both of them actually passed away in – well, actually in 2019 and 2021, respectively. And my aunt Doris, she was like my mentor. I don’t know exactly how to describe her. She was tough, really strict with me. And I started seeing her, when I was, like, 17, every Thursday. I would see her every Thursday for three hours up until she died. She died at 106 years old in 2019. I even lived with her in my early 30s, in her cramped apartment.

I was very interested in her life because she had a very interesting life. And she was not impressed with me being a movie actor, which I started when I was 17 as well. And I think I needed that kind of, like, real-world, you know, humbling mechanism. And being with her every week made me feel, like, connected to the bigger world. The person that survived the war, Maria, you know, it’s, as we kind of describe in the movie, through 1,000 miracles. And I stayed with her for several weeks in Poland as well. And she was just this lovely but very tragic figure who I think was – like, expected disappointment from the world in a way that I found so sad.

EISENBERG: She, you know, expected to be disappointed. She had, on top of surviving the Holocaust and losing all of her family, she also lost a son, you know, when he was 18. And so she just, I think, had this expectation from the world that it was going to be disappointing. And so it was almost like a nihilism rather than a kind of misery. And that was more sad. You know, I think when you’re miserable, there’s, like, you know, maybe a little, you know, streak inside you that’s still, like, hopeful. And the misery is because you’re not experiencing the thing that you were hoping for. But a nihilism is something altogether worse, you know, which is that, you know, you don’t expect anything positive to happen. And that’s what she displayed.

GROSS: Did your aunt and your cousin’s experiences in Nazi Poland

GROSS: Did those experiences make them any more Jewish or any more secular?

EISENBERG: Wow, that’s a great question. You know, my family’s, like, become increasingly secular just because, you know, it was – you know, assimilate into American culture. You become probably a little more secular. That’s probably not uncommon. But, yeah, I think my family in general does not think in a kind of tribal way. And so I think, like, the takeaway from the Holocaust would probably be something more along the lines of, you know, goodness, look what people can do to each other rather than, look what people do to Jews. That’s certainly my take on the world and certainly my parents’ take on the world. In some ways, I suppose it’s made us more kind of, like, open in a humanistic way to, like, the pains of others who are, you know, not Jews.

You know, and one of the characters in this movie, “A Real Pain,” is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. He is – his character is based on my friend. They both have the same name, Eloge. And Eloge – the real Eloge – is the same as the character in the movie, and the stories that they tell are true, which is that, you know, my friend, Eloge, survived the Rwandan genocide, moved to Winnipeg. And the only people he felt kind of, like, can understand him were Holocaust survivors because they’d been through a genocide. And he converted to Judaism, and he felt such a deep connection to Jewish culture. And I love that story so much, which is why I based a character on him in the movie because that story speaks to the way that we can take kind of, you know, horrific experiences that have happened to us because of our religion or race or ethnicity or whatever you want to qualify Jews as and have it connect to other people’s horrific experiences. And we can take this kind of, let’s say, you know, historical trauma and have it be able to kind of transcend our own community’s pain and allow it to connect us to other pain.

GROSS: While we’re on the subject of Judaism, were you bar mitzvahed?

EISENBERG: So I dropped out of Hebrew school when I was, like, 12. Right before, I was having just my own problems. And also, I, like, hated in a real way, like, these parties that people had. Like, I grew up in the suburbs of Jersey, and, like…

GROSS: Oh, the bar mitzvah party?

EISENBERG: They turned my stomach in a way that I couldn’t probably even articulate – you know, just, like, the deification and celebration of a 13-year-old kid, you know, for doing what? I don’t know. And then, like, the karaoke celebrating a kid. It just – it seemed so gross to me. And, like, the kids in school would talk about the checks they got from the – it just – it nauseated me. I don’t know why. I’m sure because I was probably, like, a depressed little 12-year-old. So, like, that stuff just seemed so gross.

GROSS: (Laughter).

EISENBERG: You know, in retrospect, I still feel a little put off by it. Like, why are we celebrating this kid and giving them the, you know, kind of false illusion that they’ve done some great deed for the world by learning seven seconds of Hebrew and finishing school? Whatever. To me, it kind of, like, still turns my stomach culturally. But I dropped out of Hebrew school, and my – you know, and then – goodness, what would it have been? – like, probably 10 years later, I was acting in a movie – playing a Hasidic Jew in a movie called “Holy Rollers.” And so I was doing all this research on Hasidism, and I actually got a bar mitzvah ’cause I was kind of, like, going to this Hasidic school. And I was kind of pretending, like, I was just a kind of curious secular Jew, which they, of course, loved to have ’cause they thought they can kind of, you know, convert me into, you know, their world. And so they gave me a bar mitzvah. So it was at the – it’s called the 770. It’s on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. It’s, like, the big Hasidic school in New York. And so they gave me a bar mitzvah. So not only did I not have, like, a kind of secular Jersey bar mitzvah, but I ended up having, like, a Hasidic bar mitzvah with, like, a hundred Hasidic young men standing around me, chanting and wrapping the tefillin on me. So I had, like, probably the most religious bar mitzvah a person could have.

GROSS: (Laughter).

EISENBERG: But it was just because I was, like, trying to infiltrate this school to learn about it for an acting job.

GROSS: Did you feel like a fraud?

EISENBERG: No, because I really thought – I don’t know. I take my work really seriously. So, like, I was thinking, like, oh, I want to make sure this part is accurate and authentic. I mean, you know, I – not really. Yeah, no, ’cause I’m like, what is the downside? Like, I’m not, you know, hurting them in any way. I am a secular Jew, and I am curious about it. I wasn’t – you know, I wasn’t trying to, you know, steal their Styrofoam cups of coffee.

GROSS: (Laughter).

EISENBERG: I was just trying to, like, learn about their thing so I can present it accurately in a movie. And I wanted to play my character with as much respect as I possibly could.

GROSS: Oh, that’s such a great story. OK. Let me reintroduce you, and then we’ll talk some more. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Jesse Eisenberg. He wrote, directed and stars with Kieran Culkin in the film “A Real Pain,” which is now streaming on multiple platforms. We’ll be right back. I’m Terry Gross. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DIE KNODEL’S “MIT DER 42ER”)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. Let’s get back to my interview with Jesse Eisenberg. He wrote, directed and stars in the film “A Real Pain,” which is now streaming on multiple platforms. It’s about two cousins who are on a Jewish heritage tour in Poland to see where their beloved late grandmother lived before fleeing the Nazis and immigrating to the U.S. Each of the cousins has a different emotional reaction to the tour, and the tour includes a stop at the Majdanek death camp. When Eisenberg was 21, he costarred in the film “The Squid And The Whale.” He played Mark Zuckerberg in the film “The Social Network,” about the early days of Facebook. In “The End Of The Tour,” he played the journalist traveling with writer David Foster Wallace on Wallace’s book tour, profiling him for Rolling Stone. Eisenberg starred in the 2022 miniseries “Fleishman Is In Trouble.”

So I want to play a clip from “A Real Pain.” And this is a scene that not only shows the kind of emotional turbulence that the Kieran Culkin character is going through – he plays your cousin, and he’s the one who is very prone to severe depression. But he also gets kind of manic when he’s around people. And I don’t know if you would describe him as bipolar, but those are the two extremes of character that he goes through. So in this scene, everyone on this small tour is at a restaurant. And your character is talking about the grandmother and how she survived the Nazis through 1,000 miracles. So before we hear the scene, I just want to say you’re going to hear a couple of very loud burps during the scene, and that is the Kieran Culkin character who will be doing the burping. Here’s the scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “A REAL PAIN”)

EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) You know, Grandma never pitied herself. In fact, she always told me she was grateful for her struggle.

JENNIFER GREY: (As Marcia) Well, that’s just it. What she endured, that gave her hope, right?

EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Yes. In fact, she used to tell me that, like, you know, first generation immigrants work some, like, menial job. You know, they drive cabs, they deliver food. Second generation, they go to good schools, and they become, like, you know, a doctor or a lawyer or whatever. And the third generation lives in their mother’s basement and smokes pot all day. I mean…

(LAUGHTER)

KIERAN CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) She said that?

EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) I think she was, like, just speaking generally about, like, the immigrant experience.

CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Because I lived in my mom’s basement.

EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) She was just talking about immigrants.

CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) OK.

EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) That’s all.

CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Yeah. (Burping) I gots to pee. (Burping) I’m going to go to the bathroom. I’ll get that. Don’t worry. PB time.

GROSS: So that’s an example of how, really, inappropriate Kieran Culkin, who plays your cousin, can be. Tell us why you wanted to create that difference, because this is another really important dynamic in the film. Like, you’ve both had a very similar upbringing. You lived close to each other when you were children. You were like brothers. You were born three weeks apart – or three months apart. I forget which. But now, like, you’re living in separate cities in New York. You’re in New York City. He’s in Binghamton. And you’ve gone in different directions. He seems, like, totally rootless. And you have a good job. You’re married, you have a child, you have a nice home. And he’s lived in his mother’s basement. We don’t know if he’s still there or where he is or if he has any home at all. So why did you want to create that wide range, that big dynamic of difference between the two cousins?

EISENBERG: I didn’t have a calculated reason. But I had just, like, had written these two characters kind of before, you know, just, like, kind of trying to figure out, you know, what’s behind the most charismatic person in the room? You know, what happens to them when they go home? Why are they acting that way? These are people that I feel very envious of, you know, the people who can light up a room. I am a performer, and I have my own amount of extroversion. But, like, you know, I kind of, like, just sit in awe and envy of people who can, like, walk into a room and immediately, you know, light it up. And so I was trying to kind of explore – what’s behind somebody like that? – because I envy them. But I also know there’s something, maybe, happening there that I wouldn’t want, I wouldn’t want to trade.

GROSS: So your character in the film is dealing with OCD, and he’s medicated for it. So we don’t see a lot of OCD, but we do see that you live a very structured life in the film, and that Kieran Culkin’s character is a rule breaker. So I’d like to talk with you, if you’re willing about, like, your own inner issues.

EISENBERG: Sure, sure, sure. Yeah.

GROSS: So is OCD a thing for you? Or is it…

EISENBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: A bit something different?

EISENBERG: Yeah, I mean, it’s probably – you know, God, I don’t know what my actual official diagnosis is on my insurance forms. But, yeah, it’s like, you know, I have OCD, depression, anxiety, that kind of stuff. And it changes and is, like, emphasized based on what’s happening in my life, you know? But as I talk about in the movie, I feel my pain is unexceptional.

GROSS: Do you feel like something like OCD ever works in your favor? Like, if you’re producing a movie or directing a movie, there’s so many details that you have to take care of, and so much you have to pay attention to. And I was thinking that maybe – and I might be misdiagnosing the symptoms of OCD – that maybe that your brain would be wired in such a way that…

EISENBERG: Oh, yeah. Attention to detail.

GROSS: …You would have almost a need to obsess on details.

EISENBERG: Yeah, I guess so. But, you know, one of the other things about, like, being in the arts is learning to be flexible and learning to feel – like, Kieran Culkin in this movie didn’t want to stand on any marks, which means, you know, when you’re setting up a shot in a movie, the actor has to stand on their mark to deliver their lines. This is, like, kind of just standard practice. Kieran would never stand on a mark because he didn’t know what he was going to do or where he was going to walk or what he was going to be performing like. And so, for me, if I had, you know, some kind of strict compulsion to wanting the actors to all do my thing, the movie wouldn’t be good because it would be stifling our, you know, leading character, Kieran.

And so learning to be flexible is helpful. And in the arts, that’s really kind of paramount, you know, because you want the most creative, interesting idea to win. So when I’m writing the script, I have, I guess you could call it, some kind of compulsion to make sure everything is exactly what I want it to be. But I’ve learned – this is my second movie as a director, but I’ve also written and performed in several plays – that being flexible, or being open to being flexible at least, is probably the best way to get the best version of something.

GROSS: When Kieran Culkin refuses to stand on his mark, does part of you go into a panic?

EISENBERG: Yeah, like, the first the first few days, yeah, he told me, like, that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to get notes from you. I don’t want to rehearse or talk about the scenes. I was just panicked that he wasn’t going to know his lines because he speaks so quickly in the movie. And it has to go quick. Like, the movie wouldn’t work if he’s kind of stumbly with his dialogue. So I was just worried he wouldn’t know his lines. But he’s some kind of genius because he would come to set in the morning, and he would say – what scene are we shooting today? – which is, like, not the question you want to hear from your main actor. And I would say, it’s the five-page scene on the train.

GROSS: (Laughter).

EISENBERG: You have two monologues that have to be delivered at lightning speed. And he would go, oh, God. I remember that scene. It was so funny. Can I see the script? I’m like, oh, my goodness. So I show him the script. He looks at it. Terry, I’m totally – I’m being completely serious. He looks at the script for, like, a minute, and he’s word perfect.

EISENBERG: He just has some kind of weird memory bank where he’s able to learn lines really, really quickly and then forget about them the next day. So he was always great. And, you know, for me, you know, trying to direct him, it just felt like the movie’s going to be great if I let him kind of run around. You know, I don’t like dialogue improvisation. But if I can let him just be free and spontaneous, the movie will really soar. And the movie benefits from that because the really – the movie really is kind of, like, my perspective on my cousin. And it really works nicely when he is as hard to grasp for the audience as he is for me.

GROSS: Let me reintroduce you again. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Jesse Eisenberg. He wrote, directed and stars with Kieran Culkin in the film “A Real Pain,” which is streaming now on multiple platforms. We’ll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF RED HEART THE TICKER’S “SLIGHTLY UNDER WATER”)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my interview with Jesse Eisenberg. He wrote, directed and stars in the film “A Real Pain.” It’s about two cousins – the other is played by Kieran Culkin – who are on a Jewish heritage tour in Poland to see where their beloved late grandmother lived before she fled the Nazis and emigrated to the U.S.

I want to get back to your emotional state and how it may or may not have changed over the years. When you were young and were going to school, you’ve said that in first grade, you cried every day on the bus. What was your reaction to crying in front of all the other kids on the bus?

EISENBERG: You know, I cried, like, everywhere. And I guess at some point, I probably shed the embarrassment that most kids would’ve probably felt. I, you know, was kicked out of preschool before that ’cause I locked my mom in the closet ’cause I didn’t want to be away from my mom. And so I think…

GROSS: Whoa, whoa. Slow down (laughter).

EISENBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: You were kicked out of preschool because you locked your mom in the closet ’cause you didn’t want to be separated from her?

EISENBERG: Yeah. And I – so I probably, at some point, got over the probably expected humiliation a kid would have about kind of being very emotional in front of people. It’s kind of weird to think that that’s my job now. Like, I’m kind of, like, on sets with a lot of oftentimes very, you know, tough people, you know, like, crying in front of them, you know, in the movie or whatever. And, like, I didn’t want, like, attention or pity. I think I was just, like, so miserable. I couldn’t control myself. And I think I probably just – whatever – got over that. I don’t know.

GROSS: So I wasn’t like you when I was growing up, but I could cry pretty easily. And then when my parents would say, stop crying, or an alternate was, stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about (laughter)…

EISENBERG: Oh, God.

GROSS: And I think….

EISENBERG: Oh, my God.

GROSS: You know, and I thought – like, I didn’t have the words to express it then – but, like, that was so not helpful.

EISENBERG: No, of course not.

GROSS: It just makes you cry even harder.

EISENBERG: Of course.

GROSS: ‘Cause all this, like, anger is coming at you…

EISENBERG: Of course.

GROSS: …Like, stop it. And you know you can’t. It’s not – like, I’m not trying to cry (laughter).

EISENBERG: Right. Exactly.

GROSS: It’s not a willful thing. Did anybody ever tell you, stop crying?

EISENBERG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, my teacher – when I get to school, my teacher was – you know, actually, sorry. She was a nice, very – such a nice person. But I – you know, she even told me one day, Jesse, I had a bad weekend. Do not cry today. And I remember just, like, desperately trying to stifle it ’cause she had a bad weekend. I mean, and – sorry. It sounds like I’m presenting my teacher in a negative light. She was great. And I – goodness, I can’t imagine what it’s like to teach a kid who’s weeping every day. But I remember that pretty distinctly.

And, yeah, I mean, then, like, I had real – more emotional problems in sixth grade. And my parents were trying to take, like, a – you know, I – like, ’cause I missed a year of school ’cause I couldn’t be there and all that. And, like, you know, my parents were trying to kind of do both things of trying to, like, be sensitive to me while at the same time, like, trying to make me not fall into something inescapable. So, like, I was institutionalized. And then I couldn’t go back to school after that ’cause I just couldn’t be there. And I remember, like, my father – again, like, really nice parents, you know, sensitive people. But I remember my father was more of the school of, like, you should really just be going to school, and the more, kind of, like, we, as a family, like, allow you to, like, escape all the things that scare you, like, the worse you’ll get. And he was right ’cause, like, they pushed me back to school in seventh grade, and seventh grade was better for me. And I got better by just kind of, like – let’s say, just, like, normalizing rather than kind of, like, indulging in escaping.

GROSS: What was your experience like when you were in a mental health institution?

EISENBERG: It was crazy. It was so crazy. I was really going crazy. I mean, I tried to take the scissors out of the woman’s desk and hurt her. I don’t know. I was going crazy. So they kept bringing me to this, like, padded room or something. And, like, it was terrifying, and I couldn’t go in my room. Like, so I would sleep on the couch. I don’t know why they let me sleep on the couch in, like, the TV room thing. It was terrifying. Like, and I would go to the soft room, and they would, like, put their knee in my back and hold me back to restrain me. And it was just crazy. And it was, like, a swastika carved into my room. It was not directed to me at all – I’m sure carved in by a kid. I don’t think it was probably even antisemitically (ph) driven. I think it was just, like, a kid being, you know, bad in a place where they have a – you know, a pen and, you know, a wall.

And so, like, once my family was able to come back for, like, visiting day, I was, like, telling them, I can’t be here. I can’t be here. I’ll do better. I’ll do better. I’ll try it. Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll go to school. I’ll do whatever. And they were, like, not having it. And then I – like, I think I may have mentioned, like, there was a swastika on the wall. And that, for my mom, was like, oh, that’s not good. Like, but it, for whatever reason, was the thing that tipped my parents into, like, taking me out of there. And I was going home, and I was like, I think I should skydive. Like, I had this feeling on the way home. Like, I just love life. I was kissing the car.

GROSS: (Laughter).

EISENBERG: And I was kissing my sister’s arm hair. I mean, I was only in there for, like, a week. And then, like, you know, after, you know, a week or two being out, then you’re – like, you go back to the same problems. But the problem for me was, like, if I didn’t at least try to go to school – not to go to class, but to try to go to school and sit in, like, the therapist’s office at least for, like, three hours a day, then the feeling was like, well, then I have to go back to the institution. So the institution became this kind of bogeyman of, like, that’s where I have to go if I’m not going to at least try to sit in the school building for three hours a day.

GROSS: Well, I’m thinking of a couple of things. One is, like – well, I’m

GROSS: things. One is, like – well, I’m wondering if being inhibited is, like, the swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction…

EISENBERG: (Laughter) That’s really funny.

GROSS: …For acting out because you’re acting out in such extreme way…

EISENBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: …An extreme way, and inhibition is about holding things in.

EISENBERG: Yeah, that’s interesting. You know, I’m also shy. Yeah, I don’t know, but I think that more has to do with when I’m in groups of people that are very happy – I think probably like a lot of people in the arts, you know, you go to these, like, parties because you’re celebrated for your art thing. And you feel so out of place at these parties ’cause you just see people happy and laughing, and you just think, like, the world is so much more miserable than you’re behaving right now. Like, you’re behaving like the day before Rome fell or something. Like, don’t you know what’s happening?

And so I think a lot of people in the arts are sensitive people who, like, mine their own emotional lives to be in the arts. And then, of course, the great irony is that then when they are succeeding in the arts, they’re brought into all these worlds that were the thing that made them so uncomfortable that they got into the arts in the first place. And that’s certainly one of the experiences I’m having now ’cause my movie’s being celebrated and well received. And I find myself in these places and amongst groups of people that were my impetus for making a movie about people struggling with their, you know, own trauma versus the Holocaust. You know, so there’s some kind of irony there, and it certainly sums up probably a lot of my, you know, inner life.

GROSS: If you’re just joining us, my guest is Jesse Eisenberg. He wrote, directed and stars with Kieran Culkin in the new film “A Real Pain.” We’ll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BILL FRISELL’S “BEAUTIFUL BOY”)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my interview with Jesse Eisenberg. He wrote, directed and stars in the film “A Real Pain.” It’s about two cousins – the other’s played by Kieran Culkin – who are on a Jewish heritage tour in Poland to see where their beloved late grandmother lived before she fleed the Nazis and emigrated to the U.S.

Did becoming an actor really young change your thoughts about yourself or your ability to be around other people, your ability to be on your own, and to think that, like, you had something to contribute?

EISENBERG: Yeah. But even more than that, it was just being around adults. I started doing community theater in New Jersey and then theater in New York, where I would get to take the bus from New Jersey into New York. And I didn’t really have a sense that I was, like, contributing anything great. I mean, I was just in, you know, community theater productions of “Annie Get Your Gun.” But what I really…

GROSS: (Laughter).

EISENBERG: What was really great about it was I was with adults. And somehow, I just felt so much more comfortable not only being with adults, but being with adults who were all attracted to the arts. And especially when you’re working on the community theater level, it’s all people that feel outcast in every other part of the world. And that’s why they’re working, you know, after their job at AT&T during the day. They come, and, you know, they have their outlet at night.

And just being around people like that was just so life-changing and affirming and made me realize – you know what? – I think I’m going to be OK when I’m an adult ’cause I could see all these people are more like me. They’re not like the people I go to school with. These people are outcasts and weirdos and artists. And that just was, like – it was, you know, life-changing.

GROSS: I loved something you said about acting and why acting has been so helpful to you. You said you’re given a prescribed way of behaving. And so instead of having to figure out what to do in a situation, you’re playing a character who has a script, and you know how the character’s supposed to behave. You know what they’re supposed to say. And that, I guess, was relatively relaxing. Like, the pressure of acting was nothing compared to the pressure of being yourself.

EISENBERG: Still – I mean, it’s still amazing. Like, you know, when Kieran and I were working on “A Real Pain” together, like, we had this unbelievable, like, on-screen comfort with each other, like, because we were playing these two characters that were kind of, like, well-defined, and we liked our roles. And so it felt like I was – it felt like I knew this person forever.

And now Kieran and I are going to these, like, award shows together.And it’s like – it’s just not the same level of comfort with each other. Partly, it’s the venue. But also, it’s because when you’re playing a character and, like, it’s – he has license to hug me and push me and make fun of me and slap me. And I have license to kind of, like, be scared of him but also kind of lord my stability over him. In the movie, like, there’s – it’s just such a more comfortable relationship because the set of circumstances and the scenes dictate what we have to do. And to me, it’s just like, there’s nothing more comforting in the world.

GROSS: Your mother was a director and choreographer in a high school, among other things that she’s done. Was that helpful to you when you started acting?

EISENBERG: Yeah. So before I was born, she was, like, a choreographer in a Christian boys school in Philly while my dad was at Temple getting his degree. When I was growing up, though, she was a birthday party clown. So she did, like, birthday parties in the tristate area, you know? And so she would, you know, basically wake up every morning and, you know, tiptoe downstairs and tune her guitar. And she would be – you know, put on her makeup and her ridiculous outfit and her shoes and, you know, her pinwheel hat.

And so she was doing some, like, very, like, real absurdist performance, and so that was just normalized to me. So when I was, like, you know, acting or got into the arts – to me, like, the awkward leap that a lot of people have to make to, like, be on stage and do something – I’m using quotes – silly on stage – like, a lot of people find that to be, like, an awkward hump to get over, but for me, it was just totally natural because I grew up seeing that normalized, seeing silly behavior, not only normalized, but, like, professionalized.

And so it was kind of a seamless transition for me to be in the arts. Like, right now, I go on set, and I’m just totally un-self-conscious. I know I seem like a self-conscious kind of person as we’re speaking. But when I’m on a movie set, for some reason, I just give over to the story, and I let my emotions and imagination take me, and I’m happy doing anything. I’ve played villains in movies, and, you know, I played a body builder who joins a cult last year in a movie. And to me, I just – this stuff to me is so much more comforting than just trying to navigate normal stuff.

GROSS: Here’s something I’m curious about. So in the film “The Social Network,” you played Mark Zuckerberg. When you hosted “Saturday Night Live,” he did a bit with you. When he – when Zuckerberg does something that really makes news, especially when he does something that a lot of people really don’t like, like ending fact-checking on Meta…

EISENBERG: Yeah, I know what…

GROSS: …Do you feel personally connected to that? Like, what’s it like for you having played him?

EISENBERG: You know, as an actor, your job is to kind of, like, really understand your character, even if the character is, like, a villain in a movie. You know, your job is to defend your character, right? And so I spent a lot of time thinking about this guy and thinking about, you know, how he felt outcast in the world and created this thing in order to connect with other people because he felt just – he felt uncomfortable connecting with other people through more traditional social norms. And I, at the time, when I was acting in it, I thought, oh, this is wonderful and totally defensible. This is a guy who is ambitious because he has this great thing that he’s going to unleash on the world.

And when I see, like – you know, the news now, of course, is that, you know, they ended fact-checking or, you know, whatever – I’m like, oh, I wonder if that’s really an extension of that same person, a person whose, kind of, ambition, really, let’s say, supersedes their caution in a way that can be pretty dangerous. And now that the platform is so powerful and owns all these other things, you know, I guess I feel a little bit sad. Why is this the path you’re taking? And so I mostly just think of it that way, of, like, oh, this is that same person that I spent a long time, you know, humanizing and thinking about, you know, and trying to justify and defend his behavior.

GROSS: So I want to close with some music from the soundtrack of the film. There’s some beautiful Chopin music throughout the film. And were you familiar with that music before making the movie?

EISENBERG: Yes. I became, like, obsessed with Chopin’s music in 2008, when I visited Poland. My wife and I went to Chopin’s house, which is outside Warsaw. It’s a museum now. And I just became obsessed with the music because right after I did that trip, I wrote my first play, which took place in Poland, and I put Chopin’s music as the interstitial music in the play. And so I just – I went down a rabbit hole of so much of his work.

And so when I was writing this movie, “A Real Pain,” I was listening to his music, and I started putting his music in the scenes, in the script. I would say, like, over this scene, this track is playing, which turned out to be just wonderfully beneficial because on set, I would play the music that would be underscoring the scene so that the actors and that the cameraman had a feel for what the tone is going to be.

So I would give it to the dolly grip, which is the guy who pushes the camera and who sets the pace for the scene, and I would say, this is the song that’s playing underneath. So can we try to, you know, use this as, you know, as a guide for the pacing? So it was really, really wonderful and helpful, and I just – you know, I’m not a classical music buff, but I am a Chopin buff.

GROSS: Is there a piece you’d like to close with?

EISENBERG: Oh, my God, of course. I’m allowed to dictate that kind of thing?

GROSS: You mean what we close with?

EISENBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: Of course.

EISENBERG: That’s amazing. Right, so my favorite piece of his is “Opus 25 No. 1.” It’s the scene that plays over the ending of the movie. It’s also colloquially known as “Aeolian Harp.”

GROSS: Beautiful. It has been such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much.

EISENBERG: Thanks. What a privilege to speak to you, finally. Thank you.

GROSS: I’m so glad we did. Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed and stars in the film “A Real Pain.” It’s streaming on several platforms.

(SOUNDBITE OF TZVI EREZ’S PERFORMANCE OF CHOPIN’S “ETUDE OPUS 25, NO. 1 IN A FLAT MAJOR”)

GROSS: Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be Pamela Anderson. She became a pop culture phenomenon in the late ’80s, in part because of her role on the series “Baywatch.” But there’s much more to her than that. She’s received award nominations from the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild for her role in the new film “The Last Showgirl.” A Netflix documentary about her was nominated for an Emmy. I hope you’ll join us.

FRESH AIR’s executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our cohost is Tonya Mosley. I’m Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF TZVI EREZ’S PERFORMANCE OF CHOPIN’S “ETUDE OPUS 25, NO. 1 IN A FLAT MAJOR”)