Through Jesse Eisenberg’s Uncanny Lens, “A Real Pain” Brings Holocaust Remembrance Day into Focus and Gives Co-star Kieran Culklin an Oscar Advantage

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Friday, 14 February 2025 09:36

Written by Brad Balfour

Kieran Culkin, photo by Brad Balfour

Film: “A Real Pain”
Director/Writer: Jesse Eisenberg
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes

As I reflect on another Holocaust Remembrance Day now past, the film “A Real Pain” provides a reference. That’s a good thing because it offers a fresh way to look at the unthinkable, and a great way to keep the Holocaust in a viewer’s mind.
 
Thanks to Jesse Eisenberg’s uncanny script and the great casting choice he made in positioning Kieran Culkin as his cousin and co-star, the film rose to the top of the stew of all the films churning through the awards.
 
As the clock ticks down to March 2nd, Oscar night, co-star Culkin seems closer to getting that coveted award for Best Supporting Actor. He’s already gotten awards from Bafta, SAG, Critic’s Choice and a bunch of others. Ironic too, that the Oscar is likely to go to a good Irish Catholic kid who has the spotlight on him for work in a film that richly puts the spotlight on the Jewish experience of the Holocaust. 
 
This 2024 road comedy/buddy drama was written and directed by Eisenberg for an international co-production between Poland and the United States. It also stars Eisenberg and Culkin as mismatched Jewish-American cousins traveling to Poland to honor their late grandmother by visiting her childhood home and connecting with their heritage. 
 
A reserved and pragmatic father and husband, David Kaplan contrasts sharply with Benji Kaplan, a free-spirited and outspoken drifter. Their personalities clash as Benji criticizes David for losing his former passion and spontaneity, while David struggles with Benji’s unfiltered outbursts and lack of direction in life.
 
The pair are traveling as part of a Holocaust tour group composed of a retired married couple, a lonely divorcée, and a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who converted to Judaism. It is led by Britisher James, a knowledgeable yet detached gentile tour guide. 
 
The cousins’ dynamic is tested throughout the trip, from a missed train stop to a confrontation at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Lublin. While there, Benji critiques the tour guide’s lack of emotional authenticity and challenges its focus on facts and statistics — to David’s acute embarrassment. Benji nonetheless connects with the group members, who find themselves moved by his emotional honesty.
 
International Holocaust Remembrance Day this year (January 27) marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It was a somber day annually inviting people to remember the horrors the Holocaust imposed on the Jewish people — as well as upon many others. But in this time of rising antisemitism both on the right and left, it’s more important than ever to recall this moment in history — something that “A Real Pain” does in a unique way.
 
When Eisenberg thought of who would play the cousins, he first thought of himself but settled on Culkin who provided a fresh look at the characters and his actions during this trip. Long an acting veteran, Culkin started as a child in theater productions and then made his feature debut alongside his older brother, Macaulay, in the 1990’s Christmas comedy, “Home Alone.” He later reprised his role in its sequel, “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” (1992). 
 
Culkin had ranging roles in the “Father of the Bride” franchise (1991–2020), followed by his first lead in the coming-of-age drama “The Mighty” (1998). He played a sardonic teen in the comedy-drama “Igby Goes Down” (2002), which earned him his first Golden Globe Award nom. After much experience doing theater and various film roles, the 42-year-old gained major recognition for his portrayal of Roman Roy in the hit HBO family drama, “Succession” (2018–2023). As a result, he won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
 
Culkin has spoken about his part in “A Real Pain” at screenings. I was lucky to be in the audience as he was quizzed by a moderator shortly before Academy voting had ended. This Q&A is an edited version which provides insight into Culkin’s experience.

Q: Actors, or people in the industry, sometimes to get it, it takes a second or third time to see a movie before you really dig it. With this one, seeing it one more time was really great. 
 
Kieran Culkin: Oh, cool. I first saw it in a tiny screening room — it was just me. I remember thinking, “Yeah, I get it. I connect.” I didn’t know if anybody else was going to like this thing. Then, the next time I saw it was at Sundance with the crowd. I was like, “Oh, can other people like it?” That’s cool. It’s just not what my thing was.
 
Q: You usually play characters who have this cool upper hand, and you’re making fun of everyone else. 
 
Kieran Culkin: [My character] does it in this too, but I don’t think he ever properly has the upper hand. 
 
Q: It doesn’t come off that simply. It seems like you’re deflecting or trying to put some space between you and that person for safety. 
 
Kieran Culkin: Whatever used to sort of work, I feel like these tools are not really helping him anymore. 
 
Q: It’s a little stopgap or something. It’s just flipping the tables, turning them on you. 
 
Kieran Culkin: You expect me to do this, so I’m going to do that instead. It’s really, obviously, not helping him as much. He’s not anywhere I think he should be. 
 
Q: When you have a complicated role like this, do you feel like you’ve got the whole thing off the printed page? Or did you fill it in with your own [ideas]? What else do you have to do? 
 
Kieran Culkin: Yes, you do. But I think with this, I didn’t have to. I read it like a year before we shot it, belly laughing, and went, “I actually don’t know how Jesse did it without actually knowing the guy. There isn’t an actual person in his life that’s like this.” 
 
Q: Oh, there isn’t? 
 
Kieran Culkin: No, not really. He’s written characters like this, and certain elements of his personality are kind of like Benji’s personality –  but it’s based on certain people he has met … but not really. [This character] is completely from his obviously messed up brain. 
 
Q: I was wondering if it’s not his own alter ego? 
 
Kieran Culkin: Well, he wanted to play this part. He was going to play this part. He wrote it for himself. He was like, “I want the showy part. I want the fun.” He got talked out of it, and then was told to cast me by his sister, which is true. By the way, he’d not seen me in anything. That’s true. 
 
Q: He’s a mad man. 
 
Kieran Culkin: He’s not, no. But he told me when we were shooting that he hadn’t seen “Succession.” I  assumed he’d come to see a play I was in once or something. I was like, “You’ve seen me do theater?” He was like, “No.” I was like, “You’ve never seen my work in anything ever?” I was like, “You’re fucking weird.” He thinks this is normal. That’s his story and it could be total horseshit, but I don’t think he’s lying. I don’t know. Maybe he’s a good liar. He’s a good actor. None of those things are the same. 

But apparently he sent 10 pages of the script to his sister, and his sister said, this is who you should hire. Then he does it and acts like it’s totally … even today, he’ll be like, “I met you before.” I’m like, “We met like two or three times, in passing. Couple little handshakes, how do you do,” that kind of thing. It’s a weird way to cast somebody; it’s just a big leap of faith.
 
Q: Maybe his sister has some kind of supernatural hold.
 
Kieran Culkin: He really trusts her, I guess.
 
Q: Well, she was spot on.
 
Kieran Culkin: Yeah, well, but then when I read it, I was like, every moment was so funny because it was dead right, even though I don’t really know who this person is. 
 
Q: It rang true. 
 
Kieran Culkin: It was full. Every single moment. So when I finished reading [it], I was like, “I’m in and I don’t want to look at it.” I didn’t read it again until a year later, right before I got on a plane to Poland. I read it once, and had the exact same moment. I was like, “I actually don’t want to talk about it” but he’s cool with it. I know he won’t rehearse it, because it’s right there. And some stuff comes out, like sometimes taking one or two. I’m like, not quite word perfect. I’m sort of playing with the shit, whatever. But once we got there, it was the same. 
 
Q: So you did no rehearsal? 
 
Kieran Culkin: Almost none, almost none. There were some technical rehearsals and things like that. 
 
Q: Have you always been like that? 
 
Kieran Culkin: No. “Succession” sort of started that. We did these big table scenes. There were certain rehearsals that we would have to do, but if we didn’t have to, you just shoot the rehearsal thing, and then we find a lot of shit in there. So I started doing that. But you can only do it, I think, if the writing is really, really good.
 
Q: That’s true. 
 
Kieran Culkin: You can’t just … it’s not like, “Oh, something’s not here, but we’ll find it.” Then you can’t do that. If it’s there, we don’t need to talk about it too much, because it’s there. Just go out there, and you can play. 
 
Q: How do you then prepare? Are you just one of those people who learns lines sort of by osmosis? 
 
Kieran Culkin: Really fast, and because it makes sense to me. I was like, “I literally don’t have any questions about this character.” I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who goes to therapy and thinks about analyzing himself. I don’t think he is fully aware of his feelings or why he does this, or why would I? Why did David get diagnosed, and he’s medicated? Why would you even do that to yourself? You’re a different person now. Shouldn’t you just accept who you are? It doesn’t make sense, but that’s the kind of guy he is. 

So when I approached him, I didn’t want to analyze him either. I wanted to know as much about Benji as he would know about himself. I would go there and be like … often I wouldn’t know what we were shooting that day. I wouldn’t even look at it. I would sort of go like, “Well, what’s my call time? Okay, 5 a.m., fine.” Get there, put some crap in my hair, put the clothes on, and then ask him, like, “What are we shooting today?” 
 
Q: So you had, just from reading it a few times, you had learned the story. And what about the lines on it? 
 
Kieran Culkin: The lines come fast when they’re really, really well written. 
 
Q: When they’re apt.
 
Kieran Culkin: Yeah. And the same with “Succession.” I would do that, too. Oddly like you said, “What scene are we doing?”
 
Q: It’s so easy to do when it’s a part, whether it’s big or small, that’s been really fleshed out by the writer and really full. If you’re playing a small part, you’d think it would be easier to just learn lines and regurgitate them on cue.
 
Kieran Culkin: No, that’s the hardest. It’s like every seven pages you have one line. That’s the hardest frickin’ thing to learn. [Audience laughs] It is. It’s true. It’s like, why is this guy missing his cue? It’s like, oh, fuck, sorry, shit. It’s like, I’m thinking about dinner because I don’t talk for 10 minutes. 
 
Q: When you’re playing a small part, you’re on set one day, and then two weeks go by. You might go outside the pattern.
 
Kieran Culkin: Yeah, you’re out of rhythm. 
 
Q: When you have a biggish part, you can kind of relax. A director said something that was really smart: “I don’t think an actor should ever feel relaxed. It’s helpful to have adrenaline and be nervous and be alert. However, what you’re seeking is to feel released.” Kieran Culkin is the most released actor for good or worse. You’re a bit of an inspiration about that, because you’re really, really free. How do you do that?
 
Kieran Culkin: I don’t know. Some people learn lines. [The actor] Alan Ruck was always word perfect. He learned lines really fast. 
 
Q: Well, fuck him. [Audience and Kieran laughs].
 
Kieran Culkin: I know. Then there’s Fisher [Stevens, an actor also in “Succession”}, who says, I’ll never learn a line in my life. He said that to me. He’s like, “I’ve tried, I can never learn a line.” 
 
Q: He comes off well. 
 
Kieran Culkin: He does. He’s still really good. It’s like, all right. He’s released in his own way.
 
Q:  You said your lines pretty much right in this film. 
 
Kieran Culkin: I hope so. 
 
Q: Did you do any improv in this film? 
 
Kieran Culkin: I think things just eked through. There’s one line that Jesse always brings up in a Q&A that only makes us laugh. It’s really buried. I don’t remember saying it to him. He told me when he was in the editing room. He was like, “It’s too funny. I’m not going to put it in.” But he did put it in the movie, which is at the cemetery. He interrupts me. I turn to him and say, “David, have a seat. Text your wife.” He took it at that moment as me mocking him for having a wife. I don’t remember saying it but I must have thought, “He was going to obey my commands.” Oh, OK. Just sit down. Finish being weird today.
 
Q: There’s that thing that his character is David, right? David sort of belongs to people. You’re kind of a free agent floating around in the universe, sitting in an airport. He has to check in with his boy and his wife and wants to.
 
Kieran Culkin: Yeah. But when you say improv, I definitely wouldn’t view it as improv if things eke out. Improv to me implies that it’s, “Hey, let me come up with this funny thing.” And it’s always a joke. It’s always to try to enhance. It’s not that. We’d dick around a bit. Or he would say, “Go talk to them.” I would go, “What do you want me to say?” And he’d go, “I’m just going to talk to this guy.” 

He would say, “I’m not going to use it.” And there were certain points where there wasn’t a mic. Or he would tell me the mic’s off. And with Jennifer Gray — it was the first day of shooting — he told me to go up and talk to her. I said, “What do you want me to say? He goes, “Say anything. I’m not going to use it.” The point of the scene is that you’re connecting with people and I don’t know how. I went, “Okay.” So I went up and said, “Why are you walking alone, you fucking loser?” He told me that he wasn’t going to use that. And then he did. [Audience laughs] But that’s not improv. That’s just like, “OK, I’m going to go talk to her. I just don’t know what to talk to her about.”
 
Q: It’s like you’re shooting on location somewhere. The first week you’re there, you have to use your GPS to find your Airbnb. Then, after you’ve been there a while, you’re beginning to relax. You’re beginning to own your job and feel at home. You know the way home. You’ve made some neural connections when you weren’t even looking. You drive into the parking lot and you’re like, “Did I stop at that stop sign, even?” Because it was so, it was there. 

Kieran Culkin: You’re describing the process of working on a play. 
 
Q: Doing a play or having a big part in a movie, some people mark up their scripts and learn everything. [Some are] too lazy to do that, but try to do it. That’s one model.
 
Kieran Culkin: I used to do that. I used to be off-book for months, and would be off-book on every character in the script before the movie would start. 
 
Q: Knowing it well can set someone free. But some people don’t want to know it well. They feel nailed down.
 
Kieran Culkin: I learned that on “Succession.” Because, again, you can only do that if the writing’s good. Sometimes there are people [who go], “I don’t really know this, but they basically said we’re rolling.” I’m like, “Fuck it, here we go.” There’s a group scene. Then sometimes the person would set up. For me, anyway, if I completely let myself go and I’m like, “I’ve got no parachute.” Then somebody would ask the question and go, “What’s that response here? I think it’s this.”
 
It just sort of came out, because I’ve read it a couple of times, even if it was a couple days ago. But I do think that’s because the writing is that good, so when you read it, it has rhythm and a flow. You’re somewhat aware of what that rhythm and flow is. So even if you don’t really know it, you kind of know it.
 
Q: If you have a meaty part, be it big or small, that’s really developed, it’s easier to learn what they answer here. 
 
Kieran Culkin: I just started rehearsals on a play, and the thing that used to make me feel really free … I have lots of time to learn this. We’re going to discuss it for weeks. And then I get to hone in on every little word. Now I’m on day four, and I’m petrified that I’m going to get bored. I actually know now. I was scared of that going in but it was like, already on day four, I’ve read it once, and I’ve read it four times, and it’s come out differently four times. I’m like, “Oh, this is a completely different kind of muscle that I haven’t used in a while.”
 
Q: You’re going in and experiencing this whole bit about the Holocaust, and about Poland. It’s not like you’ve been living the Holocaust or in Poland. What did you learn? And how did you use that to help inform you to develop your character, in reaction to the Holocaust in Poland? And not just as Jesse Eisenberg’s version, but your own filter. 
 
Kieran Culkin: It’s good. Okay, yeah, about that experience. Firstly, I really did appreciate the way that he wrote it and wanted to shoot at Majdanek [concentration camp]. It was quite simple, even in the script. It was: the characters walk into this room, and they take this in, and that’s it. That was also how we shot it. We didn’t see the room until we were walking in. They were rolling, usually one take, two takes. 
 
It felt weird if we did scene work or anything like that. It was literally just taking it. As far as what I learned or whatever, I was trying to go through it as the character did. When people ask me how Poland was, I’m like, “I didn’t see it.” Whatever you saw Benji seeing, that’s how I experienced Poland. That was like, usually we did six to eight weeks, and then on the seventh day we’re traveling, and there wasn’t much to take in. So I took that in. 
 
For me, Benji is not that curious about necessarily where their grandma came from, or even exploring that kind of pain. He misses his friend, and this is an excuse to connect with the only person left that he feels actually knows him and can kind of see him. He just lost one. And that’s all it was. That’s why there’s that little bit in the airport where he hands me the itinerary to look at. 
 
I actually don’t even understand what it means, because I don’t care. It’s just I’m hanging out with you, and trying to connect. I’m always asking him how he’s feeling, about how he’s really feeling. So I didn’t have to concern myself with that. I just wanted to be with Davey. I don’t know if that answers it. I think it does. 
 
Q: How about the Holocaust part of it?
 
Kieran Culkin: Yeah, but that’s what I mean. I think, to him, that wasn’t the point of the trip. For him, it was to connect in a way with that pain. I think sometimes when he connects with that pain, it was almost too much for him. That’s why he’s like, “Let’s get high and hang out.” I want to hang out with my friend because that’s the thing that I can understand and let’s focus on your feelings because I sort of can’t deal with whatever this is. 
 
Q: It’s unbelievable that you two had never met or worked together because you look like you’ve known each other your whole lives, which is incredible. 
 
Kieran Culkin: He’s freaking right. I’m telling you that was the case.
 
Audience1: It was a beautiful story. Good luck against Jeremy Strong. 
 
Kieran Culkin: Jeremy’s brilliant. Have you seen “The Apprentice”? He’s brilliant. Okay, thank you.
 
Q: What was it like transitioning from a child actor into an adult? What do you think contributed to your success?
 
Kieran Culkin: The latter part. The first part, I feel like they’re two completely different things. Whatever I did as a kid, I feel like doesn’t apply at all now in the same way that it did, A couple years ago I was like, “I want to get into voice acting. That looks like a piece of piss. Hard as hell.” It’s a totally different muscle that I don’t have and I’m working on right now. It’s just like a totally different thing.

Whatever you’re doing as a kid –– or at least, whatever my developing brain at six and seven was doing –– is not what I do now. But the benefits of that are things like… I think that’s why I learn lines fast. That’s why I know where my mark generally is. And, I know this from “Succession,” I ask not to have marks because I know where I’m supposed to stand. You don’t need to tell me where. It’s like, you know, there’s things like that. 
 
I’ve had so much experience on a set. So I know that if I wanted to ask someone what time of day it is, or how long we’ve been here, I know to go to the script supervisor and ask them. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I feel comfortable going directly to the prop master and asking for things like that. There’s that stuff that’s good that I’ve been doing for so long. Being comfortable in front of not only where the camera is and carrying that, but in terms of the other thing. 
 
Q: As your character, what was that point where you felt like, “Okay, this is too much pain?” What was that moment that stopped so you wouldn’t keep feeling like Benji? 
 
Kieran Culkin: That I wouldn’t keep feeling…? 
 
Q: You were more focused on being focused with your cousin rather than the Holocaust. So if that came up in the moment –– like with the train scene when you’re breaking down crying –– what was that moment where you were like, “I shouldn’t be going this far?”
 
Kieran Culkin: He’s such a contradiction in his crazy little brain noggin. He wants to feel everything as much as he possibly can, but he also doesn’t really understand it. He doesn’t really know how to process it but he thinks he’s better off for it. “I’m going to cry. What’s wrong with you, David? If you’re not feeling anything, there’s something wrong with you.” David’s actually got his life together in a way. Benji’s not altogether wrong. The way Jesse always puts it, about putting the question about you’re putting this person’s pain up against the backdrop of the trauma that their family has gone through. 
 
What is a real pain? He’s like “I don’t have an answer and I’m not proposing [one]. I’m not trying.” He’s throwing it out there. I don’t really think Benji’s completely wrong in his approach. I mean, he hasn’t really got his shit together but I don’t know that David’s approach isn’t necessarily right either. This is not really a full answer. But I think it’s like there was no, “I think that’s too much for him and he needs to pull back” [moment]. I think he really wants to feel everything. He just doesn’t know how to process it or use it in any sort of useful way. If that makes sense. I wish we had time for more shit. Fuck! [Audience laughs.]

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