Is ‘Red One’ the Worst Movie of the Year? Plus: ‘A Real Pain’ With Jesse Eisenberg!

Sean is joined by Joanna Robinson to assess why the hell ‘Red One’ is so awful (1:00) and try to make sense of the Rock’s baffling movie career. Then, they discuss ‘A Real Pain,’ Jesse Eisenberg’s new movie about a pair of cousins who go to Poland for a Holocaust tour (25:00). They then each share their top five two-handers in movie history (1:00:00). Finally, Sean is joined by Eisenberg to discuss the film, his evolution as not just an actor but a director, casting and working with Kieran Culkin, and more (1:19:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Joanna Robinson and Jesse Eisenberg Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  I'm Yasi Solak and I'm here to announce a brand new season of my Ringer original podcast, Bandsplain, the show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists to you and yours. This time, babe, we're going across the pond. That's right, I'm absolutely chuffed to be talking about the music scenes of 80s and 90s Britain. I'm talking Madchester, I'm talking baggy, I'm talking shoegaze, I'm talking Britpop, mate. So tune in every Thursday starting November 7th for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 0:32Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not-so-great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that: bullspend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO?

• 1:17Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:50Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Jewish cousins and Christmas junk. Later in this episode, Jesse Eisenberg returns to the show after many years to talk about his second film as director. It's called A Real Pain. It's an Oscar contender and one of my favorite movies of the year. I've always loved Jesse as an actor, long Time listeners of the show know about my deep and abiding affinity for the social network Adventureland, the squid and the whale, just a few of Jesse's performances. This new movie is really impressive. You know, Jesse's always been incredibly smart and quick witted. I don't know if I knew he had this in him as a filmmaker. Joanna Robinson is here to talk to me about a real pain before we get into my conversation with Jesse. And also about Red One, which is a new film.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35Sean Fennessey?

  Hi Joanna, how are you?

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm thrilled beyond belief to talk to you about my favorite film of the year, Red One. Cannot wait.

• 2:45Sean Fennessey?

  Shall I set the stage on Red One?

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Please do.

• 2:48Sean Fennessey?

  This is the new movie from Jake Kasdan, son of Larry Kasdan. Started out his career writing funny, clever, small comedies like The TV Set and Zero Effect. And is now the director of big tent pole franchise films like Red One and the Jumanji films. This movie was written by Chris Morgan, who's probably best known for his contributions to the Fast and the Furious franchise movies. Not my favorite franchises, listeners of the show are aware. This movie stars Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Chris Evans and J.K. Simmons as Santa Claus. So what we have here is a big, noisy, aspiring tent pole movie from Amazon. I want to tell you about how I saw the movie, but Joanna, first, did you, what did you, what did you think of Red One? Did you like this movie?

• 3:32Speaker 02

  I saw it at 10 a.m. at a theater that served me a Bloody Mary at the same time, which was, I think, setting me up for the most successful version of watching this movie that I could enjoy. Um, I, my main question throughout, and I'm curious if you have an answer for this is, who is this movie for? Because I think going into something like this, like Red One, we have to, you know, we know that it's not for us. So then you, as you know, you have to like judge the movie on, okay, who are, who are we aiming for? And is it a successful movie for those people? And I just find myself confused as to who this movie is aimed at. What do you, what was your experience, Sean?

• 4:14Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'm so glad you drank alcohol during your viewing. I did the same. Um, you know, there's a movie about. Santa Claus being kidnapped and a Santa Claus who works in a highly industrialized version of the North Pole, which we can talk about for a bit. You know, I had to go see this movie for work. I wouldn't say this was like high on my list of films. There's been a lot of discussion recently on the dwindling cinematic prospects of Dwayne Johnson, a person whose wrestling career is quite meaningful to me and I'm a huge fan of, and whose film career has gotten worse as the days have gone on.

• 4:51Sean Fennessey?

  A funny thing happened. One, I got a text message from our friends Griffin and David from the Blank Check Podcast and Alex Ross Perry. I'm on a text chain with them and they said, Sean, did you see Red One? Griffin had seen it and he said, I suspect a patented fantasy meltdown is incoming. I hadn't seen it yet. I had made plans to see it by myself after putting my daughter to bed. And for whatever reason, my wife was like, I'd like to go to the movies with you tonight. So we went together. We got a sitter last minute and we went together to go see Red One. We went to an Alamo Drafthouse.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Date night for Red One.

• 5:29Sean Fennessey?

  We had a date night for Red One. My wife and I haven't been to the movies together. I guess we saw Vertigo over the summer for my birthday, but before that it had probably been over a year. This was our number one activity together before we had a family.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:41Sean Fennessey?

  So Eileen wanted to go to Alamo Drafthouse because she has a big relationship to that place and she said she's never seen a bad movie in an Alamo Drafthouse.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:54Sean Fennessey?

  Which I think means that she's gotten drunk during every visit she's had to Alamo Drafthouse. Because she rattled off some of the names and you know, she saw, 2019 was a big Alamo Drafthouse year for her because her office was next door to the downtown Los Angeles branch and 2019 was a great movie year. So you could see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, you could see Uncut Gems, you could see Ford versus Ferrari, you could see Marriage Story, you could see a number of different films. She saw a lot of them, but she also saw films like Harriet. She was like, I thought Harriet was wonderful. She saw Judy. She was like, I thought Judy was wonderful. And it's because she always had at least two sommelier blocks when she was sitting down and watching a movie. But she was like, if I go with you to see Red One, because I've never seen a bad movie at an Alamo, Red One will be good.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  It will be good by extension.

• 6:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And so we went and

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Did you drive to the theater or did you take a ride share knowing you were gonna get trashed at the Alamo?

• 6:48Sean Fennessey?

  We did drive because I'm, I'm not gonna get trashed. I will have one drink when I do something like that, but I will not, I won't have more than one drink in an Alamo.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:55Sean Fennessey?

  But I drove and we went and I was pretty mortified, like within 15 minutes of what we were watching, but I turned to her. About 45 minutes in and she was like, I, this is pretty good.

• 7:09Sean Fennessey?

  And she was on drink too. And, um, you know, she was wrong in this case, like God love her. She's the most important person in the world to me, but I don't know what she was smoking because this movie is terrible. Um, it's, it's really dreadful.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  I saw it with a dear friend who I knew was the person to take because she loves, uh, she loves the Fast and Furious franchise. She loves any action movies. She loves the entire Rock Oovra. I was like, this is the person who I have the best chance of enjoying this with. And sure enough, she was like quasi delighted and laughing throughout, though at the end when I said, who do you think this is for? She could not answer it for me. So because the question is, is this a movie for kids? No, because it's a PG 13 movie and there's just like swearing, a lot of swearing in it. And I'm not a prude about that sort of thing, but some people are, so I wouldn't call it like a movie for kids.

• 8:04Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  But how is this in a movie for adults is my question on the other side of that.

• 8:10Sean Fennessey?

  I guess it's for 14 year old boys who believe in Santa Claus.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  And people like Marvel movies, perhaps, but we like some Marvel movies.

• 8:19Sean Fennessey?

  We do. It is mythology coded, though, for sure. It is like this is IP, even though this is an original story. It is intending to be IP. So I guess it's trying to graft off of that audience and the Fast and the Furious audience and the Jurassic World audience, you know?

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Did I interrupt the meltdown incoming? Because I don't want to deprive Griff of, you know, one of the dwindling joys in our lives.

• 8:42Sean Fennessey?

  I mean.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  The fantasy meltdown.

• 8:44Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't have a meltdown in me because I'm not sure if this movie is really worth getting my dander up for. Like, it's just, it's just bad and it's, it's misplayed. You know, like the movie itself is, it's meant to be in a particular tone and that tone is to be circa 2017 Marvel style, wisecracking guys getting shit done on a mission. And they come from a big apparatus. They live in a big tower, like in the Avengers Tower. And somebody's come along and they're going to mess up their plan and they got to fix it. And in this case, you've got two different kinds of guys who are thrown together and their opposite energies brings them together to form up. This is a Captain America and Iron Man. They do things differently, but they got to come together to figure it out.

• 9:30Sean Fennessey?

  Except Chris Evans, like, got the memo. I don't know if we could disagree whether he's good or not in the movie, but he's in a movie that's like, what we are here to do is wisecrack and fight mythological creatures. And The Rock thinks he's in like Gallipoli. He thinks he's in like a serious drama about the warfare that has been incurred upon the North Pole. And he's playing this part so sternly, it's genuinely weird.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Because I, I actually think the fault there is Chris Evans because this is the mode he did in Jumanji, but he was bouncing off of Jack Black and Kevin Hart, which are bringing like such antique energy. And that's not what Chris Evans is doing here. Chris Evans is like misthreading the needle between dirtbag and likability in a way that like, I don't think he does either quite successfully, you know? Like he can do dirtbag and knives out and he can do likability in Captain America and he's trying to do both here and just completely misses. I actually think the only, there's two people I think who know what movie they're in. And it's Christopher, Christopher Hayview from Game of Thrones, who plays Krampus.

• 10:37Sean Fennessey?

  He's very funny.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Under a lot of prosthetics. I actually think he's genuinely delightful. And Bonnie Hunt, who's barely in the movie, but I think does know what movie she's in. Misuse of Bonnie Hunt. Bring back Bonnie Hunt. I would like to see more of her, but she does know what movie she's in. Lucy Liu might as well not have been there. I don't understand why you hire Lucy Liu to do absolutely nothing in a film. So that's, that's just where I am. I agree. I mean, like, I agree. It's not, it's not even so bad. It's good in a fun way. Um, it's just confusing and kind of ugly in its special effects. And when we're fighting like three giant snowmen uh on a beach somewhere.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Again, I'm just wondering who this movie is while swearing, who is this movie for? So it makes you sound like I'm a prude about swearing. I'm not. I'm just like, if this is the Santa Claus, a movie that I think you and I are just like a little too old for.

• 11:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  But if this is the Santa Claus in like when it came out, you and I were just like a little too old, but that it like that. A, a generation loves the Santa Claus.

• 11:40Sean Fennessey?

  A crowd pleaser for kids who are five years younger than us.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, they get it like, and they love it. And I'm like, if this were aimed at that audience, I would understand it, but it's not. It's aimed at teens and like, it got decent laughs in my theater. So maybe it's just. We're way far out of the loop of what it is a mainstream audience wants from a Christmas movie, but like I, I just didn't understand it at all.

• 12:05Sean Fennessey?

  There were only two other people in my screening on a Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening at the Alamo Drafthouse. Um, I don't know. I feel like I need to point out a couple of other things about the movie. One, the, the, the way that Christmas in the North Pole is framed is very strange and feels very post Marvel, post Fast and the Furious, which is that. In this world. Christmas is a corporatized machine that emphasizes efficiency, a kind of military structure, security. We see Santa Claus weight training for extended period of time in the film. He's a weight, a bodybuilder, Santa Claus. And then rehearsal is critical. So this is like the Secret Service, the CIA, or maybe like a big corporation like Amazon,

• 12:50Sean Fennessey?

  which is the company that has produced this movie.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 12:52Sean Fennessey?

  This is also a movie about the delivery of packages to homes in the most efficient manner possible.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  How many drones does it take to support Santa and his quest?

• 13:02Sean Fennessey?

  Well, there are elves in this circumstance, but in any other case, there's a, it's very easy to be tremendously skeptical of the, at least like the point of view of what Christmas is, which is not this. It is not the rock crunching bones on screen, the bones of ancient mythological demigods. It's either religion, or if you are godless like me, it's a time to be together with people that you care about. This movie is none of those things.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  It's not about Coca-Cola? I thought that's what Christmas is supposed to be about. No, but I, I take your meaning entirely, and I feel like the weightlifting stuff is just so that J.K. Simmons can be like, look, I got shredded that one time and I've kept it. So that's what that's there for.

• 13:43Sean Fennessey?

  It looks good.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  But I, but I did find the, the delivery sequence genuinely like chilly, like just really tough that this is, this is, it's not magic. It's not about magic. It's not about belief. Ostensibly, the message of this film is that anyone on the naughty list can get off the naughty list and be nice.

• 14:00Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think about that?

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Um, I mean.

• 14:03Sean Fennessey?

  That's the animating idea of the movie, is that not, people are not all bad. And if they see the light, they can become good and we shouldn't cash out on them. I, I thought about this while I watched it. Is that right?

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Yes, isn't it? Or does it feel wrong to you in 2024?

• 14:21Sean Fennessey?

  Are you feeling like redemption and decency are on the menu in the United States of America right now?

• 14:27Speaker 02

  On this particular week? No, I'm not. It's not the perfect time for me to be receptive to that message. And the idea is that inside every sort of cynical or, I don't know, crime fluent adult like Chris Evans, there is a small child who was wounded by something. And if we can just see that small child in them, then we can all come together in common cause, which is capitalism. But I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. And I don't understand. You have this in the notes, you didn't say it, but like Chris Evans, his like speciality among like various other petty crimes is finding people. And this is something that a talent he has had since he was a child.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  He declares, I can find anything or anyone as a child.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  That's just a bit of mythology of this character that I don't understand. My question to you, my biggest question to you is if this makes a ton of money, which it's making some money, but not a ton of money, are we getting read to? Like, is that, is that happening?

• 15:33Sean Fennessey?

  Well, who would be kidnapped in that storyline? Would it be Mrs. Claus? Would it be Bonnie Hunt?

• 15:40Speaker 02

  If it means more Bonnie Hunt, not less Bonnie Hunt, I would be in favor.

• 15:44Sean Fennessey?

  I would welcome more. I mean, the movie made $34 million in the United States. It didn't do that well overseas the weekend prior. I think there was a bit of a bungling here by not opening this on November 8th, when actually the world could have sought some respite from the world's news, you know? People, I think there was some concern that like the election was going to take place over the course of three days in terms of vote counting, and that obviously was not the case. So there was this big fat window where like Heretic was the only new movie that came out. And now this movie is about to lose all the premium screens and a lot of screens because of Wicked and Gladiator 2 and soon Moana 2. And so like, I think this movie basically was made to be on in the background of teenagers' bedrooms on Christmas Day. And it will be on Prime before December 25th.

• 16:27Sean Fennessey?

  And that's sort of where it's destined to live forever.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  I don't, I mean, like, I understand why Bill and Van and like had the conversation about The Rock's career. And I understand why that's the conversation. I feel like the bigger takeaway from this is like, what is Chris Evans doing with the constant post Marvel squandering of goodwill?

• 16:45Sean Fennessey?

  Can I give you my very brief Rock thoughts?

• 16:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, please, please.

• 16:48Sean Fennessey?

  He already knows that he's screwed this up. And obviously he's been making The Smashing Machine, this new movie with Benny Safdie this year. And, you know, it's Benny's first movie as a solo director. And Josh is also doing a movie as a solo director with Chalamet. And The Rock is starting to rebuild his reputation as an artist, I guess, for lack of a better word, because he knows that he has strayed way too far off into the lands of Hollywood IP mediocrity. You know, Jungle Cruise and the Fast movies and Hobbs and Shaw and Jumanji and everything that he's been doing for the last 10 years.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  What's the height of The Rock's artistic career? Is it pain and gain? Like, is that as high as we go?

• 17:25Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I am a fan of that movie. That movie is divisive. Um, I think the rundown is probably the closest he came to perfecting what he should be up to, which is using his physicality, but also using his personality to make like a genuinely entertaining kind of like boots on the ground action movie.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  I love his rules.

• 17:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great movie. So I wish he did more of those. He's done some other good movies over the years. And like I said, I'm genuinely a fan of his. Like, and he's really smart and funny. I've told this story before about how there was like a mishap at the Hobbs and Shaw premiere, where the power went out in some of the seats and some of the lighting circumstances. So some people had to be evacuated. So he had to get on stage and like soft shoe for 20 minutes and entertain people before the movie started. And he was fucking amazing. He was so funny and charming for that period of time. So I'm a believer, but I really feel like he has squandered 10 years at the movies, Moana notwithstanding. And it's disappointing. Chris Evans, you know more about this than I do. But he is another guy who, not only is he talented, but exhibited great taste. I mean, this season, Snowpiercer, he's in Knives Out, he's been in some really good movies, Sunshine.

• 18:23Sean Fennessey?

  Like really good films made by auteurs while also doing the Marvel thing and doing it well. His, Hasty Rogers is great. What happened?

• 18:32Speaker 02

  I think he's, I think his mistake. Is, because I think Knives Out and Snowpiercer are like excellent examples of what he can do outside of Marvel. And I think his mistake is making Marvel-esque movies outside of the Marvel machine and that just not working for him or making the impact. And so then it just, it doesn't feel like those movies exist at all. And so then his CV starts to feel empty, like completely devoid of post Marvel choices because what he's making is so forgettable. So I think he should, I think he's trying to swing in familiar territory. And I think he should continue to sort of, you know, try something farther afield because I think he's quite capable in those other options. You know what I mean?

• 19:14Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think of him in Deadpool and Wolverine? Did you like that?

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I mean, it was brief and it was fun. Did you not like it?

• 19:19Sean Fennessey?

  No, I did. I did.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:21Sean Fennessey?

  I did. I mean, it was, it's an example of like what you just described, but actually in a Marvel movie as opposed to, you know, Ghosted, where he's kind of affecting a Marvel persona in just a regular old crime movie.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Right. And Ghosted feels like it doesn't exist.

• 19:33Sean Fennessey?

  It does. A hundred percent. Same, same for Pain Hustlers, which I didn't hate, but it's just like, is there any consciousness about that movie whatsoever, even though it stars him and Emily Blunt?

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Right. Exactly.

• 19:43Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it's, it's, it's a shame. I mean, the other question to ask here is, do people even want Christmas movies from big studios anymore? Because when we were growing up, obviously, you know, you've got your Miracle on 34th Streets and It's a Wonderful Life. And there's this long history of Hollywood's relationship to, you know, White Christmas and Holiday Inn and all these films that you, when you're growing up, they're on AMC.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:05Sean Fennessey?

  And then in the nineties, there's the boom, there's the sort of post Home Alone boom of films. And you've got a Miracle on 34th Street remake. And you've got Arnold Schwarzenegger getting in the mix with the Jingle All the Ways. Christmas movies were like stock and trade for Hollywood.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Love Actually.

• 20:18Sean Fennessey?

  Love Actually, yes. But I'm glad you brought up Love Actually and Elf, because Love Actually and Elf, both movies that came out in 2003, feel like the last two movies that are really in like a kind of Hollywood Christmas canon.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  I would say the holidays sort of eked in, uh.

• 20:34Sean Fennessey?

  I hate that movie. I'm sorry.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, but people love that movie and watch it every year. So.

• 20:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I, I, I'm not, I'm not a Nancy Meyers hater, but I really think that movie is a failure. Just, that's just me.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  I think that movie is a 50% of success. The same way I feel about Julia and Julia. There's like half a good movie in there.

• 20:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's what's so what half of of

• 20:51Speaker 02

  It's Kate Winslet and Jack Black. It's just charm.

• 20:55Sean Fennessey?

  I like that they go to the video store. That's all I can really remember.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  The it's about the art of cinema.

• 21:01Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  It's about honoring the meet cute and film composers.

• 21:05Sean Fennessey?

  Who is it Eli Wallach that?

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, that part is gay. You're right, that part is good. I like that.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  That part's great.

• 21:11Sean Fennessey?

  Couple of other Holly Christmas movies in the last 10 years that like didn't totally get there. Uh, the night before the Seth Rogen movie, which is okay.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  I had such high hopes for that.

• 21:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's okay. Uh, Best Man Holiday, which I like, but didn't really it's a sequel to a movie. Happiest season, did you like that? The Kristen Stewart movie?

• 21:29Speaker 02

  No, and I really, really wanted to. I really, really wanted to.

• 21:33Sean Fennessey?

  But it's not it didn't really it was like a streaming movie and now it doesn't really feel like it exists either. Um, it does have its fans.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  What it did is it made Aubrey Plaza a gay icon, which has served her very well since, so.

• 21:44Sean Fennessey?

  Do that. How was Agatha? Yeah, I know you finished that.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Wonderful.

• 21:48Sean Fennessey?

  Was it?

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, truly great.

• 21:50Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  I actually think you would like it. I genuinely do.

• 21:53Sean Fennessey?

  What did you like better Agatha or the Penguin?

• 21:55Speaker 02

  And you've watched neither?

• 21:56Sean Fennessey?

  I've started both.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  I think you would prefer the Penguin.

• 22:00Sean Fennessey?

  Because I'm a bro?

• 22:01Speaker 02

  No, because I think what it's swinging for is closer to your taste in in the like sort of prestige TV prestige film realm. And Agatha is swinging towards musicals and sort of like The Craft and Buffy Vampire Slayer, stuff like that, which is, I think, a little less in your particular lane. But I think they both. I'm, uh, I'm sorry to bring, uh, House of R over here, though you did ask, but I do think that those are two of the most successful IP swings on television we've had in recent years. And it feels like people were so burnt out on all the misses that came before it that they maybe didn't give them the chance they deserved.

• 22:45Sean Fennessey?

  I'm I'm I was a little disappointed by doing prophecy, I must tell you.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we'll see. Early days. I don't know how much of it you've watched.

• 22:53Sean Fennessey?

  Just the first episode.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  Just the first episode. We'll see.

• 22:56Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna give the Penguin a fair shake. Agatha, we'll see.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:59Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe if Eileen gets interested. You know, the other thing that happened with Christmas movies is that Netflix and Hallmark make like 14 of them to 18 of them a year. And so there's just a lot of content that is available and disposable. We don't, maybe we don't need a canon anymore.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  There used to be, I mean, when we were growing up, um, there would be like an occasional, um, Santa based film on like Lifetime Television or Hallmark or something like that. And I used to love those. Like, I just like really loved those. Um, and then when it became the holiday rom com, which is like what Hallmark started and Netflix has eagerly latched on to. Um, you know, or then you have like Kurt Russell playing Santa Claus for Netflix and Goldie Hawn's involved. Or you have the film that I'm not making it up called Hot Frosty currently on Netflix with Lacey Schaberg and, um, where she falls in love with a, a snowman? Question mark?

• 23:56Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, yeah, definitely.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  So, yeah, it might, it might just be that, that this, the specialness of the Christmas movie has lost all meaning. But to your point, it's so interesting that like when we were growing up, you mentioned all these movies, uh, It's a Wonderful Life, um, Miracle on 34th Street, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, White Christmas, Holiday Inn. We were watching like decades old movies and they were just rerun on network, uh, once a year and we, and we loved them and it felt special. And the markets just flooded in a way that it doesn't feel any kind of special anymore.

• 24:28Sean Fennessey?

  It's true. I mean, there were, there were some more recent vintage, obviously A Christmas Story is a legendary example, but I feel like Elf is the last movie that really hit that you would watch when you were five and you will have with you forever. That it feels like that particular like Love Actually, obviously is beloved, but it's a rom com. And if you're 12, that's probably the first time you can watch it and really get into it, right?

• 24:49Speaker 02

  There is a whole storyline in Love Actually with a couple who are stand ins for sex scenes in films that sort of precluded as a child friendly film.

• 25:01Sean Fennessey?

  Right. Did you happen to see any of the takeaways from Richard Curtis being awarded an honorary Oscar at the governor's ball yesterday?

• 25:10Speaker 02

  What did he say?

• 25:11Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it was more about what Hugh Grant said, where he viciously annihilated him while presenting him with the award for roughly 15 minutes.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Hugh Grant, this era of Hugh Grant's absolute rapsalian-ness is one of our greatest gifts, I think. So.

• 25:26Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't ask you to see this. Maybe I should have, but you didn't see Heretic, right?

• 25:30Speaker 02

  I haven't seen it yet.

• 25:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, okay. I haven't had a chance to talk to anybody about it on the show other than the makers of the film. I thought it was pretty good. First two thirds, very good. And Hugh Grant is out of this world entertaining in it. I mean, the movie is resting right on his shoulders for an hour and a half and that he carries the whole thing. It's very, very entertaining.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  I really want to. I'm really excited to see it. Absolutely. And I think that like every single interview he's given around it has been pure joy, genuinely pure joy. Cause he's just leaning into his longstanding asshole reputation. And now he's just old enough that it's like, he's like, yes, and isn't it charming of me? What an asshole I am. And everyone agrees.

• 26:12Sean Fennessey?

  It is delightful. Do you think if I get like 10 years older, that I'll be able to pull off the same thing? We'll find out for finally, everybody will be like, oh, I see, he was leaning towards being, you know, septuagenarian asshole. And that's more charming.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  First, you have to make the podcast version of Paddington 2. Do you think you have that in you?

• 26:29Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I can certainly try.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I believe in you.

• 26:31Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  I'll support you in that.

• 26:33Sean Fennessey?

  Shall we talk about a real pain?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's talk about a great movie.

• 26:36Sean Fennessey?

  This is a great movie. Um, we talked about it a little bit on Friday on the show because you were a little unsure where it stood in the Best Picture hierarchy, but we didn't really talk about it in any sort of subjective way.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:47Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I saw this movie at Sundance in January. Um, speaking of seeing movies with my wife, this was the one movie that she joined me for at virtual Sundance. And I said, it's, it's Jesse and it's Kieran Culkin and I don't, something tells me this is gonna work. Even though I wasn't the biggest fan of Jesse's first feature, um, I'm not sure if you had a chance to see that movie.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  I did, yeah.

• 27:08Sean Fennessey?

  Nevertheless, I did watch it and loved it then, raved about it then on the show, been very excited to talk about it. There's been this long wait for it to come to theaters. It finally came to theaters earlier this month and expanded over the weekend. Um, very quickly, the story follows this pair of cousins, David and Benji, who reunite for a tour of Poland to honor their late grandmother who's just passed and was a critical figure in both of their lives. She was a survivor of the Holocaust. And so they go on this tour with a group of other strangers. Um, they visit Lublin, the concentration camp, and they see the sights and sort of the, some of the critical spaces in their grandmother's life to better understand her, better understand themselves. And it is a reunion of sorts between these cousins who aren't as close as they used to be.

• 27:50Sean Fennessey?

  So Jesse plays, uh, David and Benji plays, or Kieran Culkin is played by Benji. So you liked this movie?

• 27:57Speaker 02

  I did like this movie. I think, um, I think I was just curious. My enjoyment of this movie, actually, actually, I had a bad time watching the movie because it is intentionally quite agitating. And I've had a really good time thinking about this movie, is sort of my relationship.

• 28:13Sean Fennessey?

  Can you describe what you mean by that? Cause I, I feel, I feel similarly, made a similar note about this.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  I think, so, the thing about Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg is that, I don't think, I think they're two of our most talented performers and I don't think either of them are chameleon-ic in any way. They play two very specific archetypes. I think Jesse is better than Kieran is at playing all the different shades of that archetype. So you can take some of Jesse's more like absolute sweetheart roles and Mark Zuckerberg and you can see how that's all sort of one archetype along different points of the moral spectrum. Kieran is essentially giving us

• 28:57Speaker 02

  His succession performance here and it's like, and as a longstanding Igby, you know, Dangerous Life, Boulder Boys, like longstanding Kieran fan. I say that with like all the love in my heart, but I think there is something about the neurotic archetype that Jesse Eisenberg plays, which you and I both respond to. And then the like, ain't I a stinker sort of Kieran Culkin thing that he does with that like air of melancholy that he brings to a lot of those performances. That is intentionally, I think, agitating, right? It's like a real pain. The title pertains to nine different levels of what we're talking about,

• 29:39Speaker 02

  but one of it is just sort of like the experience of being around these personalities as they clash. And so I was just jet, like my, my shoulders kept like going up to my ears as I was watching it, my frustration with Kieran's character. Um, and I think that I, that, but it feels so intentional. I think Jesse, one of the best scenes, you have it sort of grouped as one of the specific scenes to talk about, but I just want to like dip into it on the filmmaking side and just say, there's a dinner scene where Jesse Eisenberg's character finally sort of tells the group they're traveling with, like his true feelings about his cousin, who he's sort of just been like making some excuses for,

• 30:22Speaker 02

  sort of shielding throughout. And there's a choice he make, they, you know, they made in the construction of the scene that Kieran's character is away at the bathroom and you're just worried the whole time that he is going to come back and hear all these things that are being said about him to the truth telling at last from Jesse Eisenberg's character. And there's like a slow push in on him as he's talking. And it is like one of the most tense experiences I think I've ever had watching a movie. So that's, that's what I mean is I just felt agitated, but then as I think about it, as I think about the empathy we're asked to have for everyone involved and also the like truly emotional nature of this kind of heritage journey that people go on, it's really.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Growing on me is something that I think I'll be thinking about for a really long time. Does that make sense?

• 31:13Sean Fennessey?

  It does. I think it's a really resonant movie if you have an extended family that you, like, I grew up with a lot of my cousins and with a big, big family surrounding me. And so I have relationships like this, maybe not at this register necessarily, but I think you're right that the movie is trying to portray in as unsafe and uncalming a way as possible, how sometimes these relationships can be really challenging. And especially if you've got someone like Benji who's unafraid to explore the outer edges of someone's comfort. And that's something that his character does, where Karen Colkin, as you say, brings this energy to everything he does, the Lonergan place he's done over the years, those movies that you mentioned, where he's sort of the person who pokes at the open wound. You know, that's something he's very comfortable at. He's very comfortable exploring discomfort.

• 31:58Sean Fennessey?

  And the David character, Eisenberg's character, is trying to do something that he feels is very sensitive and very personal and very emotional and taking this journey and also in, in theory, reconnecting or rebuilding with Benji. And it becomes clear very quickly that Benji is sort of incapable of a proper rebuild, you know, that he's not suited to the thing that David wants. And he also can't understand David's life, which is, it's over communicated how normie David is, you know, that he's a father and that he is a husband and that he owns a home and lives in the suburbs and he has a, you know, a job that is a career, but it's really a way, a means to pay, you know, he sells banners on websites, which is the most ridiculous job. And Jesse explained why that's the job

• 32:43Sean Fennessey?

  and how this idea came to him when we talked. But this friction between these two people who are immeasurably close, who've experienced something, who share blood, is a fascinating thing to me. I just thought it really, really worked and it's unusual to see the cousins dynamic. You know, we see a lot of brothers. We see a lot of best friends. We see a lot of husbands and wives. And I was thinking about the mode that this movie is in. Which is the familiar but kind of ancient Hollywood mode. It's like it's Billy Wilder, it's Hal Ashby, it's Woody Allen. The tonality, the really sad dramedy is hard to pull off and exceedingly rare in Hollywood right now. And so I thought it was just a very deft portrait of these two complicated guys. And the other thing is that David is like, it's very clear to know David because he gets

• 33:26Sean Fennessey?

  that big centerpiece that you were talking about at that dinner sequence where he just kind of lays it all out. Like you can't, nothing is withheld in that moment. We never really totally get to the bottom of whatever it is with Benji. Like he has moments where he, he shares his pain or his confusion around certain things, but there's something else that is unexplored. I think mostly because we're seeing the movie through David's eyes and not through Benji's eyes. So that's like a very distinct choice that is made that I think is really good. That leaves us kind of unresolved and thinking more about the movie because we're sort of like, what was it about these two guys? What is their relationship ultimately?

• 33:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's, there are some hints about sort of the reason they were so close because, um, you know, one came from a more functional strain of this family than the other. So there's some hints about that. I would also say, I saw it with a friend of mine who had zero patience for, um, Karen's character and that's not really how I felt, but when she was just sort of like, what was, what was going on? I don't understand. I was like, well, he's unmedicate, like he's unmedicated, you know? And it's just like, and, and he's someone who's not interested in being medicated. And that's, you know, whereas Jesse Eisenberg's character is, manages his, his like, his anxiety

• 34:43Speaker 02

  or his this, that and the other thing via medication. And I'm not here to be an ad one way or another for, for medication, but I will say that like, what I do enjoy about this movie and what I enjoy about any of these sort of two-handers of like the free spirit versus the uptight, like, you know, there's a million different versions of that. Is however irritating, Kieran's character is to me personally, the liberation that he allows his cousin occasionally on this trip when they're breaking in into hotel roofs or doing this, that and the other thing. There's something just really beautiful and affecting about that.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  But it doesn't end with coming together in common cause. It ends in like this continued separation, which again, sort of picks at you, right? Cause we're not, we're not resolved in any kind of way on this. And the future is uncertain for Kieran's character. And, and is the answer, is he going to be okay? I, I don't think so, you know? And that's, that's what's pretty rare about something like this. Cause when you see people go on this like journey elsewhere, wherever you go, there you are. But this like journey elsewhere towards understanding yourself. And the fact that Kieran's character ends literally where he begins inside of this film.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  It, it's, it's a very satisfactory, unsatisfactory delivery of this idea of just because you have these experiences, doesn't mean you can necessarily alter your direction in life if it's had in one way or another.

• 36:22Sean Fennessey?

  I like, yeah, I really like how you put that. I think the, the movie shows you him consistently dancing through the raindrops of his own

• 36:31Sean Fennessey?

  abandon in his thinking. So like the train hopping sequence, for example, is a moment where like, that could go terribly wrong. To just get off your train at the wrong time in the wrong city, not speaking the language could be disastrous. But like for me, somebody like me, very type A, very control heavy.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:51Sean Fennessey?

  Watching a character do that is, it makes me panic. And it makes me think if I was in that situation, and the movie is very good at putting you in the shoes of these guys when they're making these choices and feeling what they're doing. I felt a sense of panic when he does that, when he, when they, when they hop off. And then it works out, like as it so often does for charismatic people.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Panic and irritation and aggravation that he just like let um his cousin sleep through the stop. You know, it's just like, so he's removing choice and the inherent hypocrisy and contradiction of this character throughout where he's lecturing their guide, played by Will Sharp. I thought Will Sharp was great in this movie, but like lecturing him when they're in the cemetery, but also staging a photo op at this like war memorial in a way that makes um, you know, makes David incredibly uncomfortable. And he's just sort of like, and the careful dance they do throughout because they're touring with this group uh and you know, the group is initially enamored and then frustrated and sort of goes

• 37:51Speaker 02

  back and forth with Benji, but Benji makes an impression in a way that David never does at all with them. And the dance throughout of David sort of trying to commiserate, I know, isn't he the worst? And then they were like, no, he's great. He's like, oh, I thought we all, I thought we all agreed on what was sort of decorum, what, what was demanded of this, that, or the other thing. And um, I thought that was really enjoyable as well. But I mean, the, the reason that I was questioning this place, this pictures, this film's place in the best picture race had nothing to do with my like individual enjoyment of it, but more, I can't think of a comp of like a walkie talkie Sundance film that feels like it enters

• 38:36Speaker 02

  the best picture race as strongly or as high as I thought you had it. That was sort of more my pushback was less like, I don't think this is a good film and more, does this kind of film land with Academy voters?

• 38:49Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think it's, I think that conversation is a reflection of this very unusual slate, right? Where we, we, you know, gnashed our teeth for 90 minutes with Katie, trying to figure out what the landscape was because it's an odd year. You know, there often is something from Sundance that tends to emerge that I think taps at something deeply emotional, like The Code of Win is very much about that. It's a smaller movie. It's a movie about family. It's a movie that is much more sentimental than A Real Pain is. A Real Pain is kind of the opposite of that. It's like a very raw, direct channeling of pain and anxiety, but. You know, Little Miss Sunshine is a movie that this reminded me of a little bit, you know? That's a much bigger cast and ensemble and there's more sort of like Hollywood history inside that movie, but it's not so far afield and that was a frontrunner almost.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I feel like you're, this is the argument you and I went back and forth on the code a year, but like you're just, you're meant to feel good and uplifted when you come out of those movies and this is meant to discomfort you, like, you know, and it's, and again, I feel like it's intentionally done and I think Jesse Eisenberg did a great job with that, but I just can't imagine someone saying, let's sit down and watch A Real Pain together is gonna feel great to do so, whereas with Little Miss Sunshine, and I guess the point that Katie was making as well, which is the, the PR tour that those casts can make. I mean, the Little Miss, Little Miss Sunshine, I saw the morning after its premiere at Sundance. The whole cast was there. Steve Carell was like giving people in the audience hugs. It

• 40:14Speaker 02

  was like this, you know, that cast can be, you know, ambassadors for their film. By all reports, I don't know, uh, if, I mean, my understanding is that Kieran and Jesse did not have the smoothest time making this movie together. So I don't know in terms of like a joint Academy run. Not that that's the only thing to talk about when it comes to this film, obviously. I just wanted to like delineate my personal enjoyment versus like where it stands in the best pictures.

• 40:42Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's all relevant to this conversation. Um, you know, obviously, one, Jesse shared this fascinating thing in the reporting that I asked him about on the show, which is that he had never seen Kieran perform before he cast him in the movie, which I just still find bewildering, even after, even after hearing him talk about this. So he'd never watched Succession. He'd never seen any films he was in. He'd only auditioned with him once and he cast him off of that. Maybe he identified something about his energy. Nevertheless, that's strange. Two, Kieran Culkin tried to pull out of the movie and he had to be convinced by his ex-girlfriend, Emma Stone, who was a producer on the movie to do the movie. Obviously, Emma and Jesse are longtime friends and they've appeared in the Zombieland movies. And, um, so that, that's fascinating that Kieran wouldn't want to do this. It's been quite a year for

• 41:25Sean Fennessey?

  pulling out of movies with Joaquin Phoenix's hijinks in the Todd Haynes film. I'm glad he did it. He's obviously perfect for Benji and Jesse's instincts were right. I don't think whether or not they like had a good time making the movie really matters. Like frankly, most people don't have a good time making movies together. Um, I don't know if they're going to want to hang out during the press tour, but-

• 41:44Speaker 02

  That's all I mean. It only matters in the case of like, let's go out as ambassadors for the movie together.

• 41:51Sean Fennessey?

  I know, but like Kieran now coming off of this incredible run with Succession, people are very comfortable with him at award shows and like, he's really a frontrunner for supporting actor.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  He is in a way that like, for some reason I'm not thrilled about, and I think the only reason I'm not thrilled about it is, uh, it really does not feel very distinct from Roman Roy.

• 42:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's, it's, yeah, it's Kieran doing Kieran things as opposed to transformation.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  And we just gave him an Emmy for that. So I was just like, it feels a little, but I don't have a strong counter case other than let's give Denzel a third Oscar because he deserves it. So.

• 42:24Sean Fennessey?

  Well, let's talk about it because like we're in this tricky spot where not everyone has seen a lot of the movies that are competing for the awards. You've seen some of the people who are competing for supporting actor, but not all of them. But just to get a, get a sense of the landscape. It is a pretty cool race this year because it's a good mix of old hands and new voices. You could make the case that even though the movie kind of hangs on Colkin's charisma, that it's not the most interesting performance out of the top 10 people who are competing for this award. Uh, for, for the exact reason that you said, I do think Denzel in Gladiator two is very much in, in the conversation. I think he's the best part of that movie. We'll talk about that movie, um, with Mal and Chris on Friday.

• 43:05Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I think it, unlike Colkin and unlike my expectations, he's not just doing Denzel things. This is kind of a new version of Denzel that I can't recall having seen before, honestly. And so that made it really fun.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Okay. I'm seeing it tomorrow, so I'm excited to have a more informed.

• 43:23Sean Fennessey?

  I wish you well. Um, and likewise with, with The Brutalist, I, Guy Pearce, that's going to end up being one of my favorite performances of the year. And I think similarly that the movie turns on what he is able to show us and not show us through the course of that movie. And he's, you know, it's a character that we follow through time as well, just like Adrian Brody's character. And has this like enormous amount of psychological underpinning that drives some of the narrative.

• 43:48Sean Fennessey?

  And also Guy Pearce is another person who like, it's weird that he has not been honored before because even in lousy movies, he's often great. So.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  That's my favorite, for me, if I were an Academy voter, which I'm not, but as like a voter and awards body, the thing that I always am considering is, isn't it weird this person doesn't have this award? Or doesn't their body of work tell us that they deserve this award? It's why I'm usually not high on like, the brand newest thing should get the award when like, there's someone like Guy Pearce who has turned in, not that Kieran, obviously Kieran's not the brand newest thing, I'm thinking about other people, but like, that he, for Kieran to just do Kieran, do it very well, versus Guy Pearce who has, is a chameleon

• 44:38Speaker 02

  and has done a million different modes for decades in Hollywood. I would much rather see a statue in his hands, personally.

• 44:46Sean Fennessey?

  I think I, out of those three, I think that would be the most satisfying thing for me because I remember very vividly going to see L.A. Confidential in the movie theater, absolutely loving that movie, knowing, no, having no idea who Guy Pearce was, and thinking to myself like, I guess that's like Jimmy Stewart, you know, like, I guess that's just gonna be someone who's at the center of movies for the next 25 years. And in a way, he has been, but in a much more supporting fashion, because he's just clearly a little weirder as a performer.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. The first thing I saw him in was in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which he's doing something so different, and he's so good in that. So then to see L.A. Confidential, and then to see, you know, Memento and like, all the other stuff, and you're just sort of like, wow, this guy has so many things, so many cards he can play. So yeah, isn't it weird that Guy Pearce doesn't have an Oscar? Yes, give him an Oscar.

• 45:34Sean Fennessey?

  I liked what you were saying before too, about like, the new flavor, the new thing. I was at the Alamo yesterday watching Red One, and one of the previews was for. Love Hurts. Are you familiar with this new movie coming?

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:46Sean Fennessey?

  Love Hurts?

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:47Sean Fennessey?

  So this is a new movie starring Kiwi Kwan and Ariana Dubose. And produced by 87 North, which is David Leitch's production company. The people that brought you The Fall Guy. And it's an action thriller comedy about, I guess, like some sort of secret operative who's been living a normal life and gets pulled back into the game. But Kiwi Kwan, you know, last seen in Everything Everywhere All at Once, is in it and kind of taking advantage of his martial arts training. Um, and-

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Loki, season two, Erasure, but yes, okay.

• 46:15Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, apologies.

• 46:16Speaker 02

  Um. And you were like, oh, these are two Oscar winners.

• 46:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I was like, this movie is being sold on the fact that Kiwi Kwan and Ariana Dubose are Academy Award winners. And that's so strange.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:29Sean Fennessey?

  Like, it's just, it's not, then there's nothing against them. They're both great in their own way. I've kind of, especially after Wish and my daughter's love for Wish, I've turned on Ariana Dubose. I'm like, actually, maybe she is good, you know? Maybe her-

• 46:40Speaker 02

  She is good.

• 46:40Sean Fennessey?

  Her theater girl energy is fine, you know, and I'm okay with it. Um, but there are so many actors in Hollywood who don't have Oscars and those two do, and they're selling the movie on that, the back of that. But then when I look at like the next band of potential contenders and supporting actor, it's like, Yur Borisov and Anora, and Clarence Macklin and Sing Sing, two people that you've probably never seen before in a movie, that give good performances.

• 47:03Speaker 02

  I would love for them to be nominated. I don't want them to win, but I loved both of those performances so much.

• 47:09Sean Fennessey?

  I did too.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  That I would be thrilled to see them nominated.

• 47:12Sean Fennessey?

  If they find a way to thread the needle on Sing Sing, I wouldn't be stunned to see him move into the frontrunners. Because people love that performance. I loved that performance. I thought he was amazing. Obviously, he's putting a lot of his real life into that movie, too.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's one of those, like, it has such a strong narrative around it. Um, you know, we've seen similar wins in that category around that. So like, yeah, I, and I just thought Yur Borisov is in an aura is just like, I don't know, that kind of, that performance really makes that movie for me in many ways. It's just like, and it's an iconic, I know you said in, in the previous episode that we did with Katie that you don't care about category fraud. But let's be clear, Kieran Culkin is like clear category fraud.

• 47:54Sean Fennessey?

  He is a lead for sure.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Um, what Yur Borosov is doing in, and Clarence Macklin is a little bit of category fraud because he's like the co-lead of that movie, but like what Yur Borosov is doing in Enora, that is iconic supporting role done perfectly.

• 48:11Sean Fennessey?

  I totally agree with you, and I think Sean Baker like masterfully edits the movie where there are so many cutaways to just Yur Borosov's expression.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  I know.

• 48:20Sean Fennessey?

  Just him admiring Enora, fascinated by Enora. Every, like, it sets up the final act of the movie so well. I don't want to spoil the movie, but anyway.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  I, I did, knowing we were having this conversation, I did a, just like a, just a pure Igor rewatch of Enora. And I was just like, I was, I was stunned by all the cutaways to him. I was like, Sean did him such a, I mean, his performance is great, but then Sean did it in such a favor with that edit.

• 48:43Sean Fennessey?

  He totally sets him up so well.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:45Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay. So the other people who are contending here, like, I'll just do a brief rundown. You've got Stanley Tucci in Conclave, which I think is a good performance, but is maybe missing one big scene that would have helped him along the way.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  For the reel.

• 48:57Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, John Magaro and Peter Sarsgaard in September 5. Frankly, John Magaro is the lead and Peter Sarsgaard is supporting, but they're running both in supporting, apparently. John Turturro in the room next door. A lot of the betting markets have this. I'm not sure if I really understood this. He basically has one scene in the movie and it's an okay scene. It's a bit overwritten, to be honest with you. Have you seen this yet?

• 49:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I wouldn't, I, I am also confused why this is a strong contender.

• 49:22Sean Fennessey?

  Did you see The Apprentice?

• 49:24Speaker 02

  I did.

• 49:25Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think of Jeremy Strong? Speaking of our Succession boys.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  I mean, Jeremy Strong, like, if one of the actors from Succession is gonna get nominated, shouldn't it be Jeremy Strong, who is never the same in any single role that he plays?

• 49:41Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  And is incredible in this, like, kind of entertaining, yet also deeply unpleasant to watch in its own sense, uh, film, you know, like Jeremy Strong.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  For whatever you might say about any given New Yorker profile is, I think, one of the most talented performers that exists, and I would easily put him in any actor race, for sure.

• 50:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'd like to see him get in there. I don't know if that's going to be possible. You know, a couple of other names, Adam Parson from A Different Man, another movie I haven't really had a chance to talk about too much, aside from having Sebastian Stan on the show, but that I liked quite a bit. Ray Fisher was the big surprise of The Piano Lesson for me. Have you seen that yet?

• 50:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:19Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I think his, you know, I did not realize Cyborg had that in his bag, so to speak.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Ray is due another sort of crack at it all, you know?

• 50:28Sean Fennessey?

  I think he will get one after this movie.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:31Sean Fennessey?

  And then Josh O'Connor and Jonathan Bailey in Challengers and Wicked. We didn't mention Challengers at all on Friday, and people were mad, Joanna.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  People were upset, and I would like to formally apologize. And can we make our apologies? I mean, Josh O'Connor, again, it's like category fraud, but like Josh O'Connor is, is Challengers. I love Mike Feist, and I love Zendaya, but like Josh O'Connor is Challengers. And so like, um, even if it doesn't get into the Best Picture conversation, which it should, and we apologize for omitting it, but like Josh O'Connor, I would be thrilled to see him in that. What do you think of the news that he's going to be in Steven Spielberg's upcoming UFO movie?

• 51:18Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely fantastic.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Thrilled for Josh O'Connor.

• 51:21Sean Fennessey?

  He's

• 51:22Speaker 02

  I think that's great.

• 51:22Sean Fennessey?

  He's incredible in Challengers. He's the, he's the best part of the movie.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, and I'm not so Wicked Pilled that I would say that Johnny, I think Johnny Bailey has a good shot.

• 51:32Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think that's happening.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  I don't think that's happening.

• 51:33Sean Fennessey?

  That doesn't seem plausible. He's, he's fine in the movie.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  He's great.

• 51:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  He's exactly what he needs to be, but yeah.

• 51:40Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't seen A Complete Unknown or The Fire Inside, but you've got two actors here who have competed in this category, one of which has won before. You've got Edward Norton, who is playing Pete Seeger, in what looks to be, you know, a transformation showy kind of performance about a historical figure, which often plays with the Academy.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:58Sean Fennessey?

  And Brian Tyree Henry, who was recently nominated for the Jennifer Lawrence film that is called what?

• 52:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's incredibly tough. It used to be called Red, White and Blue and they changed the title and I literally cannot think of the title. That's how much it doesn't exist. Nevertheless, he was nominated and he's a great actor, also an Emmy nominated actor. I can't say where those stand at the moment. The one I would like to see is Bill Skarsgård from Nosferatu.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  That's exciting.

• 52:27Sean Fennessey?

  Wouldn't it be nice if they honored something like that, you know, like a real monster performance? We don't, we don't, they never do that.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  Um, so you're saying not Chris or Hey you in Red One as Krampus, again, star of the show?

• 52:39Sean Fennessey?

  He wasn't bad.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  I think he was great.

• 52:41Sean Fennessey?

  He fought that witch, right?

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think he owned the movie every single second he was on screen.

• 52:48Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think of the slapping game that they played in that film?

• 52:51Speaker 02

  I think it was called Schlapp.

• 52:52Sean Fennessey?

  Schlapp?

• 52:54Speaker 02

  And I think we should, I, do you think HR would allow us to do it at the, uh, on holiday party this year? Yeah.

• 53:00Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I don't, I don't think so. Would you, you would play that game with me?

• 53:04Speaker 02

  With you? Yes.

• 53:06Sean Fennessey?

  Cause I'm very, evidently very weak?

• 53:08Speaker 02

  No, I think, I don't think you're as vicious as some of the other people we work with could possibly be.

• 53:16Sean Fennessey?

  Like Mallory?

• 53:16Speaker 02

  Or competitive. I would not play with Mallory.

• 53:18Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't play with Mallory either. Um, I wouldn't play a slapping game as a manager here at Spotify and the Ringer. That's just not something I would participate in.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  How high minded of you.

• 53:27Sean Fennessey?

  Who will win best supporting actor in your opinion?

• 53:30Speaker 02

  I'm worried it's Kieran and, uh, I'm gonna try, you know, you know, I don't know if you experienced this the same way, but like, I have years where like someone's inevitably gonna win a category and I just tell myself, don't worry about it, just let it happen and you can care about this category next year. But I already did that last year with Downey because I did not think Downey should win, uh, last year. So I, I don't want to just like, put supporting actor in a box two years in a row. So I would say. I, I, I really want to see how Gladiator two does. I really could see a third statue for Dead Zell.

• 54:04Sean Fennessey?

  So can you, how many of the seven actors who have won at least three Academy Awards can you name?

• 54:11Speaker 02

  Uh, just by actors, do you mean men or performers?

• 54:15Sean Fennessey?

  Men and women. Yeah. Yeah. Performers.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Um.

• 54:18Sean Fennessey?

  Seven have done it.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  I'm just going to disappoint everyone. I mean.

• 54:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a hard, I'm putting you on the spot, but it's a good trivia question.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  Catherine Hepburn.

• 54:26Sean Fennessey?

  Catherine Hepburn is number one. She has four. She is the only actor with four Academy Awards. That's also a really hard trivia question is can you name the four performances? That's really tough.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  For Catherine Hepburn?

• 54:38Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  I mean, On Golden Pond is one.

• 54:41Sean Fennessey?

  That's one. That's her last one.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  Um, no, because I think it's, it's like, not even the right ones. Like, didn't she win for like, Pat or something like that? Like not, not ones you would want them, her to win for?

• 54:53Sean Fennessey?

  She won three in the second half of her career. She won On Golden Pond, The Lion and Winter, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

• 54:59Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 55:00Sean Fennessey?

  Lion and Winter is very good. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, that performance is fine. And then the first one is Morning Glory in 1933.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, okay, yeah.

• 55:08Sean Fennessey?

  That's a tough one.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  As, as the bright new thing.

• 55:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  That was her like entree and then she was boxed off as poison and then she.

• 55:13Sean Fennessey?

  That was her Brie Larson moment. Exactly.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:17Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay. So Catherine Hepburn is one. Who else can you name?

• 55:19Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, I can't, Sean, this is horrible.

• 55:21Sean Fennessey?

  Think of the icons of the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Um, I'm, I'm, I'm blinking. Can you give me?

• 55:29Sean Fennessey?

  Who's the most celebrated actress of your lifetime?

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Oh, Meryl, God.

• 55:32Sean Fennessey?

  Meryl Streep is one.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  How embarrassing. Okay.

• 55:34Sean Fennessey?

  Who's the most celebrated actor of your lifetime? There are two answers to this question.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Because Hanks has only won two.

• 55:40Sean Fennessey?

  Hanks has only won two. There's one American movie star and one English, Irish, English movie star.

• 55:48Speaker 02

  Oh, Daniel Day Lewis.

• 55:49Sean Fennessey?

  Daniel Day Lewis.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  An American movie star and actor who's the most celebrated of my lifetime, who has won three Oscars.

• 55:56Sean Fennessey?

  A singular movie star. There's no one like him.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Sean Penn has not won three, has he?

• 56:01Sean Fennessey?

  He's not.

• 56:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:02Sean Fennessey?

  I believe Sean Penn has two.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  He has two. Yeah. Um, can you give me one more hint?

• 56:10Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  I really hope Katie Rich is not listening to this. She's so mad at me right now.

• 56:14Sean Fennessey?

  Two leads and one supporting. He's won an Academy Award in this, one in the 70s, one in the 80s, and one in the 90s.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  Oh, uh, De Niro? No.

• 56:26Sean Fennessey?

  Nope. He only has two.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  Who is it, Sean?

• 56:29Sean Fennessey?

  Jack Nicholson.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Jack Nicholson.

• 56:32Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay, so we've got Katherine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis. There are three others. You want me to give them to you?

• 56:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, please.

• 56:39Sean Fennessey?

  Well, one of them is Walter Brennan, who was crushing, and he won in off-years, 36, 38, and 40. Then there's Frances McDormand, of course.

• 56:49Speaker 02

  Of course, Fran.

• 56:50Sean Fennessey?

  Who won in 17 and 20. Would she have won if there were not a pandemic in 2020? Interesting question for us.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  That is, that is an interesting question for Oscar scholars for years to come.

• 56:59Sean Fennessey?

  Was that a bubble Oscar? Big question. Just like the Lakers and the Dodgers had bubble titles.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  There are certain people who won that year that I never want to put an asterisk on their win, so I can't put an asterisk on any win.

• 57:10Sean Fennessey?

  I'm a huge fan of hers, so it's not, nothing critical about her. And then the last is Ingrid Bergman. Who also has two leads and one supporting for Gaslight on a Stasia and Murder on the Orient Express. Also, the last one's a little iffy, in my opinion.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  The, the one that I, oh, yeah, absolutely. But the one that I would, if I, if we were to bump Fran down to two. Nomadland is not the one I would take from her. It would be Three Billboards.

• 57:34Sean Fennessey?

  See, I'm like the-

• 57:35Speaker 02

  I'm a Three Billboards hater for life.

• 57:37Sean Fennessey?

  I know, I'm on an island with that one, where I just felt like I understood what he was trying to do, and it got, it went into the take cycle and got all confused. My whole thing is like, listen to the lyrics of Streets of Laredo, the song that plays at the beginning of that movie, and then think about what that song is about and what the movie is about. I encourage people who have, who, who think that that movie is like some coded weird, like, white power thing to reconsider.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't think that at all. I don't, I don't think that at all. And McDonough is like one of my favorite storytellers that exists. I just like, do not like that movie.

• 58:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  But not because I think of the take cycle, but-

• 58:08Sean Fennessey?

  Let's call Fran. Fran, you're a fraud. You don't deserve two of your three Oscars. What do you say to Joanna? Okay, that was a fun game.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  That sounds like the scariest phone call of all time. If we were to call Fran up and tell her she doesn't deserve one of our Oscars.

• 58:23Sean Fennessey?

  Did I tell you my Frances McDormand story? Do you know this?

• 58:26Speaker 02

  Uh, please.

• 58:28Sean Fennessey?

  So in 2010, shortly before I came to work at Grantland, I was writing an oral history of Michael Bay for GQ and I interviewed like, whatever, 50, 60 people that were across Bay's life and career. And at the time, he was working on Transformers 4, I think. And Frances McDormand is in that film. And so I requested an interview with her. She very rarely does press. She said, I, I, I won't sit for an interview, but I'll write you a letter about what I like about Michael Bay. And she wrote me a letter and it was sent to me at GQ. And we included parts of the letter in the piece and then ran it in full online. And, um, it was very funny. Clearly written in her voice.

• 59:08Sean Fennessey?

  And, you know, she described him as like, you know, a rapscallion and a, and a real bastard and a lot of fun. And, you know, real in Fran voice. Um, it was a great experience. I was very happy to have it.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  Fran, like Hugh Grant, has earned being exactly who she wants to be. My favorite recent Fran story is she lived, cause she, they live up in Marin County a lot of the time, uh, which is where I'm from. And so, um, when she did a Q and A after like a woman talking, uh, screening, cause she was, cause I produced her on that film, um, she, she was like, I invited all my friends. She lives in this like very small coastal town in Marin County. She's like, I invited a bunch of my friends. Where are they? And they didn't answer and she got like visibly upset. And then they were just sort of like, they wooed from the back of the room. And she's like, oh, there they are. And then she was like, ready to go. And I found that just like very charming that she's like, where are my local friends? My local weirdos from the weird little coastal town that I live in.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  And I just, I really liked that about her.

• 1:00:05Sean Fennessey?

  Marin County, home of George Lucas, David Fincher, Joel Cohen and Frances McDormand and Joanna Robinson. What a sainted place.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  Wow. Peter Coyote also used to live there.

• 1:00:15Sean Fennessey?

  Love him too.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, big fan.

• 1:00:17Sean Fennessey?

  Incredible. Um, should we talk, well, you think Kieran's gonna win? That's where, that's your takeaway.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  Right now? What do you think? It seems like what everyone, you know, when you go on the various, like your gold derbies or your varieties, whoever is like sort of checking in on the horse race and they'll put like a thumbnail up of whoever the frontrunner is in that category right now. It's Kieran across the board, seems like.

• 1:00:42Sean Fennessey?

  It is. So strange. It's like, I always get annoyed by these things when we just settle on them, you know?

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:00:48Sean Fennessey?

  I whinged about this with the, with Judy.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Sean Fennessey?

  And that win. And I just thought that that was so strange that we'd all just decided that Renee Zellweger should win again in a movie that's like not good and her performance is good, but she'd already won and I don't, you know, I'm like, why, why is Scarlett Johansson not competing in this category? Is, I couldn't figure that out.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  And that was a narrative that coalesced at Telluride.

• 1:01:10Sean Fennessey?

  It did.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  So early in the process.

• 1:01:13Sean Fennessey?

  So I don't even understand why that, nobody came out there and was like, that movie's good.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  It felt like, we're sorry, we were mean to you about some plastic surgery you got, and we would like to apologize and welcome you back into the fold. That's what that win felt like.

• 1:01:24Sean Fennessey?

  100%. But nobody who actually cares about movies had turned on Renee Zellweger. She's, she's wonderful.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  No, exactly. Um, so my mission for us, like one year, Sean, is for us to start a rumor at Telluride that, that just like coalesces into an Oscar win.

• 1:01:41Sean Fennessey?

  That would require you coming to Telluride, Joanna.

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  I heard everyone is saying that X is happening. You know what I mean? So I think we could do it.

• 1:01:48Sean Fennessey?

  I think I could pull it off at this point.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  Don't you believe in the power of the whisper campaign from Ringer HQ?

• 1:01:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but I need you there with me to do it. Like, I need help. We can go to, you know, we could separate sides of town.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Sean Fennessey?

  And spread the word, you know, with all of our powerful networking sources.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:02:02Sean Fennessey?

  You're more connected than I am with this shit. You should definitely do it.

• 1:02:05Speaker 02

  Um, after everyone listens and hears me bombing on Oscar trivia, I don't know what kind of pull I'll have in this community anywhere.

• 1:02:12Sean Fennessey?

  No, no. You didn't bomb at all. That's okay. Um, I like to just put my co-hosts in a difficult position when it comes to trivia. It makes me seem smarter, even though I'm not.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  I think he would have gotten Jack at least. Uh, yeah.

• 1:02:23Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay. So A Real Pain is a real proper two-hander.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  Well, I have a question about that.

• 1:02:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  What is a proper two-hander?

• 1:02:31Sean Fennessey?

  It's a movie where there are two leads.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:02:34Sean Fennessey?

  And those leads to me.

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  Despite the strong supporting cast around them.

• 1:02:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, there can, unless there is a, so here's one delineation that I wanted to cite.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Sean Fennessey?

  If there is a supporting performance that is overwhelmingly memorable and powerful.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:02:49Sean Fennessey?

  It oddly disrupts this, what, what, what, what I imagine to be a proper two-hander. Now, you can make the case that some of the classics do have those things. I'm more willing to overlook them if I feel like the central performances are so great. You know, most movies are actually built around two people. But when I hear two-hander, I don't think romance or rom-com. I think a movie about friends or family members or enemies, people thrown together. Like you said, the live wire, you know, the anxious straight guy. And then the kind of crazy charismatic person on the side. So to me, that's like my definition of it. Reasonable people can disagree.

• 1:03:29Sean Fennessey?

  You could say Bringing Up Baby is a two-hander if you want to, but I don't, I don't see, I see that as a different subgenre of movie.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  It's interesting because, so when you sort of posited that we might talk about these things before I saw your like, no romance rule, the first thing that comes to me is like the before, the before trilogy is a clear as day two-hander.

• 1:03:52Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  But that's a movie in which there are barely any other characters. And then A Real Pain, on the other hand, you and I both really enjoyed the supporting cast around our two leads.

• 1:04:02Sean Fennessey?

  We didn't even mention Jennifer Grey, who's also wonderful in A Real Pain.

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  Great. Um, yeah. Uh, okay. Great. I'm happy to talk about these. I'm ready.

• 1:04:10Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think we need to do the like massive, like five, then five, then five. Why don't you just give me your five and I'll give my five?

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  Um.

• 1:04:18Sean Fennessey?

  Was there anything on my list that you would have wanted?

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  Yes, two of them, but I just decided to, we shouldn't do overlap. That's just something I decided.

• 1:04:25Sean Fennessey?

  I respect that. Thank you.

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  I just did it. Um, okay. So number five for me is was Army Man. I really love that film. I've watched it a bunch and I think that that is. As clear as day a two-hander.

• 1:04:37Sean Fennessey?

  Did I know this when we were talking about everything everywhere all at once for six months? Maybe I did.

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:04:44Sean Fennessey?

  That's great. I like this army man too.

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  I really love that movie. It's funny. They're not on my list, but when I was thinking about a real pain and what worked and what didn't. I was thinking a lot about everything is illuminated and I went back and like rewatched it a little bit of it. To remind myself whether or not that would count as a two-hander. It might. Um, and Roger Dodger, which is Jesse Eisenberg's first feature film, which is also classic two-hander.

• 1:05:10Sean Fennessey?

  Love, love, love that movie.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. And it's sort of like you mash those two together and you get a real pain. Number four, Bush Cassie, the Sundance Kid.

• 1:05:20Sean Fennessey?

  Gotta be.

• 1:05:21Speaker 02

  I mean, uh, number three, I'm putting like a franchise in here cheating. It's classic Mallory Rubin smuggle. Uh, the road to series of movies that Bob Hope and Bing Crosby made. Uh, in the thirties and forties, um.

• 1:05:36Sean Fennessey?

  What would you say is the best of that series?

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  The Road to Morocco is the best one, but like if you, if you are looking for a film that.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  You can watch in 2024 without feeling anything is problematic, you should not look at these films at all. But if you were looking at like some of the best comedic chemistry you've ever seen in your life. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, I prefer it to like Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello or, you know. Martin and Lewis, there's just something, there's something so. Chatty and quick witted about Hope and Crosby in, in these movies that I absolutely love. Um, Banshees of Inisherin, would you count this as?

• 1:06:17Sean Fennessey?

  I would, I would.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think that there's a little bit more time spent. With Colin Farrell's character. Now you've also got two incredible supporting performances in that movie.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  With Barry and Carrie.

• 1:06:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:29Sean Fennessey?

  So do they trump?

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  Cause and Jenny, the donkey.

• 1:06:33Sean Fennessey?

  And Jenny, of course, well, R I P. Um, the prevailing meme from that film is, well, there goes that dream. From Barry and that scene between him and Carrie Condon on the, on the river, which is just. Just an absolute hammer shot, just a great, great moment.

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:50Sean Fennessey?

  So, but I'll, I'll allow it and, and you're trying to restore your appreciation for McDonough here after blaspheming three billboards, so.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  I think Banshees of Mead Sharon is the movie I've thought about the most in the last several years. I think about that movie all the time.

• 1:07:04Sean Fennessey?

  Do you have a friend like that?

• 1:07:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, uh, yes. Uh, in, in like someone who was like, cut you out of their lives.

• 1:07:12Sean Fennessey?

  Are you the, so you're, you're the feral?

• 1:07:15Speaker 02

  I'm the feral. Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:07:16Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  And that's part where he's like, you know, or were you never nice? You know, that part? Killer.

• 1:07:25Sean Fennessey?

  Powerful. Some, some, some of the real pain in that.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:07:29Sean Fennessey?

  Dynamic, yeah.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  That like, that like drift apart, things, things end. Um, and they matter because they end. Uh, and then number one, I, I stole this from your honorable mentions, but it is genuinely my number one, which is With Nell and I. And with Nell and I, I, in terms of this antique character, um, played by Richard E. Grant. Um, and then your more stolid character played by Paul McGinn, like that, that dynamic, this is the best version of that for me. He, our, our sort of stoic character, our and I character is not nearly as neurotic as, as what Jesse Eisenberg is giving, but he is uptight and is in need of

• 1:08:13Speaker 02

  exposure to someone as chaotic and dangerous and frustrating as the With Nell character is. Um, so I think, I think it's a really good movie to talk in, in conjunction with a real pain. It's also, I think, a perfect movie. I, I love this movie. I think it's wonderful.

• 1:08:30Sean Fennessey?

  I love it too. It's been a long time since I've seen With Nell and I. Maybe I should go out and get that Arrow release of the Blu-ray.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:08:38Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I need to go do is go pick that up at my local Blu-ray distribution center, wherever that may be.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  I think you deserve it.

• 1:08:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'll do five quickly. I did have With Nell and I on my honorable mentions. I don't even know, this is not the definitive list of the greatest two-handers. These are personal lists. These are movies that we like. Number five for me is The Nice Guys, which I watched on a plane four months ago and I was like, this is probably the best movie ever made, best movie I've ever seen on a plane in my life. So fucking fun. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  Why don't we have 20 of those movies?

• 1:09:08Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. Well, we don't have 20 Shane Blacks. That's the thing. We don't have 20 Shane Blacks at that period of his career. You know, where Hollywood is still intact enough that you could get a movie like that off the ground. And it might be one of the last movies of that kind.

• 1:09:21Speaker 02

  And it didn't do well.

• 1:09:22Sean Fennessey?

  It didn't do well, but it is beloved now, I think. I think it's beloved. It's definitely one of my favorite easy watches.

• 1:09:28Speaker 02

  To go back to your sort of Christmas question, the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang feels like the version that played for people better than this did, but I love this movie.

• 1:09:38Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, all of his movies are these kinds of two-handers, you know, these kind of like mismatched duos going together.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  Iron Man 3?

• 1:09:46Sean Fennessey?

  Speaking of Guy Pearce, right? You know, he's kind of in the negative energy opposite Iron Man, is he not?

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  I think it's the kid, Harley.

• 1:09:55Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah. What's, doesn't, what is Guy Pearce's character's name in that movie?

• 1:09:59Speaker 02

  Killian.

• 1:10:00Sean Fennessey?

  Killian what? Do you remember?

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  I think it's Aldrich Killian.

• 1:10:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  You can't, you can't, you can't screw me over on two trivia questions.

• 1:10:10Sean Fennessey?

  My number four is Thelma and Louise. It's kind of goes without saying. Speaking of Ridley Scott this week, Gladiator 2 week. Another movie that has like relevant, but maybe not overwhelming supporting performances in Brad Pitt and Harvey Keitel. But a movie that like absolutely centers Louise and Thelma, Susan Sarandon and Gina Davis. And I think shows like an interesting version of friendship, which is like loyalty, but tentativeness. And this desire to like stick together no matter what. Even if like, it's never totally clear like how close those two even are in the movie, you know, like.

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  Or how formative this experience was instead of making them. I think you'll find some people who will argue this belongs in the romance category, but I'll support you. You know, friendships are important to see.

• 1:10:55Sean Fennessey?

  Queer-coded Thelma and Louise?

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  Queer-coded.

• 1:10:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'm cool with that. I mean, that would be okay. They don't actually kiss, right?

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  They don't.

• 1:11:01Sean Fennessey?

  Number three is Sweet Smell of Success, which is the opposite of Thelma and Louise. It's about two people that fucking hate each other, uh, which is one of my favorite movies of all time. The poster of this movie hangs over my desk in my office at home. Um, if you want to get to know a little bit about me and how I see the world, you can watch this movie, starring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster.

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  That's illuminating.

• 1:11:22Sean Fennessey?

  Um, as a press agent, publicist, man about town with low morals, working very hard to please the local gossip columnist slash power broker in New York City.

• 1:11:37Speaker 02

  Do you find that you have a, an affinity for journalism movies?

• 1:11:41Sean Fennessey?

  I guess I have a little bit more access to that world and so I'm more open-minded to them. This I don't really view as a journalism movie. It didn't, it's actually more, honestly represents like the world that I operate in, which is like the world of entertainment and booking.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  Content creation.

• 1:11:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, content creation. Thank you for supporting me. Um, cause there's no journalism really happening in that movie. It's a bunch of people lying to the public about what's real and what's not real, you know, which is a little bit how things work, at least in the world of entertainment. There's a lot of messaging involved, wouldn't you agree?

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  There's a lot of that in the world of quote unquote journalism as well. And I love journalists and I support the media.

• 1:12:16Sean Fennessey?

  That's one of us. Um, my number two is Paper Moon. Yeah, again, just, just issued in 4K by the Criterion Collection. Thank you for your work. The late great Peter Bogdanovich's fourth film, I want to say, uh, starring Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal as a father and a daughter. Um, a con man takes a little kid on the road and they do great work together. Also great supporting performances in that movie. Madeleine Khan in particular jumps out to mind, but.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  I like, I like how you really carefully sort of picked different flavors of what a twosome could be.

• 1:12:51Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking about relationships and what different kinds of relationships you might see in these circumstances. Sometimes you have family, sometimes you have friends, sometimes you have enemies. Sometimes you have just a guy you work with. And my number one is The Lighthouse. And sometimes you just work with a guy who's just absolutely infuriating, you know?

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  That's a movie that also just like was extremely agitating to watch. Just extremely agitating.

• 1:13:14Sean Fennessey?

  By agitating, do you mean enlightening and humorous?

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  I walked out, I mean, that film is great and I think about it all the time, but I walked out of it like genuinely nauseous. Um, I think it was just all the like various fluids that were consumed in that movie. Um.

• 1:13:30Sean Fennessey?

  It's deeply disgusting.

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  Absolute banger performance. The, the one that's missing from my list that I really wanted to put on there, but I just wasn't sure I could justify calling it a two-hander versus an ensemble film as Master and Commander.

• 1:13:45Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  Another film than, yeah, Honey and Crow.

• 1:13:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's a big cast, though.

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  It's a huge cast, but like.

• 1:13:52Sean Fennessey?

  Usually you want these films to have fairly modest casts.

• 1:13:55Speaker 02

  I hear what you're saying. Um.

• 1:13:57Sean Fennessey?

  I like that pick, though. I had some other honorable mentions, um, called Collateral.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Cruz and Fox. Misery? I feel like that's a two-hander.

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  When Cruz does something, do you know what I mean?

• 1:14:09Sean Fennessey?

  God, I hope he starts doing something again. Don't get me wrong, I'm, I, uh, am building a shrine to Mission Impossible 8 as we speak.

• 1:14:18Speaker 02

  No, you're, you're, I know you love when Cruz does anything, capital D, capital A, but isn't it better when he does something?

• 1:14:25Sean Fennessey?

  I don't like it when he does lions for lambs. So not anything.

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  What about Night and Day, though?

• 1:14:31Sean Fennessey?

  Kind, kinda in on Night and Day. My guy mangled, yeah. He tried something. He tried to do a zippy two-hander, you know? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I, I'm a little concerned about Inari Two and Cruz, that being his foray into post IP Cruz era. What do you think?

• 1:14:47Speaker 02

  I don't know, I'm just, I'm, I, I don't think I've ever not enjoyed Cruz trying something.

• 1:14:55Sean Fennessey?

  What? Okay, do it quickly for me, even though I'm probably wasting an entire episode. Cruz trying something power rankings. Is it Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, or, or, or Collateral?

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  It's number one Magnolia, like, without a doubt.

• 1:15:09Sean Fennessey?

  I'm with you.

• 1:15:11Speaker 02

  Um, number two, Collateral.

• 1:15:13Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. Yo, homie, is that my briefcase? One of the hardest I've ever laughed in a movie theater.

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  Are we putting Tropic Thunder on this list?

• 1:15:20Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely. Definitely. I think it's, I think it's good at number three or four.

• 1:15:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay. That's number four.

• 1:15:28Sean Fennessey?

  Eyes Wide Shut?

• 1:15:29Speaker 02

  Eyes Wide Shut.

• 1:15:30Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, Dr. Tom, that's just a super, Dr. Bill, Dr. Bill. That's just a super weird character. That if it didn't look like Tom Cruise, if it was like John C. Riley, that would make more sense. Um, what else is in the Cruz trying stuff power rankings?

• 1:15:45Speaker 02

  Um.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  Oh, I wouldn't. But Rock of Ages counts, but I wouldn't.

• 1:15:52Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, it does count. I wouldn't put it on any list.

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  Award it anything.

• 1:15:56Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, Interview with the Vampire.

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:16:00Sean Fennessey?

  He really tried some shit on that one.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  Accents.

• 1:16:03Sean Fennessey?

  He went for it.

• 1:16:04Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 1:16:05Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't appreciate The Last Samurai, but he tried something.

• 1:16:08Speaker 02

  So we're negating my every time Tom Cruise tries something, it's great point. But what do we say? Wouldn't we prefer he tries something than not try something?

• 1:16:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, Vanilla Sky is him trying something. Remember when he's just figurine and the mask and all that? I mean, that's a weird ass movie too. He's just, he is the goat. People want to act like he's just a guy who jumps off buildings and they don't understand. They need to go back into the past and remember when he played the guy in Vanilla Sky.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  He needs to continue to try things so that people remember what he's capable of.

• 1:16:39Sean Fennessey?

  Inori too, though?

• 1:16:41Speaker 02

  We'll see.

• 1:16:42Sean Fennessey?

  Joanna, thank you so much. Where can we hear you?

• 1:16:44Speaker 02

  Um, House of R.

• 1:16:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  Where can hear me most, like, many hours in the week?

• 1:16:50Sean Fennessey?

  What are you hitting on House of R?

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Doom Prophecy and, uh, Mallory will be taking another bite at the apple and talking about Gladiator two with me as well. Uh, so hopefully she doesn't burn all of her takes with you and Chris.

• 1:17:02Sean Fennessey?

  We'll burn them like we burn ships in ancient Rome.

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  Excellent. Uh, you can hear on the Prestige TV feed. Rob and I are covering Say Nothing right now, which is really, really good.

• 1:17:13Sean Fennessey?

  I just talked to Andy Greenwald on the watch and I was like, this is the best show I've seen like five years.

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  I know. I know.

• 1:17:20Sean Fennessey?

  Anybody who's listening to this show, even though I have an anti-TV bias, Say Nothing on Hulu is exceptional.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  And the, and it got me to read a nonfiction book, which is nigh impossible. So congratulations.

• 1:17:31Sean Fennessey?

  Patrick Redden Keefe, one of the, one of the best out right now.

• 1:17:34Speaker 02

  Incredible book. Um, and, uh, and I think we're going to be covering like maybe Agency next, something like that. I don't know. It's a, it's a weird little time for Prestige TV and you can hear me on Trial by Content where we're watching a million different Denzel movies. And I just watched all of The Equalizers. So that was.

• 1:17:51Sean Fennessey?

  What was your favorite?

• 1:17:53Speaker 02

  Um, I actually really like two.

• 1:17:56Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, weird. That's my least favorite. Interesting. Yeah, three is my favorite, I think.

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  Three is your favorite? Okay.

• 1:18:01Sean Fennessey?

  Going to Italy. I'd just love to be in Italy.

• 1:18:03Speaker 02

  Um, when's the last time you watched Man on Fire?

• 1:18:06Sean Fennessey?

  A while ago. You know, it's not really my bag. That's in the CR bill zone. Um, I love Denzel. I love Tony Scott. Never really got that one, to be honest with you.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't. It's so rare core and I don't enjoy it. So.

• 1:18:18Sean Fennessey?

  It happens. It happens.

• 1:18:19Speaker 02

  If you're gonna pick something to be Equalizer over Man on Fire.

• 1:18:23Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's a bold take.

• 1:18:24Speaker 02

  Denzel in that mode. You know what I mean?

• 1:18:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I met, um, I met one of the producers of that, of the Equalizer films, I Tell You Right, this year. And, uh, he had, he had a really good head on his shoulders about those films. He really understood like what they are, their essence. And I was like, you guys should just make like three or more of these, you know, like that'll be great.

• 1:18:42Speaker 02

  I had a great time with them. And then like, you know, some like Melissa Leo's there. You're like, okay.

• 1:18:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:48Speaker 02

  Melissa Leo?

• 1:18:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:49Speaker 02

  Get your Equalizer money. I support you.

• 1:18:51Sean Fennessey?

  The, the history of Hollywood is dotted with successful and gifted actors taking on IP stories to pay the rent. There's nothing wrong with it. I got no problem. It's the same reason I got no beef with Marvel movies if they're any good. This is normal. This is what movies are all about. Um, Joanna, you're the greatest. Thank you so much.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  You're the greatest, Sean. Thanks so much for having me.

• 1:19:10Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's go to my conversation now with Jesse Eisenberg.

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• 1:20:43Sean Fennessey?

  Back on the show after many years, Jesse Eisenberg. Jesse, last time we spoke, you were acting and not directing, and now you're a two time filmmaker. I was reading about the story and how when you initially began writing A Real Pain, it was not about two cousins who go to Poland, and then it changed pretty significantly. What was the story originally and why did it change?

• 1:21:02Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah, thanks a lot for asking that. Yeah, the original story was based on kind of like a short story I wrote about these two friends I envied. My friend and my friend envied this guy who had moved to Mongolia and we were going to visit that the most pure radical, you know, politically rebellious person who had moved to Mongolia and lived off the grid. When we got to Mongolia, we realized actually that this guy had like sold out to this Norwegian tourism company and it just breaks down the relationship one at a time. Like, you know, like the Kiran character is destroyed and then I'm destroyed because Kiran's character is destroyed. And so it's just like this kind of, but we're all stuck on a mountain living in a year. And I just thought it'd be so cool to shoot Mongolia.

• 1:21:43Speaker 07

  And I was like 30 pages in and I think Kiran's character, the Benji character, had just stolen money from my ATM account. And I was realizing this story is not going to finish. I can't finish this story. I don't know where it's going to go and I don't know enough about Mongolia. And an ad popped up online for, this was a banner ad online that said Auschwitz Tours and then in parentheses, with lunch. And I was like, oh my God, oh, that's it. And suddenly like everything started to make sense. It would be these two guys, but they would be cousins. And instead of going on this tour to meet a friend, they'd be going to explore where their, you know, ancestors were from. And I could deal with all of their existential angst, all the stuff that I wanted to write about, all of their kind of modern grievances, their self indulgence, their real pain.

• 1:22:27Speaker 07

  But I could deal with it against the backdrop of World War II and the Holocaust. And suddenly the movie has meaning. Suddenly their, their lives have, have grounded, rich texture as a story.

• 1:22:39Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's a fascinating choice and also the choice to make Benji your character's cousin is sort of unique. I couldn't think of very many examples where you have this dynamic where you have the familial closeness, but not the same closeness as a sibling. And there is a difference with a friend where you have a much longer history together. Like, why the choice to make the characters cousins?

• 1:22:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. No, it's exactly kind of what you were just describing. And I kind of conceived of this idea that maybe their grandmother had just passed away. And if their grandmother just passed away, then their reason for being can kind of dissolve. You know, like if you're a cousin, you don't share parents, you share grandparents. And if that link is gone, you kind of can choose. You know, it's not prescribed, like, well, you know, she, you know, he's my brother, so I gotta be there for him. You know, you can kind of choose. And my character has a family and is married and kind of has moved into his own next stage of life. And it made the tension in the relationship between cousins heightened because there was really the option on the table for them to not exist as a pair anymore,

• 1:23:41Speaker 07

  even though they had been, you know, tied together, you know, at the hip, as Kieran says in the movie.

• 1:23:47Sean Fennessey?

  Both of the films that you've directed have protagonists who are searching for a kind of meaning, but also have these weird fits of self-indulgence. And I'm fascinated by that, why that, you're drawn to that.

• 1:24:00Speaker 07

  Oh, thank you for being so sensitive. Thank you for being the only person I've met in the last week who's watched my other movie. And thank you for being the only person I'll ever meet who asked me about it in a public forum. Yeah, right. And that movie, right, the characters are, yes, struggling to be socially and politically conscious, but are ultimately stymied by their own, you know, deficiencies, you know, and personal deficiencies, as we all are, you know. And the thing that interests me so much is just that it's who I am. Like, I'm really surrounded by people who do good social work. I mean, really, kind of, most people in my life are just so happen to be doing really vital social work,

• 1:24:42Speaker 07

  including my wife, who's currently teaching a disability justice class that she had conceived of in the New York City public schools. I'm in the arts and there's something pretty navel gazy about being in the arts, especially if you're writing like I do, personal projects. And so I just constantly feel this conflict of is what I'm doing valuable in the world as compared to the people around me who are doing work that is far more objectively and explicitly socially relevant.

• 1:25:10Sean Fennessey?

  Do you feel like the arts can be a public good, though? Do you feel like the work that you're doing can impact people's lives in a meaningful way? I know that's a big, heavy question, but I'm curious like where you land, having made these movies now.

• 1:25:22Speaker 07

  What a nice question, and the answer is 100% of course, the arts can be very valuable. In fact, the arts sometimes are the more powerful stories than than nonfiction, you know, because we can connect to them on a human emotional level. The difference is my intent is not that. My intent is I'm kind of writing a story that's buried inside me and I want it to be funny, like, because I like humor and I want it to be emotional because I like that kind of stuff. And my wife's intent is how can I be of service? And my intent is how can I make something that's inside me that speaks to a thing that I'm interested in? And so perhaps my movie will be helpful to people connecting. I am sure there's a thousand ways that it could be. It connects us to the trauma of our ancestors. It connects us to pain.

• 1:26:05Speaker 07

  It connects us to questioning, is our modern pain valid? And all sorts of wonderful, interesting, thoughtful, good questions that we should be asking ourselves. But my intention wasn't exactly that.

• 1:26:16Sean Fennessey?

  I know that you're very precise when you're writing and I assume when you're making a film. And the movie has this great pace and comic timing. And it's also very deep and there's something kind of dark and painted right underneath the surface. But how do you find a way to balance those two things? Like, is there, is it, is it a mechanical process when you're editing the movie or writing the movie to know, like, these beats are going to manage? Is it a feel thing where you just know that it's feeling right? How do you determine the best way to execute on that?

• 1:26:44Speaker 07

  Oh, thank you so much. Um, so my background is in playwriting and so I write plays that are incredibly similar in tone and theme to what this movie is and what my previous movie was. And I've been writing for like 20 years and basically performing them hundreds of times. And so I have this, probably an instinct from performing live, these kind of tones and themes where I can, where I just like, if I have an instinct, I'm not saying it's a good instinct, but what my, but my instinct is to kind of feel out how you can kind of balance sympathy and transgressiveness and characters that are obnoxious, but also lovable. Because that's what I've been kind of writing for a long time. And by doing it in front of an audience every night,

• 1:27:25Speaker 07

  you can kind of have a really direct response as to what's working and where the audience is feeling alienated. And so with Kieran's character in this movie, he plays this kind of mercurial, charming, but also kind of off putting guy. And, um, and I felt like I was able to modulate it in the script and in directing this brilliant actor because I had just gotten used to that kind of style.

• 1:27:47Sean Fennessey?

  Benji is such a familiar figure to me, you know, that hugely charismatic, but sort of obnoxious and relentless person. And David feels closer to what I imagine that you are actually like, but I was wondering if there's any Benji in you.

• 1:28:00Speaker 07

  Yeah. So like I'm a, you know, unlike David, um, which is the character I play, I'm a performer. You know, David is a guy who sits in front of a computer and sells ad banners. And I'm not that, I'm a performer and I'm, I'm an extrovert as, as for my job. And so like, I have that feeling. I've been like the person who commands a room in my work. In like my private life, yeah, I'm much similar, more similar to David. I'm shy. Um, and you know, self questioning rather than kind of questioning others and wondering, you know, what's wrong with them. I'm constantly just wondering what I have done to create this, this situation. And so, yeah, I'm, I'm really more like David, but I know the feeling of being Benji just a little bit because I've been in

• 1:28:44Speaker 07

  positions where I'm being asked to be the kind of extroverted showman.

• 1:28:47Sean Fennessey?

  One movie that flashed when I was watching this of yours was The End of the Tour. You know, like a two-hander, a live wire and a straight man and this uneasy tension. I don't know if that movie crossed your mind while you were working on this.

• 1:28:59Speaker 07

  You're so savvy and it only crossed my mind as something to avoid because I realized after I finished writing this movie, I'd named my character David and the character was named David in the end of the tour that I was playing. I didn't name it after that. I named it after a play I wrote where I played a character named David who goes to Poland. But nonetheless, I was like very aware of this thing. And when I saw James Ponsel, the director of The End of the Tour, I told him, I think you might not like some scenes, but I'm not sure which ones. But what I loved about that movie so much, The End of the Tour, that I tried to employ with this movie, was just basically having the tour be in the background by really centering it on these guys who you know well

• 1:29:39Speaker 07

  at the forefront and then kind of the background just being metaphorical fodder for what's going on in front. We were doing a scene in The End of the Tour and I was interviewing him at the Mall of America and we're sitting and behind us is this roller coaster that's going by. And the sound was so awful because we kept hearing the roller coaster over the dialogue. And I asked James Ponsel, the brilliant director, I said, why did you choose to set it here? It must be horrible for sound. And he said, oh, well, you know, this tour is like a metaphor for what you're going on this tour. You're learning about the Midwest and you're learning about, you know, America. And this is what's more of a metaphor for America than this roller coaster going by at this food court. And so that stayed with me forever.

• 1:30:21Speaker 07

  So when I was making this movie, I was thinking, you know, how can we stage these scenes to, again, give the same kind of impact?

• 1:30:28Sean Fennessey?

  I really like that. So I've read and you've been talking about how you'd never seen Kieran perform before, before you cast him. Is that true?

• 1:30:35Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's true in a weird way, which is that like I didn't remember this story until recently, but we had first met at an audition for Adventureland, a movie that I was already cast in and a movie that he was auditioning for. And he came into the room, again, I was already in the movie, so I was like kind of in a comfortable position. And he came into the room and just destabilized the whole thing. He actually grabbed at one point. Grabbed my nipples and pulled them and twisted them and it hurt a lot. And the director was saying, oh, stop, stop, stop. And Kieran, I guess, didn't hear him and he was holding on to them. And and I was so intimidated and dazzled by this guy who was so brazen and also very talented. Um, and funny and alive and um, and I and and so when somebody had mentioned his name to me while I was writing this movie.

• 1:31:19Speaker 07

  This, I guess, must have stuck with me that this is that guy. Oh, right. That's what this guy is charming, owns the room. Even though I'm the one who planned this Polish trip and even though I'm the one with the job. He still controls me entirely and makes me feel intimidated and charmed and dazzled. And it's so weird. I guess that just stayed with me.

• 1:31:38Sean Fennessey?

  So that is that essentially the only performing you've ever seen from him? Is that interaction you had with him at that audition?

• 1:31:44Speaker 07

  No, I saw Home Alone.

• 1:31:45Sean Fennessey?

  That is really fascinating because so many of us have such a big relationship to him now, obviously, from the success of the show that he was on. And so I I it's just remarkable that you're able to like, believe that he could do it.

• 1:31:56Speaker 07

  Yeah, well, I'm sure Succession will be my favorite thing in the world. I just like have trouble watching things when they're very popular at the moment. Just because I don't know. I guess I want to feel like I'm not. I don't know why I'm because I'm a small man. I don't know why. But nonetheless, um, I, uh, but so like, uh, so I just hadn't watched it. But I obviously know and he does these Kenneth Lonergan plays and the style is similar to my style. So I just knew he'd be great. And for a movie like this, which is so intimate and so kind of personality driven, you know, you want somebody who can just be that way. You could just kind of live in that world rather than an actor putting on this thing of charming antagonistic man.

• 1:32:31Sean Fennessey?

  I want to ask you about your persona, if you're open about that, because um, you've had this. You know, I think highly intelligent, somewhat nervous, wonderkin, just like the kind of character that you're probably best known for playing. But you like, I thought Fleishman is in Trouble was so interesting. Because you entered the dad zone and the dad zone is like a critical moment in any actor's life where you're like, oh, yeah, that guy's. In his 40s, he's a father now, you know? And as somebody who is also in the dad zone now, like, I'm curious. Do you have a consciousness about like what kind of parts you want to take? What how you want to be seen on screen or on stage or wherever you're performing at this stage?

• 1:33:06Speaker 07

  No, I mean, I've never felt at all in control of my career or my life in general. So, no, I have no.

• 1:33:14Speaker 07

  Feeling about trying to engineer a persona or something. It's funny that you mentioned like being a dad like because I had gone on to that. I think I played a dad in another movie, Louder Than Bombs, but I remember the opening scene. Yeah, the opening scene was my child was being born. So it was a very, very, very new dad. No, and then this, they brought the kids out, you know, these like, you know, real people, like 12 year old, 13 year old kids. And yeah, it was just like a it was just a brief thing. And I remember just joking with Lizzie Kaplan, who was in the show. I was like, oh, what was because she had the same thing on Masters of Sex. She had, they brought her kids out. She's like, oh, right. I'm a mom. And it was just this kind of weird feeling of, oh, I guess if you're gonna just keep acting, this is what happens. Like, you know, I guess the it would be worse to never have the kids, right?

• 1:33:56Speaker 07

  You know, as an actor, but no, I just don't perceive myself. The only, only, only time I ever tried to kind of engineer a perception of me was in the first Now You See Me movie, which is where there was like kind of a blueprint of a character or there was a character, but they told me we're doing some rewriting on it. So they said, what kind of character do I want to play? And I just wanted to play exactly the opposite of me, this kind of perfectly confident, brash, arrogant guy. And I just finished doing the third one last week. And I have to say, these are like my favorite sets I've ever been on because standing in that body all day with my head up and feeling confident and feeling arrogant and feeling like I'm the best at what I do

• 1:34:36Speaker 07

  just makes me feel that way all day. In fact, I don't remember a bad day on a Now You See Me movie, whereas every other movie I've done, I remember feeling, oh, depressed that day or really anxious about that scene. And just not on these Now You See Me movies. So that's been great for me. I would say kind of like psychologically.

• 1:34:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's really interesting. You mentioned that too, because you would imagine that as a film director, you have to have that Now You See Me style energy, like you have to have a confidence. You're making choices all day. You're in charge. How much do you want filmmaking to be like a part of your career going forward now? Like, is that the thing you'd like to spend the most time on?

• 1:35:09Speaker 07

  I want to do both. So I just finished Now You See Me and I'm in pre-production for the next movie I'm directing and I just want to do, I want to stay busy. I mean, how do I put it? I'm driven by, I don't know, Sean, I think I'm like mostly just driven by the fear of not having a job. And so I just try to stay busy doing as many things as possible. And it freaks me out when I have a day off because in my line of work, having a day off is like a dangerous thing. It's not like, because it implies a certain kind of like,

• 1:35:35Speaker 07

  maybe your passe or something like that. You know, being in the arts is not a stable thing. And even though I've had kind of like nice successes, it doesn't guarantee like any, like it truly doesn't guarantee anything. And so I just try to stay busy. And now that I've had some success as a director with this new movie, A Real Pain, it was much easier to get my new movie off the ground. And as soon as I start editing that one, I'll write my next thing. But if Now You See Me 4 comes along, I'll go and act in that. I just want to like, stay busy doing things I like. And if I could be so fortunate to do this for a long time, it will be a win.

• 1:36:05Sean Fennessey?

  Just a couple more for you, Jesse. You know, you, you also recently said when you're writing something, you assume no one's ever gonna see it. Because your track record is that people haven't seen it. You've written a lot of screenplays, you've written a lot of plays over the years. But, you know, A Real Pain is now one of these kinds of movies where you're in the awards race and, you know, you have performances that people are excited about. And like, a lot of people are gonna end up seeing this film. Is that, is that a different feeling for you? Is that like, does it, because obviously you've been seen on screen for a long time, but this is somewhat of a different proposition.

• 1:36:33Speaker 07

  Yeah. When I was in Sundance, like, yeah, there was like a review in Variety and the title of the review was something like Jesse Eisenberg becomes a major filmmaker. And I remember reading that review, just thinking like, oh, like, being shocked by it, being shocked by it, because I wouldn't have maybe framed it that way, or framed myself that way. But my next thought was, oh, great, maybe they'll let me do the next movie. Maybe they'll let me do another one. And it's kind of that feeling. I don't ever have this feeling of... Uh, this is it. I've arrived. You know, it's never that. It's all can I get the next one made because this one is seen as good. And my last movie wasn't received as well as I had hoped, but I had already had financing. I already have everything set for a real

• 1:37:15Speaker 07

  pain because I was worried it might not be received that way. So I'd already had everything set up, including Kieran, including our locations, including, um, um, you know, uh, financing. And so I knew I would get to make that. Um, so that's how I think about it. I love doing the actual thing so much. I love actually writing something and being on the set and doing it. I love it so much that I just want to get back there. And so public perception or public receipt of my stuff is only valuable to me insofar as it allows me to do it again.

• 1:37:46Sean Fennessey?

  I really liked A Real Pain. Um, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? Have you seen anything great recently?

• 1:37:54Speaker 07

  Um, yes, of course. What did I see that was great? I mean, what did I see? I mean, let's say the last thing, last thing I saw that like really kind of shocked me was this movie by Eliza Hitman, Never Rarely Sometimes Always. And the reason I say that is because I didn't have any expectations for that movie. I hadn't seen her prior movies. And when I watched that, I just thought, oh, she's, she's nailed it. She's nailed what every single filmmaker wants to do, which is just delve into something in a purely realistic way. Not every filmmaker, obviously, but she delved, she, but she did what every person who's trying to make realistic movies, um, uh, wants to do. Um, and, uh, it just shocked me and it just, it was, the first feeling was adoration. And then the second feeling

• 1:38:38Speaker 07

  was, God, do I have that in me? Is there any part of me that can figure out how to do what she did? Um, that was a thing that really, and then it like was like almost life-changing. I mean, I got in touch with her right away and became friends with her and, um, now I'm, you know, trying to help her get her next movie made because she has trouble getting her movies made, which is a shock.

• 1:38:55Sean Fennessey?

  That's a great recommendation. Jesse, good to see you. Congrats on A Real Pain, man.

• 1:38:59Speaker 07

  Thank you so much for having me on again. It's really great to see you.

• 1:39:09Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Jesse Eisenberg, thank you to Joanna Robinson, thanks to Jack Sanders, and thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. Later this week on the show, I teased it, it's Gladiator 2 time. Mallory Rubin, Chris Ryan, me, talking Gladiator 2. We'll see you then.

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