Jesse Eisenberg Steps Into His Past

Actor, writer, and director Jesse Eisenberg’s latest project, A Real Pain https://www.searchlightpictures.com/a-real-pain, is perhaps his most personal to date. He joins us today to unpack the journey that shaped the film (9:18), memories from his travels to Poland (15:40), and what he observed about his family growing up in East Brunswick (22:23). Then, Eisenberg reflects on his first jokes written on post-it notes (29:20), his breakthrough acting roles in Roger Dodger (31:35) and The Squid and the Whale (34:37), and formative visits to his aunt Doris in New York City (35:32). On the back-half, we talk about his transformation in The Social Network (41:15), the erotic dream that inspired his play The Spoils (42:48), the real anxiety he explored while writing A Real Pain (46:39), lessons on directing from Richard Ayoade and Greg Mottola (51:14), and why he cares so deeply about his art (1:00:10). Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:12Speaker 00

  Pushkin.

• 0:30Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Stan Fragoso. Welcome to the show.

• 0:47Sam Fragoso?

  Today, I'm joined by actor, writer, and director Jesse Eisenberg. A little over a decade ago, Eisenberg was nominated for a Best Acting Oscar for his turn as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the film The Social Network. Since then, he's lived the life of a varied artist, collaborating with auteurs like Kelly Reichart and Richard Iawate. He's done television with Fleischman is in Trouble, the hit FX limited series based on Taffy Brodesser Akner's bestselling novel. He's written four plays, authored a short story collection, and regularly contributes to The New Yorker. But he's also gone mainstream, playing Lex Luthor in Batman vs. Superman

• 1:31Sam Fragoso?

  and The Justice League, not to mention his Now You See Me series, which just wrapped film number three. I guess it's no surprise then that Eisenberg's latest project finds him once again doing something new, this time as the director and writer of the new film A Real Pain. It centers around mismatched cousins David, played by Eisenberg, and Benji, played by Kieran Culkin, who reunite for a tour across Poland to honor their late grandmother. The adventure takes an unexpected turn when the odd couple's tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. Here's a clip from the trailer.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. Bonner. Is not available.

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Hey, Benji, I just got to the airport. I really hope you left already.

• 2:20Speaker 04

  Did it?

• 2:21Speaker 03

  God, you made it.

• 2:22Speaker 04

  What's up, cuz? I got some good shit from Wimmy Land.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  Wait, you're not like taking weed into Poland, are you?

• 2:26Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 03

  Benji?

• 2:27Speaker 04

  They don't give a shit about that stuff.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  And I think they very much do give a shit about that.

• 2:29Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:33Speaker 04

  Davers and I are cousins. We used to be joined at the hip. Our grandma is from here, so Dave arranged for us to join this geriatric Polish tour with you. Find people.

• 2:45Speaker 04

  I really needed this man. I know that it's tough for you to leave your boy. I don't really have anything going on.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  I know it's been the tough few months for you, so.

• 2:54Speaker 04

  I also want to say that I know you're not the most comfortable person with people.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  I'm not?

• 2:57Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:57Speaker 05

  Does it look real?

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Mother, twice the size of you in metal, so.

• 3:00Speaker 05

  You sure you don't want to come up here?

• 3:01Speaker 03

  I'm good.

• 3:02Speaker 04

  Can you take my picture?

• 3:03Speaker 05

  That's what I'm talking about. Watch it.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Thank you, David. But it's amazing that you're here, putting yourself out there so boldly for me.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Thank you, man.

• 3:10Speaker 04

  Let's go smoke a joint.

• 3:13Sam Fragoso?

  That was from the new film, A Real Pain, now playing in theaters across the country. It's one of my favorites of 2024, and it's clear Eisenberg has been influenced by his past collaborators. I'm thinking about the neuroticism and heartache of Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, for example, or the yearning of Greg Mottola's Adventureland, the acerbic wit of David Fincher's The Social Network. All of it finds its way into A Real Pain. It also finds its way into this conversation. As you'll hear, there's no pretense with Jesse. He's an artist who can't help but be himself in interviews, of which he does very few.

• 3:56Sam Fragoso?

  And so today, we talk about the long familial journey that led to this movie and the danger of embarking on such hazardous pilgrimages to one's complicated past. We also discuss what he may call his earlier, funnier work, growing up in East Brunswick, the feelings of alienation he felt in youth, and how it all set the stage for the actor and writer he would eventually become.

• 4:23Sam Fragoso?

  This is Jesse Eisenberg.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  So you ranked every Seinfeld?

• 4:42Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, yeah, for Vanity Fair.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  That is the coolest thing. I've been going through them.

• 4:46Sam Fragoso?

  I rewatched them constantly.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Me too. I watch them every night.

• 4:49Sam Fragoso?

  There was a, you must have Googled that. Someone asked me about that ranking as if it was in any way definitive or authoritative.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 4:59Sam Fragoso?

  And I was 21 and completely stoned.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  You wrote that at 21?

• 5:04Sam Fragoso?

  I wrote that at 21.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  How'd you get, how'd you get that kind of job at 21?

• 5:07Sam Fragoso?

  It was like, you know, it was like an almost famous fake.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 5:09Sam Fragoso?

  Email. Yeah, I pretended I was older.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Really?

• 5:11Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  I wanted to bring something up to you, which is that.

• 5:13Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  I, I watch it every night, two or three every night.

• 5:16Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  And the show, and I can't. I'm literally, I've been watching it through the lens of, I want to find an episode. Every single episode is about sex.

• 5:24Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Except I heard parking garage, maybe.

• 5:28Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, the parking garage, but that's not really, that's a very.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Seinfeld.

• 5:31Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  I know. I know. I want to, I want to, I want to reel.

• 5:34Sam Fragoso?

  I will, I will do that. I will figure that out for you.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  This is a new list and it's like.

• 5:38Sam Fragoso?

  I see that.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Appropriate to show.

• 5:39Sam Fragoso?

  Appropriate for Jesse's child.

• 5:40Speaker 03

  But also it's fascinating that the show really traded in just juvenile sexual desires.

• 5:46Sam Fragoso?

  Like your early writings.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Oh, whoa, you're good. But, but really, like, and I have, fuck it. So I asked ChatGPT and it recommended the parking lot one.

• 5:54Sam Fragoso?

  I'm basically like a Seinfeld ChatGPT, so.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  Oh, really? Okay.

• 5:58Sam Fragoso?

  So I can, I will figure out a few for you by the end of this.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 6:02Sam Fragoso?

  Let me, let me think about it when we're done with this.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 6:04Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, hi, Jesse.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 6:06Sam Fragoso?

  Nice to meet you.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Nice to meet you too.

• 6:07Sam Fragoso?

  How are you feeling?

• 6:08Speaker 03

  I feel good. Yeah. I mean.

• 6:11Sam Fragoso?

  Is that true?

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Yes, I feel fine. I have anticipatory angst about doing things, but when they're actually happening like this, I feel okay. We're sitting here and it's happening now.

• 6:20Sam Fragoso?

  Long form interviews, you feel what way about them?

• 6:23Speaker 03

  I like them and then afterwards I think, why did I just say all that stuff? Who gives a shit? Uh, but no, I like long conversations. It's, that's my stock in trade.

• 6:32Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, good.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  I love long conversations.

• 6:33Sam Fragoso?

  You know, we're talking not too shortly after the election.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:36Sam Fragoso?

  As a former liberal arts major with, I believe, a focus on democracy. Are you glad that your degree is about to finally come in handy?

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, although just to curry favor with the new government, I'm changing my major retroactively to conservative arts.

• 6:52Sam Fragoso?

  Is that why you also applied for Polish citizenship at the same time?

• 6:54Speaker 03

  No, not at all. No, I applied to Polish citizenship as we were just winning the midterms in 2022. And no, my citizenship was entirely unrelated. And, you know, my wife is a teacher in New York. She's worked with undocumented kids for a long time. And, you know, it, you know, now more than ever is her job, you know, important to stay in New York. You know, to me, I don't fully understand the idea of, you know, rich people fleeing. That seems pretty weird.

• 7:22Sam Fragoso?

  Do you include the Hamptons in that fleeing category?

• 7:26Speaker 03

  No, I'm referring to federal borders.

• 7:29Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, just want to make sure.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:31Sam Fragoso?

  We like clarity on this show.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 7:34Sam Fragoso?

  I want to talk about this new film.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 7:35Sam Fragoso?

  And to do that, I want to start with the short story that you wrote in Tablet called Mongolia.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 7:42Sam Fragoso?

  In 2017, you published this piece, and it was about these two guys.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:47Sam Fragoso?

  Who were friendly.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:49Sam Fragoso?

  In college, I'm not going to say friends, they were friendly.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 7:52Sam Fragoso?

  And later decided to embark on this trip to East Asia.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:56Sam Fragoso?

  In the story, you describe their dynamic in Mongolia as such. Dennis was a narcissist with more room. I was insecure in a vacuum. As you started adapting the short story for the screen, what about that dynamic did you want to further interrogate?

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Well, what's interesting is now that the movie is over and people are reacting to it, they're noting like a kind of accessible buddy comedy of it. But I never viewed it that way because I'm thinking about it in terms of my relationships with men and, you know, friendships I've had, family relationships I've had, that have affected me so profoundly that they hardly seem archetypical or like movie-like or buddy comedy-like. You know, I am like a self-conscious person and, you know, very, you know, aware of, or at least think, I think I'm aware of my effect on other people.

• 8:47Sam Fragoso?

  I have that in my notes.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I got it, got it. But basically, like, I'm very like, you know, envious and... In adoration of, you know, these people who seemingly exist moment to moment and are more comfortable in their own skin.

• 9:01Sam Fragoso?

  I've heard of those people.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I actually, I think, oh no, I saw one on television and.

• 9:06Sam Fragoso?

  Seinfeld?

• 9:07Speaker 03

  It was a, there was a side character on Seinfeld. Now I'm trying to think of who that would be.

• 9:12Sam Fragoso?

  I think Kramer, actually.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  Sorry, it's Kramer. No, of course it's Kramer. Sorry. In fact, there were so many things in this movie, Real Pain, that Kieran does, and so I watch Seinfeld every night. That is a Kramer thing.

• 9:21Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  You know, even like, you know, just the way he dabbles into like, spirituality, you know, just kind of, he dabbles all over the place, and it's always just what he's interested in moment to moment. And it's a Kieran thing. And also, the way, the way Kramer walks through New York, and there's this like, running joke in it, I was just watching the episode where he, he takes over the fire truck, and as he's driving the fire truck, somebody screams out, "Hey Kramer!", and he goes, "Hey buddy!", you know, he's just like.

• 9:45Sam Fragoso?

  Small city in the world.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. And everywhere he goes, he's just beloved. And Kieran's a Simon Klein thing, you know, in the opening, we're walking through an airport and he gets stuck flirting with the TSA agent.

• 9:55Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  But anyway, so in terms of like, the Mongolia thing, I liked this dynamic between the two of them, never really thinking, oh, this is kind of a well-worn thing for a movie. I mean, I'm aware of The Odd Couple and all that stuff, but because it was so real to me, I was just creating something that felt like, very personal, rather than something that felt a little more well-worn.

• 10:13Sam Fragoso?

  Real to you in what way?

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Real to me in that, like, I love and envy people like this, I want to be in their orbit, they make me feel so small, they make my life feel so pre-planned, calculated and boring. And on the other hand, I go home at night and I have a family and stability, and my rent's been paid at the half point of the month, because I'm too worried that if I pay it on the 27th, I'll get in trouble. So I both envy them, I feel small about myself, and then kind of go home to a stability that I created, because I can't exist in the way they exist. And one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from the smartest person I know, Richard Iwate, I don't know if you're familiar with his work, he's a comic genius.

• 10:54Sam Fragoso?

  I'm very familiar.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  And.

• 10:55Sam Fragoso?

  You made a film called The Double.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 10:56Sam Fragoso?

  That's from Dostoevsky.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  That's true. So you're, oh, so, yeah, you know, Fyodor as well, I guess. He gave me a great piece of advice, but it was in Russian, but.

• 11:04Sam Fragoso?

  But I had a translator for you today.

• 11:06Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you so much.

• 11:07Sam Fragoso?

  That's the ninth pages here.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Richard told me, you know, we think we're jealous of people, but we're not. We're jealous of like one aspect of a person's life. And so when we think we're jealous of a person, we actually don't want their lives. We just want one little aspect of it. But chances are that aspect will derail all the other things that we've established in our life.

• 11:22Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Anyway, so that's kind of what happens in the movie and what my character thinks about.

• 11:26Sam Fragoso?

  So your character, David.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:28Sam Fragoso?

  Is a father, a husband, a man who wears a University of Indiana cap.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:34Sam Fragoso?

  Basically you.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:36Sam Fragoso?

  And is a surrogate for you.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Kind of.

• 11:39Sam Fragoso?

  Which part of Benji, his cousin.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:43Sam Fragoso?

  Do you most admire? What's the part that in the I want a framing that you'd like?

• 11:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, wow, that's great. Yeah, I guess just like I had this one time, I was working in Croatia for like four months during for a movie. And somebody gave me some pot to smoke there. Otherwise we didn't, there wasn't any there. And the one day I smoked pot, I went to the grocery store I used to go to, this little kind of corner grocery store. And I would always try my Croatian out on them. But for some reason, when I was stoned.

• 12:12Sam Fragoso?

  I'm sure they love that.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  They always spoke English back to me. But then this one time when I was stoned, they spoke Croatian back to me. And I realized I had just been projecting this very kind of, just this nervous, unsure person. And when I was stoned, I was not unsure. I was, I'd filtered out and so they thought I was Croatian. And that's the Benji is he just projects such confidence in his eyes that he can talk to anybody. Because he's not feeling uncomfortable. They don't feel uncomfortable and he can kind of walk through life, basically just turning situations into his whims.

• 12:44Sam Fragoso?

  I love that. At some point in writing the script, you hit a wall and you couldn't find a path forward. How did you break through to the other side?

• 12:53Speaker 03

  Yes, right. So I was, I was writing the, this script, the guys got off the plane in, in Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. But I could tell this was not going to make it to a full length feature film script.

• 13:05Sam Fragoso?

  And when it's not going well, how do you feel?

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Oh, it's the worst. It's the worst because I used to write all the time, little funny things and everything. But now what I do, because I'm trying to have like just more of a professional life because I have a child now and my time is more limited creatively. I know I have like eight weeks to write a script. I've set it aside and everything. My wife's cool with it. And so if something's not going well, you feel like shit, I'm not going to have a project for the next two years. You know what I mean? No, with that, not, not, it didn't feel good. Um, and, uh, yeah, no, it feels, yeah, it feels, yeah, that's bad. And, um, because I really was thinking for years, I wrote the piece, as you said, I think in 2017. So I was thinking for years that this would be a movie script that I would write. So when it wasn't going well, I was upset and, and an ad popped up online for Auschwitz tours with lunch.

• 13:48Sam Fragoso?

  Why did those four words open the, the story up?

• 13:52Speaker 03

  Because I've thought a lot about trauma tourism. Um, I'm, that's the kind of tourism I'm interested in. The last vacation I took was to Timasur, Romania last month, which is the site of the original uprising against Cecezcu in Romania. I know I sound like a total nerd, but this is just, I like traveling, but I feel guilty about traveling. And so like, maybe I offset the balance by going to these places of historical import.

• 14:16Sam Fragoso?

  So you're describing yourself as a trauma tourist?

• 14:19Speaker 03

  I, yeah, yeah, as opposed to a traumatized tourist. Yes.

• 14:22Sam Fragoso?

  That may come after.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true. Depending on what happens. I've been to Kigali, to the Rwanda genocide museum and Cambodia, the killing fields. I, I'm really interested in these world events and, um, I feel it opens me up and grounds me in some ways to visit these places. But also there's the weird thing of, you know, trying to get the economy plus seating on the trip, you know? So that, you know, you get a little more extra legroom on the flight to Rwanda and, you know, just the awkwardness of living your modern life. And in my case, my life of great luck and fortune. And, uh, while also being interested in things that, uh, you know, that I thank God every day that didn't befall me.

• 15:04Sam Fragoso?

  In the film, there are these two cousins, as we talked about, you and Kieran Culkin.

• 15:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:08Sam Fragoso?

  And they're there to do this Holocaust tour.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:11Sam Fragoso?

  But they're also there to visit the ancestral home of their late grandmother, Dory.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:16Sam Fragoso?

  Who's based on your great aunt with the same name.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 15:20Sam Fragoso?

  Who left Poland in 1918.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  Wow, you're good.

• 15:23Sam Fragoso?

  For America.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 15:24Sam Fragoso?

  What were your initial impressions when you visited her home as the characters do in the film?

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, so right, so she grew up in this town of Krasnostaf, which is a small village between Lublin and Zamosh for Poleheads out there.

• 15:38Sam Fragoso?

  That actually has a majority of our listeners.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  But basically, we found this town, we pulled up, my first thought, actually driving through this town, I said to my wife, I wonder if we're gonna see anybody that looks like me. And as we're driving through this town, it just like occurred to me, I don't know, maybe 20 seconds after I said that, it occurred to me, oh, right, they were all, they left or died. Such a dumb thing to think, you know, initially, but then, yeah, we got to this house, and I was like standing in front of it, it was like the culmination again of like a kind of difficult trip, because we were trying to find this place that was in this obscure village. And, and I just wasn't like feeling anything, and then, you know, I don't know, and then after 10 minutes, we were just loitering.

• 16:19Sam Fragoso?

  What were you trying to feel?

• 16:21Speaker 03

  That's a great question, I guess, that's a really great question. I guess I wouldn't have been able to articulate it, I guess I thought that it would give me the answers that I didn't even know the questions to, right? I mean, like, we try to connect to history, assuming that it will tell us something, you know? People are interested in getting their 23andMe thing back, you know? I wonder, though, like, how often the thing we, I don't know, I guess I was expecting it would do something for me.

• 16:47Sam Fragoso?

  Do you typically go into experiences aiming to feel something specific?

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, wow, you're a very astute interviewer, yes, I really do. I, that's partly why I do what you codified as trauma tourism, because I'm really hoping to have some profound experience, something to connect me to, meaning, a meaning that I'm very much lacking in my own life of material, material good, good fortune.

• 17:15Sam Fragoso?

  Now that you've made the movie, and you've thought about visiting the home of your aunt, and you, of course, go back to New York and show her the photo

• 17:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 17:25Sam Fragoso?

  that you had blown up at Kinko's. And when you showed her her old home, what did she say?

• 17:32Speaker 03

  She looked at it and said, oh, yeah, that looks like it and dismissed it immediately.

• 17:36Sam Fragoso?

  And you made one of that.

• 17:38Speaker 03

  I always looked her that everything she said was right. She she was like not a happy person and but she was a really wise person.

• 17:47Sam Fragoso?

  She lived 106.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. And by wise, Henry James, who said wisdom is knowing what to overlook, that was her. She would always know the important thing. And yeah, she would always just figure out whatever the important thing was. I would tell her a long story, maybe even trying to impress her with something I did or received or, you know, got some celebratory notice or something. And she would always just like cut to like, what's the what's the point of this? What's it actually doing? What is what does it mean in your life? And actually, is it hurting you in some way you haven't been able to figure out? And so when she said that, I was like, oh, yeah, that's right. That's we don't have that connection anymore. That's the house. What do we do with that? What is she supposed to do with that? Like cry over the picture? Like, what is that? It's meaningless. Like, her days were about kind of like she wanted to learn something every day and

• 18:33Speaker 03

  she wanted to live every day, which meant exercising and eating broccoli.

• 18:38Sam Fragoso?

  Do you inherit those qualities?

• 18:39Speaker 03

  I love broccoli and not the and the exercising. I'm holding off until I'm in my hundreds as well. I think that's the that's when to start a regiment.

• 18:46Sam Fragoso?

  Right, when to get the three digits and you start running.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. Just when you can't walk, you start running. Yeah, so her dismissal of it in some ways like kind of informed like kind of the sensibility of this movie, which is like, oh, that's not ours anymore. Let's focus on what's ours. We don't we don't belong there anymore.

• 19:02Sam Fragoso?

  I'm trying to hold this ambivalence with the fact that as a kid, you told Time Magazine, I was a very sad kid and I would learn about my family's history and I just felt this connection to it because I felt they must have been miserable, which is how I felt. Which doesn't sound. Like an ambivalence to me about your family history, it feels like something you felt rather acutely at a young age.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Yes, the ambivalence is only that I feel unworthy of connecting my current pain to their trauma.

• 19:33Sam Fragoso?

  As a kid, that's what you thought?

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Oh, no, God, no, as a kid, I looked at, you know, as a kid, we were visited by my cousin Maria, who actually just died of COVID. She's a survivor of the war, and some of the stories in the movie are about her. So she survived the war as she was in, living in that house up until 1939. So she, her family stayed, my, my grandfather's family, Doris's family left. But that family stayed and she would come to New York like every few years. And we would hear Maria's coming and, and she, you know, she stands on breadlines. My dad would tell me about Poland during the Soviet era, that she would be standing on breadlines and her life was just this very bleak existence. And she would come and I just had this like very deep feeling of connectivity to her energy, which was one of total melancholy.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  And I felt, yeah, something like that. And because my parents are like very wonderfully self-actualized, happy people, I kind of was looking to like other people who were miserable, like my Aunt Doris, who was really quite a solitary person, and my cousin Maria, who would visit us from Poland and saw like, oh, they seem to feel what I feel.

• 20:36Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, so let me try to understand this. Growing up in East Brunswick.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:41Sam Fragoso?

  Your father was a taxi driver turned sociology professor. Your mother was a choreographer at a Christian boys' school in Philadelphia on weekdays.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 20:49Sam Fragoso?

  And on weekends, was a birthday party clown.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  You're good, you're good.

• 20:53Sam Fragoso?

  They were positive examples, they were examples of self-actualization. What about them did you go, I need something else?

• 21:04Speaker 03

  I remember my dad, like on weekends, would be like, it's sunny outside, we should go out.

• 21:09Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, and that sounded terrible.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I was like, what? And so when it was sunny, I just thought, oh, God, this is like the worst, I can't believe it's sunny. You know, it's interesting, just as we're talking, though, it occurs to me, my parents, it skipped a generation.

• 21:21Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean?

• 21:23Speaker 03

  My grandparents were also fraught. And I just realized it skipped a generation on purpose, which was that-

• 21:30Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean?

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Well, my grandparents' lives were much more difficult. And they never talked about their misery. They never talked about the family they lost in the war with my parents, because they wanted them to assimilate into, you know, essentially, you know, mainstream American culture and to not be bogged down with knowing Yiddish and knowing about trauma and knowing about the old country.

• 21:52Sam Fragoso?

  So your parents were second generation?

• 21:53Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 21:54Sam Fragoso?

  And you're third?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Exactly. In that regard, they probably were insulated from misery.

• 22:00Sam Fragoso?

  And you thought, since they're not feeling miserable, I want to find examples of something like that?

• 22:08Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 22:09Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that instead of Star Wars, you were shown Frederick Weizen movies?

• 22:13Speaker 03

  Wow, you did a very deep dive and came up with a lot of accurate treasures. Um, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, although I'm sure my parents liked Star Wars, but they never showed it to us. I don't know, not, there wasn't like a rule in the house. But we just never saw that stuff and nor did that kind of stuff appeal to me in the sense that like things that were popular amongst other kids just kind of like, I don't know, I just, I kind of avoided them. I don't know why.

• 22:41Sam Fragoso?

  My parents considered showing me Frederick Weizen movies.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  But didn't?

• 22:46Sam Fragoso?

  No, they just said, why don't you just stick around the house and observe us and take notes?

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Oh, really? Got it.

• 22:51Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  That's funny.

• 22:53Sam Fragoso?

  In this new movie of yours, you're playing the character of David, who at one point earlier in his life, quote, "did feel more pain, pain that he's now medicated away." But when you were in first grade, getting on that bus to Frost Elementary-

• 23:11Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 23:12Sam Fragoso?

  What were you overwhelmed by?

• 23:16Speaker 03

  It's like 60 Minutes. I promised I wouldn't cry. Um, I, when I was a kid, I was overwhelmed by everything.

• 23:21Sam Fragoso?

  Like what?

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, really, just like, probably, pretty amorphous terrors, you know, but I would, I would latch my fears onto anything, you know, like I do now. I'm just basically racked with dread. And as a kid, I was racked with dread, but was not in a position to kind of figure out little coping mechanisms like I find now. Like, I could watch Seinfeld at night, every night, which I do, because it'll help me fall asleep, because I'm not, like, you know, in my own thoughts and all that stuff at the time. So, I just, I live in just a state of total dread. And as a kid, everything was overwhelming, because, you know, as a kid, you're like, out of control of everything, you're in school, you know, I would just worry about everything. When I was, yeah, five, I had to take two tissues

• 24:05Speaker 03

  to school every day. One tissue was for crying, and one was for bleeding. And my lovely mom, she would say, as I was leaving the door, "Wait, do you have your crying tissue and your bleeding tissue?" And in retrospect, my mom probably should have just said, "Honey, you don't need tissues. You're not going to cry or bleed." But instead, my very sweet, very well-meaning mom, I guess, just reinforced this need that something terrible is going to happen to me every day.

• 24:26Sam Fragoso?

  And what was something terrible that would happen?

• 24:30Speaker 03

  For the bleeding, it would be to get disastrously hurt, or have a nosebleed, which I often did.

• 24:37Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, me too.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  And then the crying one was just that I would miss home, is the way I thought about it. I would just miss being home.

• 24:44Sam Fragoso?

  With your sisters?

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, just with my mom, really. It was like a mom thing, I think. And there's a line that Kieran has in this movie. Kieran is telling the group about me, and he goes, "We went to Dewey Sleepaway Camp, and I had to hug him to sleep every night and talk about his sweet fucking mom to get him to go to sleep." You know, and like, yeah, that's kind of, yeah, how I felt.

• 25:02Sam Fragoso?

  That was you?

• 25:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'd tell him about his sweet fucking mom every night, just to get him to sleep. Yeah, that's kind of, that was me. It's also funny, because Kieran's just like, insulting his aunt.

• 25:14Sam Fragoso?

  I heard you once call it separation anxiety.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly, yeah. That's what it was referred to as, and I guess that's what it was. But it felt, I guess, if I'm looking back on it psychologically, it felt actually far more like profound than "don't like to leave this space." It felt like dreading major, major things.

• 25:32Sam Fragoso?

  When you missed the sixth grade, how did you make sense of that?

• 25:34Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, I had, I mean, I had like a tutor at my house and I was, as you probably know, because it seems like you know everything else, I was like institutionalized briefly for, for, for trying to hurt myself, et cetera. And, uh, but I, I, I was in like the first month of sixth grade and I was just, it was pure terror. I remember it, literally, I remember it like a fever dream where like, I remember like, like running in and out of rooms. Like, it's so interesting because like, you know, in school, there's a real, pretty strict civil society, which is you walk in this room and then the bell rings and you have three minutes to get to your next class. And all that stuff, just for me, totally upended, where I would like rush in and out of rooms and I would beg people for a quarter so that I can go call my mom on the payphone, which was near the front entrance. And it was just like, all, once, once I like

• 26:16Speaker 03

  this thing clicked for me that like, I don't have to follow the things because I'm so anxious, I'm so miserable. Suddenly it was just like a free for all.

• 26:24Sam Fragoso?

  You were drawn to the lines.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  Yes. I was just in and out of class. It was my birthday and this sweet, sweet girl Jenny, she said to me, Jesse, you don't have to cry today. It's your birthday. And then I just started bawling and run it, ran out of the class. And, um, I just remember like, there were no rules. I was, it was chaos. It was the horse in the hospital. It was just like pure chaos and I was a wreck.

• 26:45Sam Fragoso?

  I don't mean to laugh at this.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  No, no, it's hysterically funny.

• 26:47Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, it's painful.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's painful, but now it's funny and, you know, maybe my life is better for it, but probably not.

• 26:53Sam Fragoso?

  Is it?

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Well, you know, it's the kind of thing where you're like, and that's what made me me. But I'm like, actually, maybe that's what made me far worse.

• 27:00Sam Fragoso?

  You know, it's funny, I, I just started going back to therapy.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:03Sam Fragoso?

  And I found that in the last month, at the end of the sessions, I'll go, all right, well, I didn't choose this. I am who I am. Like,

• 27:11Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 27:12Sam Fragoso?

  What am I supposed to do with this now?

• 27:13Speaker 03

  Right, exactly.

• 27:14Sam Fragoso?

  And then I leave and I go, why did I pay to get to the conclusion of I didn't choose how I'm wired? It's just horrid.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  But once you say, I didn't choose this, doesn't it actually give you some kind of chance that maybe choosing something else, like?

• 27:29Sam Fragoso?

  That's certainly what he says.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  Right, exactly. Yeah, that's how they get you with a little rhetorical bullshit.

• 27:35Sam Fragoso?

  When you were 14 and you started writing and you did bits on Post-it notes.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 27:41Sam Fragoso?

  Did that help alleviate or make use of some of that sadness or pain that we're talking about?

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a great question. And I would never have said that, but actually, now that I'm thinking about it genuinely for the very first time, I would say, yes, I guess. And I'm sure I have the experience that every artist has, which is like, the world feels out of control. So you start doing your art, your painting, you're, you know, putting makeup on, whatever it is you're doing. You're dying your hair, you're writing a play, whatever it is.

• 28:06Sam Fragoso?

  Writing sex jokes?

• 28:07Speaker 03

  That's it. To like, I guess, get some control back from what you see as a chaotic world. Which is why I'm always a little suspicious of the very confident, self-actualized artist. You know, I'm kind of envious of it, too. Like, oh, wait, you can write scripts and also not hate yourself? Like, and that's always kind of interesting to see. But, um, yeah, I guess when I was like, writing jokes, yes, I guess it allowed me to maybe have some control over what I felt was chaos.

• 28:33Sam Fragoso?

  What kind of jokes would you write?

• 28:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, just sex jokes, just total, total sex jokes.

• 28:37Sam Fragoso?

  From your vast experience that you had?

• 28:39Speaker 03

  From my vast experience of listening to other people tell sex jokes, I realized. Like, I was watching this show on Comedy Central called Make Me Laugh, where a comedian would do like, two minutes to a contest. So they'd get a regular person to sit in a chair and the comedian would try to get them to laugh. And they had two minutes. I'm remembering, like, it was just all sex jokes. This is like, late 90s, when I guess maybe that was like, the new thing. You know, we don't have to hold back anymore, is what that meant. Yeah, so I just knew sex as like, a thing, as a punchline. Yeah, not as a activity to have.

• 29:10Sam Fragoso?

  I think one of the jokes was, uh, I've had sex in every room of this.

• 29:14Speaker 03

  I have. Yeah, unfortunately, I live in a studio apartment. A killer one-liner. It's also, you know, there's some self-deprecation about my small home.

• 29:22Sam Fragoso?

  It's actually a class comment, really.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  It's, yeah, exactly. If anything, I think, and perhaps, there was a whole kind of Marxist set that I did do. And in some ways, it wasn't even about the humor. Actually, my first piece I ever published was called Marxist Socialist Jokes for McSweeney's. And it was a series of jokes about Marxist socialists. You take all the classic jokes and then change it to Marxist socialist. Yeah, obviously, that's what that is.

• 29:47Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, so when you're 17. Seventeen seems like a really pivotal year for you.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:55Sam Fragoso?

  It's around then that you transfer to the professional performing arts school in New York.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:00Sam Fragoso?

  On Forty-Eighth Street in Midtown.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 30:03Sam Fragoso?

  What kind of outlet did acting offer you at that age? Sort of in the same spirit of writing Post-it note jokes.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  You know, I don't, I didn't like live or die for acting when I was like a kid in plays. That came later and it became like a really strong interest for me. But really, for me, the great outlet of like doing theater or being in New York City was I was just with people that were more like-minded. I was with people who were adults primarily, which was a great relief. I just felt like so much more comfortable in my skin around people who were adults. And then when I was in, I was in this high school in New York that was performing arts high school. I was just around like-minded people, sensitive people, people who like weren't embarrassed by emotions, who didn't make fun of each other. And if they did, it was like in good nature.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  It wasn't like, you know, bullying or cliques like you find maybe more in the suburbs and stuff like that.

• 30:58Sam Fragoso?

  Frederick Weisman jokes?

• 30:59Speaker 03

  Every day a Frederick Weisman joke. It was amazing from all the kids, each one a different joke. It was just great. It was like, it was just like a social outlet kind of thing. And then I started like getting good acting parts, like, which is just random because I had other great actors in my school. And I kind of just, I started getting good parts. This movie I was in when I was 18 was Roger Dodger, this like great New York independent film. And I started getting like good parts after that. And I started to really fall in love with, with acting. And then for me, it's become about that. But, you know, at the time, it was just like, I gotta get out of this life I don't like. And theater provided a great outlet.

• 31:33Sam Fragoso?

  You said to The Guardian once, "When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable as you're given a prescribed way of behaving."

• 31:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:42Sam Fragoso?

  I guess, did you find it more comfortable saying words that weren't your own?

• 31:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, not only that, like, you know, it's like, I think probably a lot of people would relate to this, even if you're not an actor, but like, you know, all the anxiety people have socially about going into like a new situation. Like, imagine if you had to sit there and you had to, in between saying hello and nice to meet you, you had to take a sip of your Sprite and you, and they chose the Sprite for you. And then you had to have this conversation that turned into a fight with this other person. And then you had to walk away crying. Like, I know that sounds like a difficult task, but to me, that sounded like pure freedom. I, I don't have to worry about what I'm gonna say. I don't have to worry about stifling my emotions because it's scripted that I get angry and then walk away crying. And to me, it was just like, this is the greatest freedom in the world. I don't have to worry about being judged as me.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  I'm this character. And actually, you know what? This character is kind of arrogant on the page, but you know what? It's gonna make me feel really good to feel that.

• 32:40Sam Fragoso?

  Well, with that, here's a clip from the film The Squid and the Whale from 2005, directed by the great Noah Baumbach. Here it is.

• 32:51Speaker 06

  Do you want to go to my house? I thought we could- Jesus, you really want to do it, don't you? I don't know. What's the obsession with sex? It's not an obsession. I'm not so sure I want to do it either. I'm scared too. Well, scared is not the issue. It's just, everything is so serious suddenly. We're not getting married. What are you saying? Nothing. I just don't want to feel this pressure from you. But do you like someone else? Your dad's girlfriend? No. No, why? No, and she's not his girlfriend.

• 33:21Speaker 06

  My father said you had a weak handshake, which is a sign of indecision. His hands are so huge, I can't get a good grip. My mother said you don't have a very good model for relationships because of your parents. What? Your mother doesn't know anything. Well, I thought it went well. You told me she-

• 33:36Speaker 03

  He said I was hilarious.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Like, don't be difficult, please.

• 33:47Sam Fragoso?

  The other side of that age of seventeen, when you really were like, starting to act, is that you began to forge this relationship with your Aunt Doris.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 33:58Sam Fragoso?

  When you began to visit her every Thursday uptown.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:02Sam Fragoso?

  What were you looking for? Was it some kind of direction?

• 34:06Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly. I was looking for direction. She, as an actor, I'm probably speaking for the majority of actors, which is like, you feel one day celebrated and the next day rejected. And it's just the nature of being an actor. You know, you're celebrated for something and then rejected by something else, usually within an hour. And that's if you're successful. That's like, that's, that's.

• 34:25Sam Fragoso?

  Right. That's the dream.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  That's the dream. Exactly. And it applies to everybody. Like, really does. And I know people far more successful than me, and they have those feelings too. And like, it's just normal.

• 34:35Sam Fragoso?

  Sort of inspirational speech you're giving.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Even you could make it and feel those awful things.

• 34:41Sam Fragoso?

  Do you feel bad right now? How about you feel even worse, but you have a little bit more money?

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. Well, yeah, that, that.

• 34:47Sam Fragoso?

  That's not that bad.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  That does help. That does help. Absolutely. I mean, obviously, it helps, you know, but, and my Aunt Doris was basically, she basically grounded me on both of those fronts. So if I was like, celebrated for something, I would like, tell her about it, and she would not be impressed. And if something was bad, and I tell her I got rejected from this thing, I'd say, who cares? Like, why, why, you know, just get to the heart of it. Like, why is that an important thing for you? And ultimately, I'd wind up in the same place every time, which is, the celebratory things are kind of fleeting and fake, and the rejection part thing is kind of fleeting and fake too, if you choose to look at those things in that way. And she had been through a crazy life. She's really had quite a crazy life. And I would say she just was able to egolessly pierce into the truth of kind of the meaning of life, which again, she always said, you know, wisdom is knowing what to overlook. That was her.

• 35:34Sam Fragoso?

  Why didn't you want to go see her, starting at 17?

• 35:37Speaker 03

  Well, basically, what happened was I was going to this performing arts high school I went to was a was a public school. And I lived in New Jersey, so I had to lie and say I was a resident of New York City to go to the school. So I used her address because she was my relative who lived in New York City. So I used her address. And so I think I went to like pick up mail or something there because I would get mail sent there from my school. And I felt a little guilty that I was like exploiting her apartment, but not having a relationship. And then when I so I kind of like, you know, got together with her, you know, a little bit, let me take her out to dinner. She's, you know, old and living alone. And it became like revelatory pretty quickly of like who this person is and what they mean to me.

• 36:14Sam Fragoso?

  That's incredible.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:16Sam Fragoso?

  That it came from a place of guilt.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure.

• 36:18Sam Fragoso?

  First and foremost.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  Sure, you know, all my things derive from, yeah, I would say my career is like, yeah, half dread and half creativity and guilt.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  After the break, more from actor and director Jesse Eisenberg.

• 36:39Sam Fragoso?

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• 38:11Sam Fragoso?

  In those early films, I'm thinking about Squid in the Whale, Adventureland, Social Network. You said once, "I enjoy playing selfish characters."

• 38:22Speaker 07

  You had 42 days to study your system and get out ahead.

• 38:25Speaker 05

  Do you see any of your code on Facebook? I could use- Did I use any of your code?

• 38:29Speaker 07

  You stole our whole goddamn idea.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  Fellas, match.com for Harvard, guys. Can I continue with my deposition? You know, you really don't need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this. If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook.

• 38:44Sam Fragoso?

  Your plays, too, are often about culturally insensitive people-

• 38:48Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 38:49Sam Fragoso?

  -and the shaming of them.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 38:51Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think you play these parts to exercise your more selfish tendencies?

• 38:55Speaker 03

  Oh, 100%, yeah. No, that's precisely... 10 years of therapy can be summed up in exactly what you said. It's like, I feel so guilty-

• 39:02Sam Fragoso?

  Just like your aunt, yeah.

• 39:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. She was meaner, but-

• 39:07Sam Fragoso?

  There's still time.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. But if you can get meaner, I would come here every week.

• 39:11Sam Fragoso?

  Really? You fly from New York to LA?

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Listen, if you insult me, I will be here every Thursday, 4 to 7.

• 39:16Sam Fragoso?

  We don't have the studio at that time, but-

• 39:18Speaker 03

  We don't have the studio at that time. That's good. You know, for me, I would be writing these plays, and there's something quite arrogant about writing a play that, you know, "Oh, all of my thoughts deserve to be on." And so, like, the plays would be kind of these very real... Like, they would feature characters that were so kind of grossly tormented and offensive and-

• 39:40Sam Fragoso?

  The Revisionist, for example.

• 39:41Speaker 03

  Revisionist was more tame, but like, I wrote a play called The Spoils, and the storyline was my character was using my Nepalese roommate as bait to get a girl that I was in love with when I was younger to defecate on my face before her wedding. And this was the plotline, and I could only, you know, experience joy through being completely humiliated and disgusted. And so, this was just a really self-hating, maladaptive kind of person. And maybe what was happening was while I was writing this, I was trying to offset the arrogance of writing a play with a character that is so demeaned that the only good time in his life was when he was being defecated on. And so, like, which was a dream, a recurring dream he had had. And so, yeah, maybe-

• 40:24Sam Fragoso?

  Was it a recurring dream you had had?

• 40:25Speaker 03

  I had this dream once. It was very disturbing. It was in the lobby of like my theater camp when I was like, you know, eight years old or something. And yeah, this girl, she laid out newspaper on the ground and I lied on the newspaper and this happened.

• 40:39Sam Fragoso?

  The New York Post?

• 40:40Speaker 03

  The New York Post. Oh, that's good. Topical. And yeah, I'd had this dream and it kind of stayed with me as like this very kind of erotic thing. And

• 40:48Sam Fragoso?

  I can say why this was a hit play.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a hit play. It was a bestselling play on the West End in the theater we played in. You know why? Because I was getting at the truth.

• 40:55Sam Fragoso?

  That's what they said at the Time Out London.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  You joke, but that's all true. Basically, so like, yeah, this was a dream I had. I don't actually have this desire in my real life. But nonetheless, yeah, so this character that I had written was basically this guy who was so self-hating that he could only feel comfortable while being, you know.

• 41:15Sam Fragoso?

  Do you find being self-hating a useful quality in your writing, in your work?

• 41:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I guess I wouldn't say I'm self-hating. Like, that implies a certain activity, which I don't have. You know what I mean? Like, I like, oh, I wake up and I think of the bad.

• 41:27Sam Fragoso?

  Right, this is a verb. Okay.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  I really, yeah, I really don't. Exactly. Yeah, I don't do that. I don't think about that. And I'm not stupid, so I kind of understand like where I fit into the world and I know it's like, I'm not doing that much damage and all that stuff, you know? So I don't really walk around thinking that. But no, I just, I feel, you know, one's very lucky that my life has like allowed me to be in the arts and everything. And I feel just terribly guilty because I know I'm in a position that few get to be in. And so, yeah, it's those weird, it's that, it's this weird intersection of feeling really lucky and then also feeling guilty for the luck that I've been given. And in terms of self-hatred, I guess I don't think of self-hatred. I guess I just think I'm silly. Like, I recognize that like all the things I do are kind of like meaningless in the world.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  And yet I do them with a kind of fervor that would imply that they have some ripple effect of importance. And there's something really funny about that. And so I like writing about that.

• 42:20Sam Fragoso?

  That's very much embedded in this movie.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And the real pain, my character literally says, I, you know, I have OCD and, you know, and everything, but I medicated away. And I know my pain is unexceptional, so I don't feel the need to burden everybody with it. And that's pretty much how I feel. Like, yeah, I feel like, you know, like a A lot of people embarrassed to live inside my own skin, but I'm not going to say that all the time, except in, of course, interviews like this one. You know, but I'm not going to go around and say that because there's nothing more obnoxious than somebody who has run-of-the-mill anxiety constantly telling every room that they enter about it.

• 42:48Sam Fragoso?

  You're, like I said, always welcome to share that.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  Okay, thank you.

• 42:51Sam Fragoso?

  But, but I want to try to hold this sincerely, which it feels almost anathema to you, but I want to just try to do it.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 42:58Sam Fragoso?

  That scene you're talking about in your film, A Real Pain, where you're at the dinner table and Benji has gone up and excused himself and gone to the bathroom and your character, David, basically unloads on the rest of the tourists.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:11Sam Fragoso?

  And says all these things. I take a pill for my OCD, I jog, I meditate, I know that my pain is unexceptional. I hate him and I want to kill him and I want to be him and I feel so stupid around him.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:22Sam Fragoso?

  Which is also almost the exact language you used in the beginning of this conversation.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:27Sam Fragoso?

  And describing him.

• 43:28Speaker 03

  Shows my limited range literarily.

• 43:30Sam Fragoso?

  It's okay.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:31Sam Fragoso?

  There's time.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:32Sam Fragoso?

  You're only 41.

• 43:33Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 43:34Sam Fragoso?

  When you wrote that scene, you did it in a library.

• 43:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:40Sam Fragoso?

  And you told The New Yorker that you were crying while writing that.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:45Sam Fragoso?

  Why?

• 43:47Speaker 03

  Oh, because it's like literally everything I feel, you know, you know, writing in addition to kind of like, I guess, trying to upend whatever ego I might have is also cathartic, you know, and that's the way I feel around so many people. I find people like Benji to be really alluring, you know, especially for somebody like me, but just in general also alluring, somebody who seems comfortable in their own skin, somebody for whom even their grief is enviable. Benji's grief far outweighs mine. It's revealed in the movie that he's had kind of much more trouble the last few years than me. But even his grief is like grounded, even his grief is like earthy. Whereas my grief, I like medicated away. So it's kind of just like this fuzzy thing inside of me.

• 44:30Speaker 03

  Benji's grief is all in, he goes all in. Again, it's revealed what he's been through and even that's enviable. You know, this is a person who is living at an 11 and I'm living at a four. And like, it's just, I just wish I could spend an hour living at that, at that level.

• 44:47Sam Fragoso?

  You, Jesse.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:49Sam Fragoso?

  At the eleven.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  Of course, of course.

• 44:50Sam Fragoso?

  For an hour.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course, of course.

• 44:53Sam Fragoso?

  Why?

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm just like, I'm doing this amazing stuff now, like, it's amazing. This movie's coming out all over the world and like, I have to go to these like, events and these parties and I've yet to have like, a sip of alcohol because I feel so guilty that I'm going to these events that like, I can't like, people are like, cheers, I'm, I just can't, I like, I feel so mortified to be at all of these wonderful events and be included in everything that I just like, I can't even, you know, I can't enjoy the thing.

• 45:19Sam Fragoso?

  What are you mortified about?

• 45:21Speaker 03

  Mortified that again, like, being celebrated for something that's not worthy of being celebrated. My wife works in disability justice in New York City and like, no one claps for her at the end of the day. She doesn't go on, you know, a radio program and talks about what she was thinking when she was teaching, you know, you know, so I'm just around things that just seem to me far more noble.

• 45:42Sam Fragoso?

  But why does that have to negate an enjoyment of making a movie?

• 45:46Speaker 03

  Because I'm a narrow-minded, black and white thinker.

• 45:48Sam Fragoso?

  And besides that?

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Oh, no, that's precisely it, is I don't have like, the nuance to see, you know, the world as anything.

• 45:55Sam Fragoso?

  Jesse, if that was true, then you couldn't have made this movie.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  That's true. Well, maybe I just don't apply it to myself. Maybe that's what it is.

• 46:00Sam Fragoso?

  Again, you couldn't have made this movie if that was true.

• 46:03Speaker 03

  That's true. Maybe I can apply it to myself when I'm like, writing something, but then as I'm talking about it, you know, one of the interesting things about doing interviews like this one and doing a lot of press for a movie, is that all the things I wanted to express about relationships and myself and my childhood are in the movie.

• 46:19Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  And they're hard for me to kind of fully articulate as a regular person, because it implies a certain self-awareness that I don't know that I even have. But in the movie, it allows me to do it through characters, and in some ways, it's far more true and articulated than I can do in person.

• 46:35Sam Fragoso?

  I think you've done a great job.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  Thanks, but you know what I mean, right?

• 46:37Sam Fragoso?

  Of course I do.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  You know.

• 46:39Sam Fragoso?

  That's why we try to hold both. I've brought the text in and I've asked you about the text.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  That's true, that's true. No, no, and you're, you know, I would do these interviews with Richard Iwate, actually, we were paired up for a lot of these interviews, and Richard kept saying in between interviews, he would say to me like, "I made the movie because I didn't know how to articulate the things they're asking me." And that's what the movie is.

• 46:58Sam Fragoso?

  When you made that film with them, the double.

• 46:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:00Sam Fragoso?

  Do you see that film sort of in conversation with this one?

• 47:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, in one very specific way that I find so entertaining, which is that like in that movie, I was playing two characters who are exactly alike. But in for one character, the world just opens up its doors and the other character, the doors close just as he's about to get inside. And it's like this funny thing. So like this character makes like a stupid joke and everybody in the elevator laughs. And then I utter one thing and somebody screams at me for talking in the elevator. And it's just really funny. It's like a fever dream of a movie where it's like, oh, this is what this crazy thing might feel like. And in this movie, there's a similar thing. Benji says all these awfully inappropriate things to the group and they all find him great. And then I try to talk to somebody and like they kind of ignore me or I like, I'm just not, I miss the person by a second or I'm a little too late with my joke. It's just this great thing and like that you could see in, you know, in comedy where

• 47:49Speaker 03

  the world seems to like one person and not the other for no other reason. Then this is the way the world has panned out for these people.

• 47:54Sam Fragoso?

  I think that the parallels between the two is incredible to me.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, the movies are so different. I don't think anybody would account for that, but to me it's.

• 48:01Sam Fragoso?

  Only an unwell person like me. Yes, understood.

• 48:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, with a Yankee in shadow.

• 48:06Sam Fragoso?

  Thank you. And so Richard Iwate, I want to talk about directing before we leave.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  Oh, sure.

• 48:11Sam Fragoso?

  You said your two favorite filmmakers that you've worked with are Richard Iwate and Greg Mottola.

• 48:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:16Sam Fragoso?

  And you said they're two of the most nervous people you have ever met.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:20Sam Fragoso?

  As filmmakers.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:22Sam Fragoso?

  What about their approaches to the craft or their frankly nervous energy inspired you to direct or sort of taught you about directing?

• 48:31Speaker 03

  Oh, because what it taught me is like they had very strong taste, but not strong personalities. And so like they were very clear on what they wanted to make, but they were not interested in like the authority that the, that the position granted them. Do you know what I mean? And so like they could be nice and collaborative and allow other people to excel while also making sure that we, the thing we were doing was kind of of a piece and was creatively rich. And that's what I just loved about it, seeing people in positions of leadership from a creative perspective, not from a kind of authoritarian perspective. I just loved it and they both made me feel the most comfortable I've ever felt on sets. And it's what makes, it's, it's just, it was like a kind of role model of how to behave

• 49:16Speaker 03

  in the world.

• 49:17Sam Fragoso?

  How do you do that on set?

• 49:19Speaker 03

  I. I do it naturally, and by naturally, I mean, I am so grateful that anybody is coming to work on these things. I'm not making these big budget, you know, commercial things where everybody's getting paid a lot of money. I'm doing stuff that are like, that's like very personal to me, and the fact that any other person would want to sign on to it is just makes me feel so indebted to them, and I mean, in every single position on set. And so, so the way it manifests is like, really listening to other people and knowing that they're great at their job and probably know a lot more about their job than you know about their job, and appreciating and allowing them to feel like they can excel. It's about knowing that actors are in very uncomfortable positions of exposing themselves, of trying to kind of not, you know, account for their own vanity at the same time as

• 50:04Speaker 03

  playing a real person, at the same time as like memorizing lines and emoting on cue, even though you didn't sleep last night and all these men are staring at you while you're crying, you know. And I just have such gratitude that anybody is giving themselves over to working on a movie that I wrote that, it comes naturally.

• 50:20Sam Fragoso?

  In Adventureland, Squid and the Whale, and Louder Than Bombs, you were playing essentially surrogates for the director.

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Oh, right, yeah.

• 50:27Sam Fragoso?

  When you're making this film.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:29Sam Fragoso?

  Playing a version of yourself.

• 50:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, kind of.

• 50:31Sam Fragoso?

  How do you give yourself over to the part in the way you're talking about?

• 50:34Speaker 03

  It's not hard for me because I've been acting so much longer than I've done anything else, and I've acted so much more than I've directed, obviously. So like, to me, the easy thing to step in is to an emotional experience. I know how to get to an emotional place. I know all of my physiological shortcuts that can get me to a very emotional place immediately, because as an actor, that's the job, is like, you know, you have to change your emotions immediately.

• 50:58Sam Fragoso?

  How do you do that?

• 50:59Speaker 03

  Oh, you know, oh, for me, I mean, a few different ways. There are literal physical things that I can evoke feelings in myself, which is what every actor kind of gleaned over the course of a career.

• 51:11Sam Fragoso?

  Like, things you tell yourself?

• 51:13Speaker 03

  No, literally feelings. I can put my body in certain feelings and breathing techniques and feeling certain things in the back of my throat. And, and, and I think maybe what it is, is like, it just puts me in an emotional place in, in instantaneously. And then also, I think about the story. And when I work on something I like, the story is so impactful to me. I think about what this character's going through. In this case, I think about the fact that this guy has lived in the shadow of this person, and even in- You know, a movie that might not ask for the same emotional depth. I still think about the stakes of what this person is dealing with in these movies. Now You See Me, for example, the way I can give the movie stakes, even though the character is this kind of confident magician and it's a kind of a popcorn-y fun movie,

• 51:58Speaker 03

  is that this is a guy who's practiced every day of his life, sleight of hand magic in the mirror, and now is the time where he has to use all those skills and just create stakes. I mean, that's what acting is. You're creating stakes in fictitious circumstances and you're contorting your own emotional inner life to account for those stakes. And I love it. I just love it. To me, it's just, if I could act every day of my life, I would be so thrilled.

• 52:22Sam Fragoso?

  In the beginning, we talked about visiting Poland to try to untangle or understand some of this historical trauma.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:29Sam Fragoso?

  Or just to show your Aunt Doris that you cared enough about her story, that you wanted to see its beginning.

• 52:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:36Sam Fragoso?

  But as I was watching A Real Pain and then rewatching it, I kept returning to this passage from Proust's In Search of Lost Time. And I thought maybe you could read from this for a moment and see where it lands with you.

• 52:49Speaker 03

  Okay. This is Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Volume Three. "Poets make out that we recapture for a moment the self that we were long ago when we enter some house or garden in which we used to live in our youth. But these are most hazardous pilgrimages, which end as often in disappointment as in success. The fixed places, contemporary with different years, it is in ourselves that we should rather seek to find them." Yes. So I don't know which came out first, my script or this, but somebody's stealing from somebody else.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  And I'm just gonna say, I have all the email evidence that I need to show that this was written in 2022. And I don't know what Proust has. But yes, of course, that's, thank you for picking up this very appropriate passage, which just, yes, is exactly my experience. Yeah, we think we're going to, I love it, just enter some house and garden and it's going to stir up, of course, all the old feelings. And no, it just, it doesn't. Yeah, no, it doesn't. I mean, one of the things I like about this as it relates to A Real Pain is that in A Real Pain, like, it's none of the things that they expect give them the emotion. It's just themselves. It's the interpersonal envy and bittersweet loss of an old friendship. That is what's most emotionally impactful.

• 54:07Sam Fragoso?

  Going back to the house. And not feeling a whole lot of anything. And then years later, bringing a whole film crew.

• 54:19Speaker 03

  It's like a rich boy's little dream.

• 54:21Sam Fragoso?

  To the same house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true to do that as a hazardous pilgrimage, and yet you have done it and you have made this movie. And I guess I want to know, at the end of it, having made the film, how you think about your relationship to your aunt's story, to your family's history.

• 54:41Speaker 03

  I guess, maybe I could say I saw it in like, maybe my father's eyes, like after he saw the movie, which was that what he saw in the movie was me going back to a house that he's never been to, because he was never told about Poland, because his parents were kind of just living in denial of the Holocaust, because it was so painful to talk about. And he saw a movie where I was not only writing about it and not only going to that house, but casting my child as my child. And I think my dad probably saw the movie as this thing that I was doing about our family. And I guess I never really conceived of it as that, because I'm the creative person. So I'm thinking, what's going to work structurally and how are these characters going to interact, et cetera. But he saw it as like, what an interesting thing to do about our family.

• 55:26Speaker 03

  And so maybe seeing it through his eyes made me realize that the movie, I guess, speaks to something that is like another attempt at trying to find a connection to the past. And it's awkward, and in this case, it's fictionalized even. But it's just like another frantic grab at trying to hold on to something that ended so tragically, which is our family's life in Poland. You know, my father's not in the arts, and so a lot of the stuff that I write is probably not exactly stuff that. You know, as I told you, the plot of my play, The Spoils, you know, is not, you know,

• 56:08Speaker 03

  exactly something I think my parents can connect to. But this was just, I think this was something that for probably my father, and this was about his side of the family, not my mom's, that this was a movie that probably, and a story that probably he would say is, is, is personal. I think all of my stuff is personal. But this, yeah, I guess this is really familial and, and probably maybe is doing something for him that maybe he never had access to, which is giving him some, a peek behind the curtain of his family's history, the history that his parents were so careful to shield him from.

• 56:43Sam Fragoso?

  Right, because it skipped a generation.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  It skipped a generation because my, my, his father lost all of his aunts and uncles and cousins and never talked about it. And so my father grew up shielded from the horrors of the Holocaust. And maybe this movie gives him a little, you know, maybe a little, you know, window into something that, that, that had long evaded him.

• 57:05Sam Fragoso?

  My last question for us.

• 57:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 57:07Sam Fragoso?

  In 2016, you and I spoke.

• 57:11Speaker 03

  I know.

• 57:11Sam Fragoso?

  By phone.

• 57:12Speaker 03

  I know. Jesse will not read this interview.

• 57:14Sam Fragoso?

  How do you know that?

• 57:15Speaker 03

  Because I was looking at your work and right below the Seinfeld rankings is a headline, Jesse Eisenberg will not read this interview. And I was like, oh, God, I am such a cliche.

• 57:26Sam Fragoso?

  I did not write that headline.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  Even if you did or didn't, it was just like, I was like, oh, God, have I just been peddling the same self-deprecating line of answers for years?

• 57:36Sam Fragoso?

  I was 21, I believe. Yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 03

  Are you serious?

• 57:40Sam Fragoso?

  Yes.

• 57:41Speaker 03

  Wow. I would never have let a 21-year-old interview me.

• 57:44Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, it was over by phone. So you

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Got it. Of course, I wouldn't have sat down.

• 57:48Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, yeah, right. You were, I think you were walking in the street. There's an answer you give at the very end.

• 57:55Sam Fragoso?

  That I thought was so good, and I thought, I thought maybe you want to read it? And see where it lands with it.

• 58:01Speaker 03

  Oh, sure. Okay, right. So I'm talking about a play that, yeah, a play that I was writing and acting in. And I say, I remember who saw The Revisionist, which is the play, and what happened almost moment for moment. I know there was one unspoken moment three years ago with Richard Iawade in the audience, and there was a joke where I screwed up the line and it killed me. I don't think I'm alone in that way. I'm friends with Marv Albert, the sports announcer, who told me that there are games that he still laments because he missed a call or a phrase that he thought would have improved the telecast. People who care about what they do, whether they're good at what they do, think this way.

• 58:33Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, yeah. I just want, the reason I wanted to bring that back, beyond closing the loop on the two of us talking.

• 58:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:41Sam Fragoso?

  Is that instinct, first, to overindex on the negative aspect.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  Of course. Oh, yes, of course.

• 58:50Sam Fragoso?

  And the shortcomings.

• 58:51Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 58:52Sam Fragoso?

  And the one joke that you biffed.

• 58:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:54Sam Fragoso?

  But the second thing is the care.

• 58:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:58Sam Fragoso?

  Like, the care that's in this movie, the care that's in that Mongolia short story I quoted from, the care that dates back to Squid in the Whale and Before That.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  Oh, thanks, yeah.

• 59:07Sam Fragoso?

  Is that still there with you? Is that still the driving force?

• 59:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course. I mean, I love what I do, don't get me wrong. I mean, I love what I write and putting it on. I mean, it just tickles me, you know? And that's not a place of arrogance, that's just the nature of writing anything that you want to produce, is like, you have to like it a lot, you know? And, because it's going to get rejected by a lot of people, irrespective of how popular you are, or whatever. And, um, so, yeah, I like what I do a lot, but what that actually does is when it's not going well, it's infuriating, you know? So I think that's maybe why I overindex the flaws or the criticism, because I like what I do so much, and when it's criticized, and when I feel the criticism is correct, like, I missed a joke and it didn't go over well, you know? I overindex it because I really like what I do, and that was a flaw in it.

• 59:58Speaker 03

  So, uh, yeah, yeah, I guess that's very astute of you bringing that up. Yeah, I still care so much. I mean, God. Marv Albert did it for, I don't know, 50 years or something. He was announcing for a really long time, maybe 45 years, something. No, and was still like, you know, biting his nails before the game. The woman who was in The Revisionist with me was Vanessa Redgrave. She was 76 years old. She had won every award a performer can win in her life. She was considered and written about with like an objectivity saying like, "The greatest actor in the English language," you know, it was her. And she would be panicking before each show. This is just like what I've noticed with people who really care. I mean, yeah, it's a trait. And yeah, I guess those people are not really satisfied. But I guess if they were satisfied, they wouldn't be doing work at a level that people really like, maybe.

• 1:00:44Sam Fragoso?

  Jesse Eisenberg, thank you for the time.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  Thank you so much. It was great to see you.

• 1:01:59Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show.

• 1:02:02Sam Fragoso?

  If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple. If you're listening on Spotify, give us five stars. If you want to go above and beyond, you can share the program on social media, tag us at Talk Easy Pod. All of this ensures that we can continue making this show each and every Sunday. I want to give a special thanks to the team at Searchlight, Ji-Yun So, Taffy Brodesser-Ackner, Deb Seeger, and of course, our guest, Jesse Eisenberg. His new film, Real Pain, is now playing in select theaters across the country. To find where it's playing at a theater near you, visit our website at talkeasypod.com. For more episodes like this one, I'd recommend our talks with Jeff Daniels,

• 1:02:46Sam Fragoso?

  Joaquin Phoenix, and Natasha Lyonne. To hear those and more Pushkin podcasts, listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, at Talk Easy Pod. If you want to purchase one of our mugs for a holiday gift, come in cream or navy, you can do so at talkeasypod.com/shop. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janix Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Matt Sasaki and mixed by Andrew Bastola. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Chris Shannoy. Photographs today are by Julius Chu. I also want to thank our team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond,

• 1:03:29Sam Fragoso?

  Carrie Brody, Jacob Smith, Eric Sandler, Kira Posey, Jordan McMillan, Amy Hagadorn, Sarah Brugger, Owen Miller, Sarah Nix, Malcolm Gladwell, Greta Cohen, and Jacob Weisberg. I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. We'll be back next week with another episode. Until then, stay safe and so long.

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