One could argue that to be Jewish, practicing or otherwise, is to be full of shame and full of pain. But you could also argue that these things are, a lot of the time, part and parcel of being a member of any family. Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore feature as writer and director harnesses all of the qualities the filmmaker has broadcast as an actor for decades—boundless anxiety, neuroses, self-flagellation, the list goes on—in service of a personal story that is also deeply familiar.

In A Real Pain, he plays David Kaplan, a New York Jew embarking on something of a (begrudgingly) spiritual pilgrimage to Poland to visit his recently deceased grandmother’s old home as part of a Holocaust group tour, ed by his effervescent cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin). They used to be close, and, then, life happened. A Real Pain revisits all the little moments that make up the great tragedies of our existence. As generationally horrifying as the Holocaust or as mundane, but no less devastating, as the ways your own brain can turn against you in a heartbeat.

Both actors come to life as David and Benji in ways that fully acknowledge and embody the roles that have made them—there’s as much of Eisenberg’s body language from The Social Network in here as there are countless ad libs from Culkin that trace a direct line back to Succession. But the alchemy of Eisenberg’s script and the pair’s undeniable chemistry makes it sing. And so, towards the end of a lengthy press tour but perhaps right in the middle of a successful awards season (that’s Golden Globe winner Kieran Culkin to you), the pair sit down and reflect on what they’ve learned so far: about their movie, about each other.

1. The real friendship begins once the work is done

A Real Pain shot for just under two months in May and June 2023, before opening at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2024. Almost exactly a year after the premiere, the film is out around the world, and Culkin and Eisenberg have spent a lot more time together. “When we shot, we were sort of just making the movie,” Culkin tells me. “I’ve learned so much more about this guy since then.”

Eisenberg, for the first time of many, quips back: “I’m like an onion, you just keep on peeling me. And it still smells terrible, and makes you cry.” But in all seriousness—Culkin acknowledges that Eisenberg is “still exactly who I thought you were when we first made the film, it’s just more of it. Nerves and anxiety.”

On the red carpet for the film’s European premiere at last year’s BFI London Film Festival, Culkin told me that acting alongside his director “definitely took some adjusting.” He added: “He’d start saying things and I’d have to that he’d taken one hat off and had to put on the other one. It was the only question mark: I’ve seen him in movies, I know he’s a great actor; I’d read the script and knew he was a brilliant writer. So let’s see how he is as a director.

“I saw his first movie and it was good, but you never know. But the way he ran the set was awesome: he really looked out for other people’s opinions, which is what you want. We’re all making the movie.” That may be true, but as their recent game of Guess Your Movie showed, as Aaron writes: “jesse eisenberg and kieran culkin is my dream blunt rotation.”

A key moment in the film sees Eisenberg’s David it that he’s always held immense jealousy towards his cousin as much as love: “I love him, and I hate him, and I want to be him,” he tells the tour group. Later, he shares his biggest frustration with Benji directly. “Do you see how people love you?” David asks, “Do you see what happens when you walk into a room? But you light up a room and then you shit on everything inside of it.”

Back in the real world, Culkin shrugs off any ego. “You just tell me when to get in the car and I’ll go,” he says of his approach to campaigning, and working beyond the work. “They keep sending me the itinerary. I just don’t read it. Sometimes, I’m in the car and I don’t know what city I’m flying to. I just go.” To which Eisenberg gently adds: “He’s describing what sounds to me like a complete illness.”

3. The less you know about one another, the better

The film sees both actors give all-time performances—not showy nor disingenuous, yet so full of wit and vulnerability that nods to so many of their previous projects. At least, you’d think so by watching it—except Eisenberg has, to this day, never seen any of Culkin’s previous work.

Countless Letterboxd reviews mention Culkin’s performance of an era with Roman Roy in Succession (making A Real Pain a Roman Holiday), which aired its season finale while the pair were on production in Poland. But none of that mattered to Eisenberg. “After we made the thing, I assumed that I was cast for a reason, but he’s never seen me in anything ever,” Culkin explains. Eisenberg had initially planned to play the role of Benji himself, but had a change of heart, casting Culkin on sight instead. Why? It’s anyone’s guess. “I knew he hadn’t seen Succession,” Culkin continues. “When we were filming, he said he hadn’t watched the show and he gave his reasoning, which is normal. But I assumed that if you’re not going to audition me, you must’ve seen me in something. But no, so that’s something I found out on this press tour.”

But don’t worry: “I’ve seen Home Alone,” Eisenberg offers up of Culkin’s first-ever role alongside his brother Macaulay. Maybe it all makes sense, for a film that is, as Allison writes, about “that thing where you look at someone you’ve known all your life and wonder when and why they got different.” The ways we know each other may be more complex than we even realize. Even though, as Culkin says, “I don’t think I got the part because I drank Pepsi and wore suspenders.”

So he tried to bail. Culkin phoned Emma Stone, producing the film under her Fruit Tree banner, who had said that she understood entirely. “She was like, ‘I get it. You have to prioritize that. You should stick to your rule. Go home,’” Culkin recalls. “And I said, ‘Great, I have other actor friends, I can help you recast it.’ And she goes, ‘No, no, no, no. If you drop out, the whole thing falls apart. But it’s fine.’” With the entire crew already in Poland, Culkin did end up staying on board—but his rule, a lot of the time, still stands. “I had to stop just saying yes to movies because I like them and I want to be in them,” he says. “I have to start thinking practically about my family and about my mental health. I’ve been doing this for 36 years. But when you have kids, there’s things that I never used to ask that I ask now.”

It all fits with the film’s beating heart—David can’t stop FaceTiming his young son; Benji will not tolerate anyone belittling any memory of his grandmother. If you wouldn’t end it all to be with them, it doesn’t make sense. “Hard film to watch if you love your family,” Nick writes. “Also hard to watch if your relationship with your family is very strained. Basically if you have any complicated feelings about your family this will probably destroy you.” But at least you showed up.

5. Embrace your roots in the way that feels true to you

Much of the film deals with the lived reality of being Jewish, in all the different ways that may manifest. David and Benji are New York Jews through and through, as was their Grandma Dory (as was Eisenberg’s own great-aunt Doris, who lived in Krasnystaw and died at the age of 106). But the two cousins still bristle at the idea of really hunkering down for Shabbat every week, or practicing much of anything on a day-to-day. Yet that exact trepidation around religion is one of the things that makes this film even more Jewish, in of the truth of how such belief systems can survive today.

“This might be the most Jewish movie I’ve ever seen,” Eli writes. “Not because its characters are Jewish, or because it’s backdropped by Jewish history, but because the comedy is rooted in a deep cynicism of life’s daily discomfort and absurdity. And I don’t think there’s anything more Jewish than that.”