Jesse Eisenberg thought A Real Pain was going to be "terrible"
The critically acclaimed comedy drama – which arrives in UK cinemas today – has turned into a major player in the ongoing awards season.
Jesse Eisenberg's acclaimed new film A Real Pain – which he wrote, directed and stars in – finally makes its ways to UK cinemas today, almost a year after it first debuted at 2024's Sundance Film Festival.
That's a long time for fans to have waited since the first wave of positive reviews began, but the wait has probably felt even longer for Eisenberg himself – who has done several rounds of press since that original premiere.
With that in mind, when we spoke to the actor-turned-filmmaker just before Christmas and asked how his own relationship with the film has changed in the time since he first screened it, and his answer was rather interesting.
"The real truth is very strange," he exclusively told RadioTimes.com. "Which is that I thought it was going to be terrible.
"Like when we were making... when we were editing the movie, I thought it was going terribly because you're just constantly trying to fix things, and then you show it to a group of people. And you're showing it to a group of, like, five people, and if the energy in the room is not good, you think your thing is awful.
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"And it wasn't until... literally, I thought the movie was terrible, and then it got into Sundance, I was shocked. And then it played at Sundance, and it played like a rock, like it was the most exhilarating room, right? I mean, it was amazing, and that's when I knew it was good."
He added: "But, like, literally, before that, for a year, for two years, you know, of writing it and working on it, I did not think it was gonna be received well."
Read more:
- Jesse Eisenberg on A Real Pain and why blockbusters can be "boring"
- A Real Pain's Kieran Culkin said awards talk "never even crossed my mind"
Eisenberg added that these doubts had only been compounded when the film had its last test screening in New York, where he said it did not get nearly as good a reaction as he would have liked.
"It was not good," he said. "There were, like, 10 people in the room [and] afterwards everybody was just, like, throwing criticisms. And it was strange, even my friend came up to me and he was like, you know... consolation, kind of hug, you know. So I had no idea!"
The film has turned into a major player in the ongoing awards season, with Kieran Culkin having already taken home the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – one of four categories the film had been nominated in.
We fully expect that to lead to further nods when Oscars nomination time rolls around... watch this space!
A Real Pain is released in UK cinemas on Wednesday 8th January 2025.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
