Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast15 Nov 2024

Write On: 'A Real Pain' Writer/Director Jesse Eisenberg

"What I wanted to do with this movie was take this interesting relationship that I have been exploring over the course of my writing, over 20 years, and this dynamic, and set it against the backdrop of something so objectively worse than anything the characters are going through. I wanted to put this funny, fraught relationship that seems like the stakes are quite high – are these two people going to continue on together? Against the backdrop of stakes that are so much higher, we can put their relationship into perspective," says Jesse Eisenberg, writer/director and star of the new buddy movie A Real Pain that takes place on a holocaust tour of Poland.

In this episode of the Write On podcast, Eisenberg talks about spending years trying to get this particular story just right, how it was personal to him, what it was like to shoot at a concentration camp and the great advice his producer Emma Stone gave him. He also shares his criteria for writing a road trip/buddy movie.

"It has to have an original quality to justify it as a movie. I read so many scripts as an actor and I've written so many things, that [a script] has to have two things: it has to be specific enough to feel real and personal. There are just so many movies in this road trip/buddy movie genre, if it doesn't feel specific I think an audience can sniff it out immediately. The other thing is to make it feel new, to have a new reason to tell this story so it doesn't feel like something I've seen 10,000 other times," says Eisenberg.

Listen to the podcast to learn more.

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Episoder(100)

Write On: 'The Smashing Machine' Writer/Director Benny Safdie

Writer/Director/Actor/Editor Benny Safdie is known for defying expectations and using his sense of humor to make a splash. He even once showed up on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon dressed all in s...

5 Jan 45min

Write On: 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' Co-Writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver

"We try to answer two questions before we say yes to a job or embark on a spec script: Why does the protagonist need this movie? And the other is: Why tell this story other than to make money? That wa...

30 Des 202540min

Write On: 'The Long Walk' Screenwriter JT Mollner

"I didn't think I'd be a good fit as a writer if they were going to do a PG version of the story. That's not where my strength lies, so the great thing is that the version Francis [Lawrence, the direc...

3 Des 202541min

Write On: 'Hedda' Writer/Director Nia DaCosta

"I love adaptations. The beauty of adaptation, especially a classic, like Shakespeare and Chekhov or Ibsen, they're such a gift because they give you this beautiful framework, and it's almost like the...

30 Okt 202535min

Write On: 'Splinter Cell: Deathwatch' Creator/Writer Derek Kolstad

"As you do draft after draft, it becomes shorter and rendered down. And [Keanu Reeves and I] would go through scenes going, 'Can people say less? Can the action be tighter? Can the action sequence be ...

20 Okt 202539min

Write On: 'After the Hunt' Writer Nora Garrett

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election." –Otto Von Bismarck "It's funny, because when I was writing After the Hunt, I definitely wasn't like, 'Oh, I want to wr...

17 Okt 202537min

Write On: 'Anemone' Co-Writer/Director Ronan Day-Lewis

"[My dad] really started to inhabit the characters, especially Ray, speaking as him during the writing process. That was when I realized this was going to be its own kind of special beast. Working wit...

3 Okt 202535min

Write On: 'All Of You' Writer/Director Will Bridges & Writer/Actor Brett Goldstein

"You have to love all your characters. Even if you're writing a bad guy. You, the writer, have to write them with love and empathy, and treat each character, give each character, a full life and a ful...

26 Sep 202539min