Earlier this year saw the premiere of Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut, When You Finish Saving the World, and while A24 has yet to set a release date for the drama, the actor and filmmaker is staying busy. He’s now announced two new projects, both of which he’ll star in and one which he’ll also direct.
First up, Screen Daily reports he will direct A Real Pain, which he also wrote and will star alongside Kieran Culkin (Succession). The film, which began shooting next spring, will star the pair as estranged cousins whose grandmother passes away and so they venture to Poland to learn more about her family history. While there, they embark on a Holocaust tour.
“They have a funny, fraught relationship; it’s a bittersweet story, as we realize maybe we don’t fully belong together, but against the backdrop of this incredibly dramatic history,” he said. “I’m trying to ask the question is modern pain valid against the backdrop of real historical trauma. I think I’m speaking to the experience of people [in their 30s] who go back and it’s foreign to them – and now suddenly real.”
Meanwhile, Eisenberg revealed to Variety that he’s going to star in the next feature from Damsel and Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter duo David and Nathan Zellner. “I play a Sasquatch: full makeup, full body hair, no lines. I grunt, but no lines,” he noted. “I’m so looking forward to this.” While no other details on the project are known yet, we imagine the brothers are drawing from one of their earlier shorts, the 2011 Sundance selection Sasquatch Birth Journal 2, which can be viewed here.