While he was shooting “A Real Pain,” a personal family drama that yielded Jesse Eisenberg an Original Screenplay nomination and Kieran Culkin a Supporting Actor win, the writer-director was musing on what his next movie should be. Maybe something lighter and stranger. Maybe something about community theater.
The end result, the musical comedy “The Debut” (A24), premiered at the Telluride Film Festival Saturday to upbeat reviews and raves for its star, Julianne Moore, who plays a sad suburban homemaker turned anxious aspiring actress in a local community theater. A sixth Oscar nomination is in the offing, and possibly a second Oscar win after “Still Alice.”
Eisenberg and I sat down at the New Sheridan Hotel over breakfast. “I’m in a fugue state,” said Eisenberg, musing over Saturday’s screening.
Anne Thompson: You saw how the film played yesterday.
Eisenberg: Yes, there are elements that are objectively audience-friendly, and raucous in a surprising way, and so I’m confident in that. It’s stuff around the margins that you hope people like. I hope people like my songs and that they understand that it’s a movie that comes from a personal place. I never thought of it as a straight comedy with a musical theater punchline. To me the movie is about my childhood and the terror that I felt doing the thing I liked.
You didn’t know that at the beginning, right?
I didn’t know it was autobiographical until we were scouting houses, and it was like my mom’s kitchen, and when we were choosing costumes: “This should all be 1990.” And I realized over a series of decisions that the movie is not a straightforward thing. The movie is a fever dream. So all these decisions that I made, these decisions that physicalized the movie, coincided with my need to make it about myself.
The movie surprised me. It wasn’t what I expected at all. I expected it to be more naturalistic.
I did not want to do naturalism. For practical reasons and creative reasons. Practical reasons were: my first movie wasn’t received so well. My second movie was “A Real Pain,” and we were on the set, and a movie called “Dream Scenario” was about to come out from A24, and I noticed that it was getting a lot of excitement, and I was excited to see it. I thought maybe that’s what I should be doing: something with more tone. My two favorite acting experiences ever have been on tone movies. One was called “The Double” by Richard Ayoade, and the other was called “The Art of Self-Defense” by Riley Stearns. It was the most freeing experience, and so I wanted to give the opportunity for actors to live in that freedom that I got to experience on those movies, to allow actors to live out their their animal id. I knew I would have more fun as a writer, doing something more outlandish.
When did you know you were writing musical songs? The movie has seven.
I’ve written musical songs for about 20 years. I had a musical that was almost produced 20 years ago, and then fell apart. I write music all the time, but I’m too shy to put it out there. This gave me a perfect opportunity to write what I love, which is musical theater songs. Some of the songs in the movie I wrote in the script, and then put melody to later because it fit what I needed thematically in the movie and the musical. And then other songs like Julie’s [Julianne] big song was a big thing to write because I wanted the songs to have some thematic resonance in the movie too. The movie’s about this woman who has been chewed up but not spit out, so that’s her character as well.
Did you write it for Julianne?
Yes, entirely for her. Can you picture another actor? No. Exactly.
You gave her the opportunity to use every bit of talent, experience, and skill she has accrued. You served it up for her. She’s central. It’s about her. It’s told from her point of view.
It’s my point of view through somebody I consider a muse. I was writing something about myself as a seven-year-old in 1990, but I couldn’t picture anybody else except her doing it.
The way that Julianne Moore moves from one space to the other as she is changing radically through the course of the movie is quite seamless. Was it hard for her?
The only note I would give her on set would be, “I saw Julianne there.” She and Paul Giamatti are so good on take one. It’s embarrassing. This is a small budget movie. [Nobody got paid oodles of money.] The first two days of our schedule, we filmed in one day. The first two days, which were big ensemble musical numbers, we filmed in one day because we were prepared as a crew, but the actors were perfect on take one. I’ve worked with Woody Allen a bunch. When the thing was good, he would say, “Great, let’s go to the next one.” He would not nitpick. I’ve worked for directors. (Not David Fincher, David Fincher is a fucking genius, and everything he does, in my opinion, is valuable.) I’ve worked with directors who they get a good take and then they try to push and they say “one fun one for you” and no actor knows what the fuck that means and then they say “oh, let’s try this.” They just want to direct. When you have actors like this, they’re great. When they were good, we would go to the next scene. Paul Giamatti is fearless. He has no ego. What you’re seeing Paul Giamatti do is take one. Almost every scene is take one. That’s how good he is. Paul Giamatti is the only actor who ever told me the following thing: “Don’t put the camera on me for this scene. It’s about Julie.”
Well, the movie is about Julianne Moore as this timid aspiring actress. At home she is a complete nonentity. She’s invisible. No one sees her. No one knows her.
Exactly. And then she’s taken in under this dreamlike perfect family. “We know who you are, honey. Oh my God. We are all so thrilled. We made this outfit just in your size. Come here. We’re going to get you breakfast. I couldn’t get your salad dressing, so I got all five. You said a joke. That’s funny.”
Everything is the exact opposite. She’s a kid who has found friends for the first time. She’s the girl who transferred to the right school at seven years old, and then the first rehearsal happens, and she is told she is terrible, and she has no idea why. And it’s the girl who transferred to the right school and gets an F on the very first test, and and then the rest of the semester is panicking, and all she’s seeing is everybody else get A’s, and she still has the F, and she doesn’t know what to do. And then the teacher pulls her aside and says, “You either show up, or you are out on your ass.” And something switches in her, and she makes the decision: “I am going to show up.” And she begins to turn into a monster.
It all starts when the director breaks her down.
This happened to me. I had a breakdown scene in acting school. I was screaming and crying, and everybody clapped after, like I did something wonderful. She had broken herself down so much that she finally saw, in some ways, a window into the reality of the situation, which is that he was doing this to her for his own reasons. If I had plotted out that scene or made an outline of the movie, that scene would not be in the movie. My best writing has been stream of consciousness, and my worst writing has been using a spreadsheet.
Did it take you a while to figure out Giamatti?
It really did. Paul has been my favorite actor since I saw the movie “The Negotiator.” He has a kind of intellectual self contempt, an emotionally grounded world weariness. I never ever thought he would do this. It was before “A Real Pain” got celebrated: “Who am I?” I also thought that the character should be more mercurial than familiar, and so he wasn’t the prototype. I’d also based it on some people who couldn’t be more different than Paul. There are some things in the movie straight from my life: a director asking for “a mocha, no milk,” and then it comes and “it’s too late.” I took things, and it was different than Paul. And then once we got into the swing as a production team, “Can we just ask my favorite actor of all time, Paul Giamatti?” And simultaneously, I had gotten a text from Billy Lazarus, Paul’s agent, and he said, “Would you ever consider Paul?” I said, “Consider? I’d give him a pint of my blood every day if he would show up.” So that’s how it worked. And then when I met Paul, Paul said, “I have no idea what the fuck this is, but I love it.” And I said: “That’s the right reaction.”
When she moves to the sleazebag hotel, you take a turn. It feels like you had a blast.
I didn’t censor myself at all. If the cinematographer had an interesting idea to make it look weird, or some lighting that feels Lynchian, or German Expressionistic, I said “yes.” All of this I learned on the movie “The Double.” I paid attention to every second of that movie. Richard taught me what happens when you point a light directly at an actor’s face instead of off of a bounce. When Julie has her big scene where she’s screaming at Paul, the light is unnervingly on her face directly. It isolates her in an almost fever dream-like atmosphere. So Drew Daniels, this cinematographer, said, “I want to light the street a bright yellow and an evil red on the right side.” I said, “Yes, that works.” And when our costume designer said, “I want to have her in these schoolgirl plaid skirts,” I said, “Absolutely.” And our production designer, Anne Ross, she wants to put these 1920s flop house signs in the hotel? That’s exactly it. I knew when it would go too far. But it was entrusting and collaborating with people who are artful, saying “this is an art project.” This house is not supposed to look like a real house. It’s supposed to look like a prison for her. Sharp angles. Let’s emphasize those. Let’s emphasize her isolation by shooting it this way. So it was always an art project more than “A Real Pain,” which was about getting at the authenticity of what these guys are feeling.
You did not make a glossy movie. It feels low-budget.
That was purposeful. Anytime I had an idea of a flashier shot or a flashier set, it felt wrong. I wanted the movie to feel like it was made in 1990. It looks I was intentionally making it look homemade.
The musical part of it is probably the most difficult, and it doesn’t take up the most space in the movie. It appears to have been extremely demanding, and you put all these theater people in the film.
It was ridiculous. The people we got to play, you wouldn’t know. The people on that stage are the most talented people in America. But everybody wanted to do it because it’s like a two-week commitment, and you’re in a movie, and it’s a love letter to the theater. Andy Blankenbuehler did the choreography. He’s “Hamilton.” Everybody is overqualified, and everybody knew what the musical was: it’s not a parody musical, but this is not “Hamilton.”
Where were you exactly when you were growing up?
[East Brunswick, New Jersey] Twenty minutes from where the movie takes place.
So how did you how did you finance this? Who gave you the money?
Topic funded it. A 24 picked it up as a distribution title, which means they did like an indie pickup prior to shooting. Topic did “A Real Pain.” We had a great experience on that one, and they love musicals.
You made the decision to put yourself in it and to sing and to dance.
When I was young like 13, 14, I only got understudy parts in community theater musicals. When I started acting professionally, then I recognized I was not good enough as a musical theater performer to be successful in the field, and so I found my voice in other things and in comedies and movies, but I longed to do it. So with this movie I created the perfect opportunity for me to not be able to fail. Because if you think I’m not very good, then it’s a community theater musical, and if you think I’m good, well then I should have gotten that part that you’re watching right now. I’m not good at learning dance combinations. I’m really bad. I gave myself the perfect opportunity to do the thing I love doing that I’m not as good as I wish I was.
Do you know what you’re doing next?
I’m doing a series with Peter Rice that A24 is producing based on short stories I wrote, and hopefully we’ll go in the spring. It takes place September, October, November, 2002 in Indiana, and it’s about what’s happening at that point in time and history, but hopefully has echoes to what’s happening today. It’s an 18-year-old freshman on campus. The last thing I acted in was a one-man show that I wrote, and it was like an hour and 10-minute show. I don’t consider myself somebody who’s steeped in the film industry, and I try to follow what feels more creatively correct for me. Would I love to put out another movie? Yeah.
Over the years, you’ve written stories on your own that you put away in a drawer.
Exactly. “A Real Pain” was a defining experience for me because then people took me seriously as a writer, as opposed to just an actor who has access to literary agents. I’ve gotten asked to write big things, and and I’m flattered by it. But it also allows me to pursue things that I’ve always liked that no one else would have written.