Jennifer Grey Shares Her Reaction After Reading Script for 'A Real Pain' | Sundance 2024

Introduction hi everyone thanks for joining us um we are here to talk about obviously your films but I imagine that most people here are like a little bit familiar with the Sundance lineup but just forgive me if I just want to like a little bit of an overview I mean I would like to know you um like going in alphabetical order luckily yours is first um a real pain is the movie that Jennifer is in and it's the second film that Jesse Eisenberg has written and directed um and it's like a really personal story of his and it's based on a um Journey that he took Akashi I want to say you would know better than me 15 years ago maybe does that sound right um back to Poland in the town where his grandmother was from before they were forced to flee um before and during the war and it stars also Kieran culen um and Kieran and Jennifer and will sharp from White Lotus and a few others are um on a tour group essentially touring through through Poland um and so I I want to ask you obviously some questions about that but one thing that I was really curious about and it does relate to to you being in this film but like do you have something that you look for in your roles like when when things come to you do you have a is it a gut feeling is it like certain things you're looking for it to accomplish or like kind of how do you know that you want to say yes to something I love that question because it's very visceral for me and um for me it's almost always the company the the writing the the other cast members and it's really about when something resonates with my soul I always know I don't know this may sound a little too woo woo for you guys cuz you know you're you have real jobs I know you're like you know you're the this is a safe space for woooo at least right here you guys can let us know how far that bubble goes but I always feel like there's a reason I get every job that I get and I don't I never know what it is at the beginning and it usually has something to do with a part of me that needs to be processed or healed and it's usually unconscious and I just feel like things are brought to me to help me Visceral Reaction I don't know when you so when you say like a the visceral reaction is that something that you've always been in touch with and in tune with since the beginning or did you kind of have to figure out how listen to that as your career went on I would say um one of the best things about having been around a long time is Having learned how poorly things go when I don't listen to my intuition almost everything really going you know pearshaped is because I knew that it wasn't right and I just have gotten only recently become almost uh religious about listening to that that feeling cuz that is such an important it's a blessing it's a it's a it's a gift to be able to listen to your body to listen to what if your heart is beating faster when you read something that's always a good sign for me but it's usually more subtle than that it's usually more about I look for why me why why would they pick me of all the people and then I just the more I look at it and it and work on it the more I see that it's perfect and it's about something bigger than a job a Something Bigger Than A Job paycheck something that and forgive me I can't remember who it was that I was interviewing who said this but they had this really good comment about if they are looking at a script or thinking about a role if there's someone else anywhere out there who could do a better job or be more fit for it then that's how they know that it's probably not right um I'll Google after we get off this and I'll let I'll Circle back to give proper credit um for that but that that sounds like a kind of what you're saying too like it's the I think so many people could play many parts I mean many parts get offered to many people before it sticks or it's you know they agree to it they're free or whatever but there's something bigger going on in my just because I've been doing this for a really long time and every time I haven't gotten a job and I was like wait I was about to make the deal the deal was coming I everyone told me on the movie that it was happening and then at the last minute something happens and it goes to someone else who I actually think is much less right for it and I can't make sense of it I know that the job that I didn't get two weeks later I get a job that makes no sense that I'm completely wrong for like when I was playing Gwen shamblin last year in this lifetime movie I was I'm a Jew I was playing a Christian cult Le leader from Tennessee with like giant hair and anorexia and just like a crazy person and I was like well I have craziness you know I have crazy parts of myself but I'm I mean I don't I couldn't understand why they gave it to me and then all of a sudden I thought well I have to do an accent I have to get a wig and I have to oh my oh my God I have to learn how to do sermons for giant I mean a cult leader I mean I didn't understand and then I understood everything I just have learned that to wait and watch and I have I'm amazed at how many beautiful opportunities are coming my way just I always want to be like I'm going to hustle I'm going to go out there I'm going to get stuff those stuff those things don't happen for me it's just like out of nowhere it drops in I'm like oh okay let's go so for a real pain what Getting The Script what dropped in out of was it did you get the script did you hear about it or kind of what was the your origin story of of starting to join this movie I got an email saying uh Jesse eisenberg's doing a movie it shoots in Poland and he wrote it he's directing it he's starring in it immediately I was like I'm in because I you know I love smart people he's really smart and he's really talented turns out he's a really good director a really good writer and a lovely human being he's a smart deep human being and I I don't know I just knew he'd be smart and I knew he'd maybe be a little nervous and it was just so nice to meet someone more nervous than me and then I just felt like hey don't sweat it man everything's cool it's going to be fine because I'm always like I'm just a nervous I have am a nervous person what can I say and I just felt very chill around him do you um what was the what Visceral Reaction To The Script was your visceral reaction when you read the script what was like the the thing that then with the story that made you intrigued or interested or or connected to the material okay so firstly when it came to me I knew that Kieran culen was set so you were able to read it picturing him and I had been all I had just when I got the script it was right after I was seeing the last couple of episodes of succession and I was losing my mind over his performance I was I was it was like it was messing it was wrecking my head he was so brilliant and to me I just want to play with those guys so I read the script and of course I went from excited to elated because it's a very deep movie and it's about very many things and it's not about concentration camp but there is a concentration camp portion of the movie but it's about relationship it's about grief it's about loss it's about identity it's about resilience so when I read it what I noticed was Jesse's ability this is the virtuosic part of him is that his tone is so human and so accessible and so so vulnerable and so funny and you think people go how can that be funny because it's Jesse it's Jess it's not about the Holocaust it's about these cousins who have grown apart and who are grieving the loss of their grandmother and then they get put into this group this very intimate group I think there are six of us yeah and we our group leader is a very unattractive man named will sharp I don't know if you guys guys know him from White Lotus he gets to use his real British accent in this he's really not he's not attractive and with the the English accent it's even worse and he actually plays I don't want to ruin anything for you but he really is playing against handsome yes he's really there's a backpack at all times let me just say I just was like okay I just thought of this whole movie as a love story between me and will and Kieran and Jesse and Kurt I just thought okay I just that's what I felt the whole time I was making the movie I I didn't feel the heaviness of it all the time I felt it in the appropriate moments that not because it was appropriate but because it was impossible to deny because it was so big Filming In A Concentration Camp you know we shot in this concentration camp in Poland called midanik and mid danic I'd never heard of but it is very preserved so it looks like everyone left this morning there are no there were no you know places for people to line up it didn't feel like a tourist place and we I think it might be the only concentration camp that has ever allowed a movie to be shot there yeah it for if anyone has seen um zone of interest from from this year the one of The Producers on your film I believe got in touch with that cuz that film was from from Poland and I I think that was how they were able to so there's like a really interesting like history and I something that really struck me about those scenes was how like light of a touch Jesse gave it and nothing nothing was too long nothing was overly sentimental nothing it was like truly so perfect and so de right it's he's so deaf and there's something so enjoyable about the movie mhm and that's a very strange thing to even say or think but I don't want to ruin it for you there I just don't want you to be afraid because it's a pleasure this movie it's a very small it reminds me of the old movies that I loved you know before the big popcorn movies it just feels like Dirty Dancing you know like an independent movie that was made because it's pure it's it's um an a tour's it's his vision it's his story and it's authentic and it's I think it's really beautiful I I do many of you have tickets I know it's hard ticket to get any of you have tickets I'm to okay well I hope you can get a ticket and if you can't you can see it when it comes out and I hope you don't hear too much about it before so you can be surprised that it's you know it's a love it's a it's The Filming Process it's a love story between me and those guys do you have um cuz I imagine that it was a really intimate filming experience as well right there it's it's an indie film it's a small group of cast you're traveling around do you have any sort of process for like getting to the right place with people that you work with and I think I I would also be curious to kind of know especially you've been on a lot of different television shows as well and if if you feel like there's a different approach or a different way into something like this that's really a true company versus you're coming into an existing company and do you do you approach that that differently um okay so I think maybe just may I clarify yes please um you want to know if I come into the movie differently depending on the group of course yeah the same way if you went to a party every party is different every love affair is different every friendship's different and it brings out different parts of you and there you know there's a different hierarchy in every group and sometimes you're the star and sometimes you're a supporting player and sometimes you know you know Working With Funny People you wish you were the love interest no just no there's no it's not no no I'm it's really about um tailoring just feeling the room feeling the energy and feeling what the Dynamics are between us because I mean I've never laughed so hard all like when we had breakfast every day A bunch of us when we weren't working or we weren't working late or we weren't working like that morning and I was horse going to bed at night I was laughing so hard and really smart funny people people that's all I want to do is just work around funny smart people I wish the same for you guys I wish in every day at work you can surround yourself with funny smart kind people had you seen the finale of The Finale of Succession succession because i' I've saw Kieran talk about how he missed the finale obviously he was in it when it was happening but he missed watching it on Max um because you guys were in Poland that was his excuse for why he hasn't seen the finale of succession but do you remember like had you or did he know how it was going to end while you guys were there that's what I'm really getting at is were you were was there anything that you like were trying to get I mean I've never met a less act re actor in my life I mean it's it's very refreshing it's very nice I mean nothing wrong with actors but he is very he's very non actory and he is he's just about the work in his family and he is I don't think he had seen it yeah do Measuring Success you have a certain way um that you measure success and how has that Chang like throughout your career and I I would ask that both in terms of for yourself and also like what feels good in the reception of a project that you're on to because I imagine it could be a little bit different for each of those I love that question I think that's a really good question by the way thank you thank you what was it no I was so into it I was like okay um okay so this is something I think about a lot and I don't know if you guys do too but it's very I think it's an important thing to always check in with for at least for me because how the metrics that I have how I define success is so different from the way it was when I was a kid so different from the way culture dictates and the definition of what success is and for me it's it's being able to make enough money so I have a place to live I have medical I have food I can have extra in case there's an emergency and that I get to have quality time in my life because I took a lot of time off to be with my daughter because I had wanted to be a mom for so long and I got to be a mom so late in life and I'd been working and I'd been independent and I'd never been uh um married and I'd never had a kid and all I wanted was to be a mom so when I got this kid I just the only that was me that was it I was like oh I never thought I'd get this and I got this amazing baby who turned into this amazing child into this amazing young woman and I literally could not fathom leaving her to not pick her up at school to not be the one to be there day in and day out and as soon as she left all of a sudden work started happening again I was like this is a miracle because I know I've been really successful like in that definition of success that you know we all can reference as something like really flying close to the Sun wasn't so hot yeah wasn't so hot it was there was good Values I like doing the work I don't love the other parts I don't I'm very um sensitive person and it's a harsh business so for me it's about friends and relationship and kindness and Balance and Health and understanding what my values are which really comes with age because I mean you always have values like when you're a kid you know like you want milk like that's it you know and then eventually there are other things that interest you you know but but like it's just there's always something changing and my my experience is that my values have become very clear about there's just not enough of the outside stuff that would fill up the whole in the soul and for me I'm just always looking for the balance of yeah I want to work I want to make a living I need to make a living and life is really intense have you noticed no it's uncertain and this guy I know Phil stuts I don't know if you saw that dock last year called stuts it was really good you should watch it Jonah Hill directed it and he said there's three things you can count on always for the rest of your life uncertainty pain and work you're always going to have to work you're always going to have pain and you're always going to have uncertainty and then the rest of it is the stuff that you can build which is connection and love and romance and friendship and helping others and being of service so those things really have given me the life of my dreams and it's always changing and that's also something that you know I've come to understand is oh this too shall pass or I never want this to pass I want this to last forever and it won't do you find that that it's a beautiful mindset do you find that that allows you to be more free from what happens with each project how successful that project is either by with the industry with would say it or reception or things like that like are you going into it just knowing that you got like let's use a real pain for an example which is kind of a bad example because I think that's going to have a lot of like the very traditional markers of success critical Acclaim and all that kind of thing but is that the kind of thing where you feel you already feel good enough about it that it truly doesn't matter or like how how into the weeds of of what happens after you release a movie out into the world you get I really feel that that the work is itself the work is the the work is the treat the work is I mean sometimes work is awful and then I guess it can go well and I don't know I can't even think about it I just know that when you make something beautiful and you make it with a really really open devoted heart and soul that's your that's your deal you did it you're a success and what other people think of you was really none of your business I hope for you know everyone's sake because I think it's a beautiful movie it would be really great if it was if it got seen by a lot of people because I think it's necessary to have that kind of a movie that kind of a message that kind of um sensitive Soulful entertainment because I think there's not enough of that and I don't love what I see in the movies a lot these days and I feel for the world it would be nice if the movie was seen by a lot of people and that Jesse and I hope Kieran can get another job you know the poor kid he needs a break but you know will also feels so sorry I feel sorry for these guys so I hope for them it does well absolutely because I think they should all be able I just want them to work I'm a little worried it is it is a film that it like what comes to mind is that something that's deep doesn't have to be a drag essentially not a drag it's and I feel like a lot of times we get into the binary 100% And it's not medicine yeah that you have to take and be like oh is this going to be a downer what a it's not that but it has so much depth it's kind of like Flintstones Vitamins you know you think you're eating candy but you're getting all this goodness as someone who still takes chewable vitamins that resonates with me that's a wonderful note to end on and thank you so much for for joining us and for me being in this m thank you for having me thank you John thanks everybody thank you guys so much I hope you have a great time here have a great weekend thank you