Comedian Eric André has expressed regret over turning down Kieran Culkin’s Oscar-winning role in Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain.
Culkin, 42, who played Eisenberg’s outspoken on-screen cousin, Benji Kaplan, in the dark comedy-drama, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor at the March ceremony. However, according to André, it could’ve been him.
“Two years ago, Jesse Eisenberg called me … offered me the [A Real Pain] role that Kieran Culkin got the Oscar for,” the 2 Broke Girls alum, 42, recalled on Andrew Santino’s Whiskey Ginger podcast.
He said he declined the role after reading the script because the movie seemed “miserable and not in my lane.”
“I was like, ‘To go to Poland for six weeks and shoot a movie where we’re just babbling about the Holocaust, seems like a bummer,’” André explained.
“I was like, ‘Appreciate the offer. I’m sure it’s gonna be great. I don’t think that’s what I’m looking for right now,’” he added. “The motherf***er won an Oscar for the role I passed up. It’s not like I get offered roles constantly. I’m not f***ing Leonardo [DiCaprio].”
Directed and written by Eisenberg, the critically acclaimed A Real Pain follows two mismatched cousins, David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin), as they travel to Poland to honor their late grandmother.
The movie was inspired by Eisenberg’s own family history of death and survival during the Holocaust. In fact, the house of David and Benji’s beloved grandmother Dory, located near the concentration camps in Poland, once belonged to Eisenberg’s ancestors.
Additionally, chaotic and childish Benji was written as a composite of people Eisenberg knew growing up. He told The Independent in January that he had considered playing the role himself before he was persuaded against it by the movie’s producer, Hollywood A-lister Emma Stone.
“She was just saying not to play an unhinged character while trying to direct a movie, because she had done Poor Things and though she was not the director, she was managing stuff as a producer would while also playing this incredibly otherworldly character,” Eisenberg said. “So she just said, ‘From my experience, I don’t think you’re going to be comfortable playing this kind of role while trying to manage a set.’ And she was right, as she often is.”
It was also Stone who convinced Culkin, her former boyfriend, to not drop out of the movie weeks before filming after he had panicked about being away from his children for too long.
“Jesse Eisenberg, thank you for this movie,” Culkin said while accepting the Oscar. “You are a genius.”
