When Jennifer Grey received the script for A Real Pain, she was — like most of the country — deeply entrenched in the final episodes of Succession. The actress, who is best known for her work in movies like Dirty Dancing and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, was considering a role in the story (written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg) about two cousins who join a Jewish heritage tour in Poland to reconnect with their late grandmother and visit the town that she fled before the war. Kieran Culkin was already attached to star as the lead opposite Eisenberg, and Grey says she was excited about the possibility of working with the actor responsible for some of the show’s finest work.
“And then I read the script, and I went from excited to elated,” she told THR during a panel at the St. Regis Deer Valley, sponsored by Screenvision. “It’s a very deep movie, about relationships and grief and loss and identity and resilience. Jesse’s tone is so human and accessible and vulnerable and funny. Immediately, I was in, because I love smart people.”
During the panel conversation, Grey also discussed her approach to selecting her next role — her reactions to projects are often visceral, and she looks for ways in which they resonate directly with her soul. “It may sound a little woo woo, but there’s a reason I get every job,” she said. “It usually has to do with a part of me that needs to be processed or healed. Things are brought to me to help me.”
The process of filming A Real Pain — which involved traveling throughout Poland with the cast, including White Lotus‘ Will Sharpe, to storied locations like Lublin and the former Majdanek concentration camp — was cathartic for Grey in several ways. The cast and crew had breakfast together every day, often laughing so hard that the actress went to bed still hoarse. Grey also found catharsis in working with Eisenberg (Pain is his second foray into feature directing, after 2022’s When You Finish Saving the World). “[Jesse] is a really good director and writer and a lovely human being,” she explained. “And it was just so nice to meet someone more nervous than me. I felt very chill around him.”
Watch the entire panel interview, sponsored by Screenvision, in the video above.
