From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

It's The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. My guest is not only a published author and

produced playwright and starring his own plays, and he's written

an annotation of one of his pieces, which he directed as a film. This time he's written and

directed and starring in this new film, A Real Pain. It's a privilege to have Jesse Eisenberg

sitting across from me. And as I was watching, I couldn't help but think the sleepway camp story from your collection about lamentation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was the separation anxiety sleepway camp.

Yeah, exactly.

Sleepway camp designed for kids who miss their parents and all of the coping mechanisms instead

of activities that they do during the day.

I couldn't help but think about that piece particular as I was watching a real pain because

there's so much about that.

But also, there's a lovely bookend of you start with your cousin, played by Karen Culkin alone,

but then this sort of sweeps back to the end where

your son is running to you. Yeah. And I just thought, well, that's kind of a beautiful bookend,

because your character is sort of situated between these men, these guys who need love,

who need support. Exactly. And I thought that was a really sort of beautiful, nuanced way to set that up.

Oh, thank you so much. And first, let me also say that it's absolutely my privilege to be here.

I've been reading you for so many years, and it's such an honor to meet you and speak with you.

And thank you for what you said about the movie. Yeah, in the movie, yeah, it's the,

you know, it's about these two cousins and their kind of bittersweet relationship and kind of

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