In an alternate universe somewhere, Eric André probably won an Oscar for “A Real Pain.”
During a recent episode of “Whiskey Ginger” podcast, the 42-year-old self-described “Blewish” comedian revealed that Jesse Eisenberg offered him the role of Benji Kaplan in the now Academy Award-winning movie. “You want to know a fucking doozey?” André says to host Andrew Santino. “Two years ago, Jesse Eisenberg called me… offered me the role that Kieran Culkin got the Oscar for.”
For those who haven’t yet seen the movie, “A Real Pain” follows cousins David (Eisenberg) and Benji Kaplan (Culkin) as they journey to Poland to process the death of their Holocaust survivor grandmother. As part of her will, she left money for David and Benji to go on a Holocaust heritage trip where they confront the long shadow of Jewish generational trauma, their own modern day problems and each other.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to go to Poland… ‘All my Jewish side is Polish Jews that got cooked in the concentration camps,” André explained on the podcast. “I was like, ‘That seems really miserable and not in my lane.’ I read the script. 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.’”
Not wanting to relive your family’s generational trauma? Yeah, that totally makes sense. André concludes that he thanked Eisenberg for the offer, but politely declined. It was only in watching the Oscars and seeing Kieran Culkin win that he felt a bit of regret for his decision. “The motherfucker won an Oscar for the role I passed up. It’s not like I get offered roles constantly. I’m not fucking Leonardo [DiCaprio],” he said.
André also spoke on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” yesterday about turning down “A Real Pain.” “IS HE EVEN JEWISH?!” he jokingly yelled about Kieran Culkin. (The answer is no.) Despite calling the incident “the biggest mistake of [his] entire career,” André also joked that he didn’t carefully read the full script. “Who reads a script? You know how boring it is reading a script? Excruciating!” He said, “All the Adderall in the world couldn’t get me to read a single script.”
Now, of course, the fact that Kieran Culkin won an Oscar for playing Benji doesn’t necessarily mean that Eric André would have — something that he, himself, acknowledges on the “Whiskey Ginger” podcast. But let’s take this as a sign for Hollywood to start offering Eric André more dramedy roles ASAP!
