The writer-director of A Real Pain and co-stars Kieran Culkin, Jennifer Grey and Will Sharpe talk about being overcome by generational trauma while making Oscar season’s funniest film

Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are in complete agreement. People being more open about everyday anguish is a good thing. Absolutely. One hundred per cent.

Not them, though. They will continue to button up. “I know my pain is unexceptional,” says Eisenberg, words clattering out of him like a runaway train, “so I don’t feel the need to burden everybody with it. I have OCD and general anxiety disorder and bad things happen to me, but I’ll never talk about them because I don’t want that kind of attention.”