Eric Andre Says He Was Offered Kieran Culkin's Oscar-Winning 'A Real Pain,' Reveals Why He Turned It Down

Can you imaging A Real Pain without the award-winning performance from Kieran Culkin???Comedian and actor Eric Andre recently revealed that he was originally offered the role of Benji by writer/director Jesse Eisenberg. Kieran, of course, went on to win the Oscar and several other awards for playing the part in the film, and Eric is revealing just why he passed on the offer. Keep reading to find out more.

..“Two years ago, Jesse Eisenberg calls me, offered me the role that Kieran Culkin got the Oscar for,” Eric revealed on Andrew Santino‘s Whiskey Ginger podcast.



“I read the script. I was like, ‘I dunno if I wanna go to Poland.’”“All my Jewish side is Polish Jews that got cooked in the concentration camps,” he continued.

“So I was like, ‘That seems really miserable, and not in my lane.’ I read the script, and 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.’”“I was like, ‘I appreciate the offer, sure it’s gonna be great.

I don’t think that’s what I’m looking for right now,’” Eric says. “I was just like, ‘This is a lot of work.’ It was a tremendous amount of dialogue.

It’s a lot of work for something I’m not totally sure I’m right for, and I want to focus on a movie that got pushed 50 times because of all the strikes that I couldn’t have predicted.”Eric also noted how he doesn’t often get offered roles and how it kind of stings he didn’t take it, seeing as how the outcome turned out. “The motherf—er won an Oscar for the role I passed on,” he said.

“And it’s not like I get offered roles constantly. I’m not f—in’ Leonardo DiCapricock. It’s once in a while I get offered a role, and I said ‘no’ to one of the only times I’ve been offered a role, and it turned into an Academy Award.

”“It still stings when you’re watching Hollywood burn, you’re watching America burn, and you’re watching the Oscars, and you’re like, ‘Oh, maybe I should’ve taken that.’” View this post on InstagramA post shared by Whiskey Ginger Podcast (@whiskeygingerpodcast).