Jesse Eisenberg is on a directorial streak with his upcoming film, The Debut. The two-time Academy Award nominated actor is now working on a musical comedy, with a twist.
The Debut follows a timid woman (Academy Award winner Julianne Moore) who is unexpectedly cast in a community theater production of an original musical. After joining the production, she finds herself lost under the spell of the character and the dynamic director (Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti).
The movie also stars Broadway legend Tony winner Bernadette Peters, The Little Mermaid star Halle Bailey, Havana Rose Liu (Bottoms, off-Broadway’s All Nighter), Tony Award-winner Bonnie Milligan, Dear Evan Hanson’s Colton Ryan, Lilli Cooper (Off-Broadway’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Spring Awakening), and Maulik Pancholy (30 Rock, Phineas and Ferb).
Much like his previous work, Eisenberg will star, produce, and pen the original music and lyrics for the film. Music supervision was done by Steven Gizicki, with Bill Sherman as the executive music producer. Hamilton’s Andy Blankenbuehler was the choreographer for the film. The film is distributed by A24, home of the Academy Award winning film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, Past Lives, and more critically acclaimed films.
As Eisenberg revealed on The Kelly Clarkson Show, he has written both the script and the original songs featured in the in-universe musical. “You see the rehearsals and everything…Since I wrote the music for it, if the music is bad, no one will think it’s my fault: they’ll think that’s the intention,” he deadpanned on the show.
However, his stage writing and acting leave an impressive resume, with his writing credits for the plays The Revisionist, The Spoils, and Happy Talk. Acting credits include ummer and Smoke (1996), The Gathering (1999), Orphans (2005), Scarcity (2007), The Final Interrogation of Ceausescu’s Dog (2015), A Little Part of All of Us (2015), The Blizzard (2016), Oh, Hello (2016), The Peopel Speak (2017), Shoshana and Her Lovers (2017), as well as The 24-Hour Plays on Broadway.
Impressively, his second directorial work, A Real Pain starring himself and Kieran Culkin, gained two Academy Award nominations for screenplay and acting, with Culkin picking up the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
As of late, a release date has not been announced yet, but Eisenberg shared that the film will be theatrically released this year.
