There are many aspects about both Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti that stand out. Both actors have put in a lot of work over the course of their decades-long careers — as well as Oscar wins, nominations and other accolades — but what thrilled writer/director Jesse Eisenberg about their “The Debut” most was how quickly they got things done.
“Oh my God. Paul and Julian, I feel like I have trouble describing it to people who don’t make movies every day, because it’s so unusual. But normally, when you’re making a movie, especially people who play leads, they do five or six takes, which means you do the scene five or six times before they get comfortable with their props and now their lines. And now they realize the lighting is going to be there. And you’ll rarely, if ever, find two actors who are so similar in their first take,” the recently Oscar-nominated “A Real Pain” filmmaker said while speaking to the audience at the Middelburg Film Festival, where “The Debut” served as the opening night film.
Eisenberg was coincidentally sitting next to Moore as he praised the skills of both him and his co-star (who was unfortunately ill). He said, “With every moment, what you’re seeing in this film is the first and second take of the two lead actors, where the first two days we had set on the schedule – we were trying to have eight days of musical numbers, big ensemble cast – we shot them in one day.”
The filmmaker (and budding songwriter) previously spoke to IndieWire, explaining that even though “The Debut” features a cast of the caliber of Moore and Giamatti, it was still an independent film at the end of the day. “It is a small budget film. [Nobody got paid oodles of money],” he said. ”When you have actors like that, they are great. When they were good, we would move on to the next scene. And the budget remains more than stable.
At Middleburg, Eisenberg again said that he was comfortable making “The Debut” due to him shooting one or two takes of each scene in the comedy film musical hybrid, “It all happened because they were perfect. And it’s like you see the first take and you say, ‘We could do it again, but we’d ruin the movie? It’s perfect.’ So this was everything.