The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sits down with Jesse Eisenberg to talk
Sasquatch Sunset
at SXSW 2024.
Eisenberg breaks down the specifics of what it takes to become a Sasquatch, and also talks about his personal goals as a producer in Hollywood.

Sasquatch Sunset
is about a family of Sasquatches living in the forests of North America. It’s due out in select theaters on April 12th, and then expands nationwide on April 19th.

When I walked out of my screening of Sasquatch Sunset at Sundance 2024, one of the first things I said to myself was, “How does this movie exist? I’m so thrilled it exists!”

Directed by Nathan and David Zellner, Sasquatch Sunset is a slice of life film that lets viewers walk alongside a family of Sasquatches for a period of time. Those days include the simplest elements of their everyday routines, downright absurd behavior and big laughs, and also some dire fights for survival. The film’s Sasquatch family is played by Nathan Zellner, Christophe Zajac-Denek, Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg, all covered head to toe in Sasquatch prosthetics. If not for pre-release marketing and interviews, you’d never know it was them behind all that make-up.

Sasquatch Sunset feels like one big performance and storytelling playground. The Zellners built a wholly new reality for their Sasquatch family, hid two of Hollywood’s most recognizable actors behind pounds of Sasquatch make-up and prosthetics, and then let the whole team swing for the fences in pursuit of making mythological creatures feel real — and that they do.

SasquatchSunset is a hugely atmospheric and textured filmmaking feat that turns legend into reality. Hopes are high that moviegoers will want to embark on this delightfully unusual adventure when the film hits select theaters on April 12th and then expands nationwide on April 19th, but there’s no denying that the project was a filmmaking risk. In an industry packed with wide-appeal franchises and more traditional stories about, well, human beings, who’d dare to make a feature film where its most famous faces are completely hidden, there’s no traditional dialogue, and loads of absurd behavior? Jesse Eisenberg would.

Jesse Eisenberg Is Still Coming to Terms with His Power as a Producer
Image via Sundance

27:41 Related ‘Secret Mall Apartment’ Reveals the 8 Rhode Islanders that Lived Inside a Mall for 4 Years Jesse Eisenberg and director Jeremy Workman discuss the incredible true story and how the people involved pulled off this incredible feat.

While at SXSW for Sasquatch Sunset’s Texas premiere, Eisenberg visited the Collider interview studio where we spoke a bit about his power as a producer in Hollywood. The reality is, in many cases, well-known actors can be pivotal to getting bold projects made. Here’s how Eisenberg replied when I said as much:

“Well, first of all, thank you for putting it that way, because I tend not to think of it that way. I always feel a little embarrassed doing that — producing — because it always feels a little bit like I’m trying to put my name on something that I wasn’t involved in. Because, the truth is, as you know really well, when you’re an actor and producing something, you’re not doing as much work as the producers who are on the ground busy every day, and so I feel a little guilty almost. But, what you said is exactly right, is that
my being involved, it feels arrogant to say this, but does help certain things come to light, come to fruition.
”

Eisenberg went on to note, “Also, you know, I’m involved in these kind of big, Hollywood-esque type movies, and you sometimes feel a little bit embarrassed that there’s so much attention to those and so little attention to some other movies, so it feels in some ways like atoning.”

Image via IMBD

Eisenberg earned his first producing credit on the documentary The World Before Your Feet, directed by Jeremy Workman. Not only was he at SXSW 2024 with Sasquatch Sunset as a star and producer, but he was also attending the film festival as an executive producer on Workman’s latest feature, Secret Mall Apartment.

Given Eisenberg shows no signs of slowing down with his work behind the lens, I opted to ask him for his goals as a producer in terms of the stories he hopes to tell and the healthy on-set environments he hopes to create. He began:

“My main goal on sets is exactly what you just said, to create a healthy environment. I’ve been on sets that are so horrible and you just think, ‘Is this making anything better? Is anybody at the end of the day going home not miserable? What is the purpose of this?’ I really can have more control over that set experience as a director because I’m just in every single aspect of it. I directed two movies and I produced a few more, but for the movies that I produced I really haven’t been on set all the time, so it’s hard to kind of really create that tone.
As a director though, you have a really great opportunity to create a great tone on set to make sure everybody feels valued
, to make sure everybody’s art is working to the best of their abilities and working to the ability that they hope to work at. That’s really important to me.”

Jesse Eisenberg’s Goal as a Producer Is “Not to Produce Ever”
Image via Bleecker Street

When it comes to choosing what projects to back as a producer, Eisenberg’s guidelines are quite simple. He just wants to see great scripts get made — scripts like Sasquatch Sunset.

“In terms of producing, my goals are really not to produce ever. Certain things come to me for certain reasons and I see that they won’t see the light of day if I don’t step in at whatever various point I step in. Like
Sasquatch, lost their financing like two months before the movie and I was so desperate to not only be in this movie, but to see that it gets made.
This is not like a vanity project. You don’t see me in this movie really that well. I’m in this movie, Sasquatch, but it’s not the kind of thing where I wanted to show off my acting skill set. [Laughs] It’s just such an odd movie. I just wanted to see that it gets made because, from a creative place,
this is one of the best scripts I’ve ever read
, one of the best conceived ideas, and as you can see when you watch the movie, one of the most gorgeous, fully realized movies.”

Sasquatch Sunset marks the first time Eisenberg collaborated with the Zellners as directors, but he’s actually known the duo for quite some time. He recalled:

“I met them in the Krakow Film Festival in like 2006, or 2007 or something. They were there with this movie, Goliath, and I was there with this strange movie called The Living Wake, which is still one of my other five favorite movies including Sasquatch. I saw this movie Goliath and then I found them somewhere, and I was just blown away. You know, it’s funny, these weird things,
it was like 15, 20 years ago or something, and I still remember this one scene as one of the best scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie
. That was in this movie, Goliath. So that’s where we met, and I knew right away, ‘Oh god, I would love to meet these people.’”

Given Eisenberg’s called the Sasquatch Sunset script “one of five great movie scripts I’ve read in my life,” I opted to follow up on that point next. If Sasquatch is one of five, what are the other four?

“There are some brilliant scripts, but this other one that is also an Austin-based movie, The Art of Self Defense. This is one of the great scripts. I really hope people can get their hands on it and read it. I’ve been in movies where the scripts are great. Like The Social Network, he won the Academy Award. And The Squid and the Whale, I think was nominated for an Oscar. And then The Living Wake, this other movie. I love these movies that take place in different universes because, I don’t know, my background is playwriting and my plays all take place in living rooms and couches, and so anytime I read something like this that kind of figured out a way to take place in another universe but still be emotional, I’m so impressed.”

It’s one thing to achieve that via a phenomenal script, but it’s another to turn those brilliant words into big screen movie magic. Here’s what convinced Eisenberg that the Zellners could pull it off with Sasquatch Sunset:

“The script is so gorgeous. It felt so real. It felt like these characters are as human as, you know, a person. And so, I was kind of just asking them, ‘Are you intending to do this in the beautiful way or in the slapstick-y way?’ And they said, ‘No, it’s beautiful. The costumes are gonna be beautiful. The set’s gonna be beautiful. The cinematography is just absolutely gorgeous.’ That was their goal.”

Eisenberg’s instincts and the Zellners’ creative goals were on point. Sasquatch Sunset is a wildly immersive experience brimming with curious entertainment value courtesy of its unusual premise, but it’s also a poignant piece due to the ingenuity and deep care put into bringing the Sasquatch family’s experience to screen as beautifully and authentically as possible.

Looking for more from Eisenberg on his experience making Sasquatch Sunset and an update on Now You See Me 3? Check out our full conversation from SXSW in the video at the top of this article. And, if you’re looking for even more Sasquatch talk after that, you can find my chat with the Zellners, Keough and Zajac-Denek from Sundance below:

Sasquatch Sunset A year in the life of a unique family. It captures the daily life of the Sasquatch with a level of detail and rigor that is simply unforgettable.Release Date January 19, 2024 Runtime 89 minutes

Sasquatch Sunsets hits select theaters in the U.S. on April 12th before going wide on April 19th. Click below for showtimes.

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