To reconnect with his roots, Jesse Eisenberg applied for Polish citizenship

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To reconnect with his roots, Jesse Eisenberg applied for Polish citizenship

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Writer: Heidi Hsia

Jesse Eisenberg's citizenship ceremony with Polish President Andrzej Duda

7 Mar - While his co-star Kieran Culkin might have won an Oscar, Jesse Eisenberg is awarded citizenship for his work on "A Real Pain".

Polish President Andrzej Duda recently granted the actor-director with citizenship to Poland at a ceremony in New York on 4 March, just days after his co-star Culkin won Academy Awards' Best Supporting Actor for his role in the movie.

"I'm so unbelievably honoured," Eisenberg said in a speech at the ceremony. "This is an honour of a lifetime and something I have been very interested in for two decades."

Eisenberg wrote and directed "A Real Pain" himself. The movie follows two American cousins, (Eisenberg and Culkin), who take a trip to Poland to honour their late Holocaust survivor grandmother.

The actor revealed in a previous interview that the idea came following the death of his great aunt, who came to the US from Poland in 1938.

"While we were filming this movie in Poland and I was walking the streets and starting to get a little more comfortable in the country, something so obvious occurred to me, which is that my family had lived in this place far longer than we've lived in New York," Eisenberg said.

"And of course, the history ended so tragically, but in addition to that tragedy of history was also the tragedy that my family didn't feel any connection anymore to Poland. And that saddened me and confirmed for me that I really wanted to try to reconnect as much as possible."

Eisenberg stated that the movie was the reason he decided to apply for citizenship.