RIP Merle Haggard; Jesse Eisenberg's writing life

I had previously produced and directed a documentary on Gram Parsons when I was still living in Berlin. That film ended up being distributed in the United States. That's how I came here, that love for American music and culture. When I was asking myself what would be a followup project, there wasn't much else on my radar at that time. I wanted to make a film about Merle. He was Gram's idol. So I got in touch with his music. 

He was very hesitant. At times he was sabotaging our efforts. I realized over time that that was the nature of his being. I think he was a little worried that we were getting too close to — well, I don't want to say "the truth." It sounds so pompous. And there are a million versions of that. But maybe a little closer to psychological dilemma than he was really comfortable with.

I think you do. We were driving through Oildale, the neighborhood he grew up in Bakersfield, when we heard a train whistle ... just like in the lyrics of "Mama Tried": The first thing I remember knowing/was a lonesome whistle blowing. I said, "Merle, is that the whistle?" And he said, "Yeah, that's the actual whistle. Hell yeah. That's what I was hearing."

He told me that he got an idea that there was something else he could do with his life. Until that point, he had just been clueless. He was floating through life after the death of his father. For the first time he realized, There's something else I could do with my life. It helped him to focus. He said the other things that helped him to focus was that they threw him in what they called "the hole" — solitary confinement — for brewing beer in San Quentin, for a week. And that after that he was cured.

Yeah, but that's what made him such a great artist. You discover that often when you talk to great artists. They might be full of themselves to some extent because for 40 to 50 years, everybody told them how great they are. But deep inside there's this strong element of insecurity, that self-doubt. And Merle had that to the tenth degree. He was extremely insecure about his own accomplishments and he was riddled by shame.



That's the one thing he never overcame in his life. In his heart he was always that nine-year-old boy, and later that young man doing time and bringing shame on his family. And it didn't really matter how many hits he had or how much success he had, that he performed in front of three or four presidents — it didn't make a difference. You could have thrown $50 million at him and another number one hit, it wouldn't have changed it. That is at the same time the greatness and the drama of Merle Haggard, the tragedy, that he never overcame.

Well, it's because he understood pain. And that's why I think people could relate to it. He could express real psychological pain and trauma in very simple words because he knew what it felt like. He knew what pain was — isolation, loneliness. So, he sang it and he felt it for all of us.

I [was going to show] him the rough cut of the film. I was very nervous. We showed it to him at a theater at his adopted home town of Redding, California. He thought it was some kind of premiere so he brought his whole family and his band. So there were like 40 Haggards in the room. I'm sitting between Merle and his wife. You can probably imagine. It was the tensest 90 minutes of my life. And he laughed. He was very quiet over long periods. He laughed when he saw something funny. 



Later, I was very relieved. He came to me in the parking lot outside the theater and he said, "Why did you tell my story like this?" I thought, That's an interesting question. I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "There are hundreds of ways of telling my story. I've been approached so many times. Why did you focus on this aspect of it?" I told him I thought that was the most interesting thing about it. How you [was] stuck inside [himself]. And he said, Hmmm, and walked away. I think it struck him as surprising, [something] that he didn't really want to reveal.

Yes, or just a real paranoia about the future and a desperate attempt to not have a day off. It’s weird. As an actor, you end up having a lot of time off. As a writer, you have a lot of time spent alone, and both of those professions can lead to feelings of inaction. And yet, occasionally there are points — like now — in my life where all the things I did five years ago are coming to fruition or becoming public. And so it appears that I’m busier than I am because I’m really not doing anything now except promoting these things.

Yes, absolutely. I started out as a writer wanting to write jokes and standup comedy. And then I started writing movie scripts that were optioned, but not good. And then I started writing plays. “The Revisionist” was my first play. I wrote it when I was 23. And I really started to find my voice with that play. And then, as an actor, I see a real overlap. Like, we’re actually recording this [interview] from the trailer where I’m doing press for “Batman v. Superman,” and the guy who wrote this script, Chris Terrio, is also a playwright and a really wonderful writer. And so, to have the opportunity to kind of live in his world as an actor is inspiring to me as a writer.

I love doing that after the movie is finished. But while the movie is happening I’m kind of in this paranoid state that I’m going to either screw it up or I’m in, let’s say, a villainous state. Like when I’m playing Lex Luthor, I’m actually trying to summon these horrible feelings that would probably not bode well for a nice conversation with a writer.

Yes, I have known people who are charming, passive-aggressive, Machiavellian manipulators. You know, this character exists in this world and the movie made a great effort to make a psychologically realistic villain.  

I’m surprised he put in the caveat, As an actor.

My goal with some of these characters that I write is to try to humanize people that seem otherwise horrible. [It's] similar with the character in the Batman movie. My goal is to . . . take a character as far as I can go as a horrible person and try to humanize them. And my goal as an actor and as a writer is to try to shed a light so that the audience can, if not sympathize with them, at least understand them.