THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE Trailer Jesse Eisenberg Comedy

THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE Trailer

Why did you start martial arts…??? Where did it take you? What was your first dojo like??? Watch this dark comedy and see if there any echoes with Jesse Eisenberg…

After he’s attacked on the street at night by a roving motorcycle gang, timid bookkeeper Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) joins a neighborhood karate studio to learn how to protect himself. Under the watchful eye of a charismatic instructor, Sensei (Alessandro Nivola), and hardcore brown belt Anna (Imogen Poots), Casey gains a newfound sense of confidence for the first time in his life. But when he attends Sensei’s mysterious night classes, he discovers a sinister world of fraternity, brutality and hyper-masculinity, presenting a journey that places him squarely in the sights of his enigmatic new mentor. Audacious and offbeat, The Art of Self-Defense is an original dark comedy that takes toxic masculinity to absurd extremes.

Long Synopsis
Mocked by strangers and belittled by his male co-workers, meek accountant Casey Davies (Jesse Eisenberg) is used to avoiding conflict at all costs. But when he leaves the safety of his home one night to buy dog food for his sole companion, four helmeted figures on motorcycles chase him down a dark street, knock him to the ground, and viciously beat him unconscious.
Traumatized by the attack, Casey makes the rash decision to learn how to protect himself. While returning home from a gun shop, a nondescript karate studio catches his attention. Curious, he ventures inside and sees a group of middle-aged men practicing martial arts under the watchful eye of the charismatic Sensei (Alessandro Nivola).
Returning the next day, Casey meets Anna (Imogen Poots), the dojo’s only female member. In charge of teaching the children’s classes, she’s a tough-as-nails brown belt whose unorthodox lessons involve showing 10-year-olds how to shatter an opponent’s jaw with a perfectly executed spinning kick. Something about the hyper-masculine world of the dojo speaks to Casey, and his newfound confidence begins to grow as Sensei takes him under his wing.

Things spin further out of control when Sensei invites Casey to participate in the dojo’s mysterious night classes. Filled with full-contact brutality and raw male aggression, these bloody sparring sessions take Casey’s dark transformation to the next level. But when Sensei tricks him into committing a shocking act of criminal violence, Casey finds himself on a collision course with a karate master in a fight for dominance.

The Art of Self-Defense stars Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland, The Social Network), Alessandro Nivola (Disobedience, American Hustle) and Imogen Poots (Green Room, Frank and Lola).

The film was written and directed by Riley Stearns (Faults), produced by Cody Ryder (Cop Car, Robot and Frank), Andrew Kortschak (Cop Car, The Clovehitch Killer), Stephanie Whonsetler (Tragedy Girls, The Clovehitch Killer) and Walter Kortschak (Cop Car, The Clovehitch Killer) and Executive Producers are Andrew Karpen (The Man Who Invented Christmas, Denial), Munika Lay (The Clovehitch Killer, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project), Kent Sanderson, David Zellner and Nathan Zellner (Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, Damsel). Co-Producers are Lisa Ciuffetti (The Clovehitch Killer) and Camille Betrand. Michael Ragen (Faults, Kicks) serves as Director of Photography, Charlotte Royer (The Fits, Madeline’s Madeline, Nancy) as Production Designer and Sarah Beth Shapiro (Flowers, Faults) as Editor. Costume Designer is Jami Villers (Creed, Still Alice) and music was done by Heather McIntosh (Z For Zachariah, Compliance).

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

The idea for writer-director Riley Stearns’s new dark comedy The Art of Self-Defense originated with his profound love of martial arts. “The story initially came from my practice of jiu-jitsu,” says Stearns. “Before I started doing jiu-jitsu, I was a very different person. I wasn’t as healthy as I am now, and I was much lazier. Like the lead character in The Art of Self-Defense, I’d reached a point in my life where I was searching for something that really meant a lot to me, and that something was martial arts.”
Rather than make a traditional action film about jiu-jitsu, however, Stearns wanted to use the world of martial arts to explore the issue of toxic masculinity. “I wanted to play around with the notion of what it means to be a man and what it’s like to not consider yourself masculine enough,” he explains.
The topic was a deeply personal one for the filmmaker. “Before I started practicing martial arts, I had an unrealistic expectation of myself based on what society says a man is supposed to be,” he admits. “I worried that if I ever got into a fight, or was assaulted on the street, I wouldn’t know what to do. Even worse, I wouldn’t know how to defend someone I loved, which really scared me.”
Over time, Stearns learned he wasn’t alone in struggling with these deep-seated fears. “While making The Art of Self-Defense, I discovered that virtually every guy feels this way at one point or another. It’s not that uncommon. We all wonder if we’re living up to what society says a man is supposed to be.”
Though a devoted practitioner of jiu-jitsu, Stearns ultimately decided to structure the film’s narrative around a different discipline. “I realized that jiu-jitsu might not be the most visually interesting martial art to focus on because it’s often just two guys rolling around on the ground,” he says. “So instead, I set it in the world of karate, in part because it’s more familiar to people.”
It took Stearns about two and a half months to write the screenplay for The Art of Self-Defense — slightly longer than others scripts he’s written. “It took me a while to wrap my head around it at first,” he says, “but once I started, I wrote with a genuine fervor. I just kind of attacked it, and in the end, that finished draft is basically what we shot.”
As he began shopping the darkly comic script, Stearns received reactions that ran the gamut from puzzlement to intense excitement. “The funniest thing I heard from a producer was that he had a hard time believing I could make karate look cool,” says Stearns with a laugh. “In fact, most people who didn’t connect with the material mistakenly thought that I was trying to make some kind of action-packed karate movie. The readers who got what I was doing realized that the world of martial arts was just the setting. After all, the characters are basically a bunch of middle-aged men in karate outfits kicking and punching. There’s nothing innately cool about that.”
It helped that Stearns had already written and directed the critically acclaimed 2014 film Faults, an indie feature that successfully blended a dark sensibility with comedic elements. “After Faults, people trusted that I could handle the tone of this new script,” he says. “If it was being shopped around for someone else to direct, I’m not sure it would have been greeted the same way.”

The Right Producer

The script soon caught the attention of producer Andrew Kortschak, who was fascinated by Stearns’ uniquely disturbing comedy. “I was coming off of making the thriller Cop Car, and Riley’s script really spoke to me,” says Kortschak. “It was a little dark, but I hadn’t seen anything like it before. By focusing on a specific subculture, in this case the world of karate, Riley was able to address different aspects of toxic masculinity, and I found that incredibly interesting.”
Kortschak produced several other films after meeting with Stearns about The Art of Self-Defense, but there was something about the script that wouldn’t let him go. “I kept talking about Riley’s script to everyone I met,” he recalls. “What I liked most about it were the elements of satire and black comedy, and that it dealt with the sort of people that you’d prefer not to run into on a dark street corner.”
Once Kortschak decided he wanted to make The Art of Self-Defense his next movie, Stearns’ writing skill made the process of bringing the film to the screen easier than he expected. “The script was in such amazing shape that there was very little for me to do from a development standpoint,” says the producer. “What Riley turned in initially is very much what we ended up making.”

The Yellow Belt

Work on the film officially began in early 2017, with Stearns and Kortschak spending several weeks breaking down the material together and discussing casting possibilities. “We immediately started searching for our lead actors with the team at CAA,” says Stearns. “With their help, we were able to get the script in the hands of people who might be interested, and Jesse Eisenberg was one of them.”
Eisenberg devoured the script over the July 4th weekend and was astounded by Stearns’ writing. “It was the best and funniest piece of work I’d read in years,” says the Oscar-nominated actor. “It provided a really clever commentary on masculinity and violence, but it was written in a way that’s sweet, subversive, and complicated. On top of that, there was a real emotional core to the character of Casey.”
By the following Monday, Eisenberg contacted Stearns to say he was interested in the role. “I got an email from Jesse saying he loved the script and that he was honored I would think of him for it,” recalls Stearns. “Needless to say, that was a huge moment for me!”
According to Kortschak, the role of Casey represents a dramatic change of pace for Eisenberg, who’s often associated with highly cerebral characters. “Jesse is typically seen as an intellectual on screen, so this was a real opportunity for him to play against type.”
Along with the chance to expand his range, the character’s unique psychology also drew the actor to the role. “Casey is a great part to play because he’s emotional and he’s going through an extreme situation,” says Eisenberg. “But there’s also an added layer of infantilization to him. He’s kind of like a baby. He doesn’t think or behave like a typical adult.”
And then there was Stearns’ unique approach to dialogue. “The film’s heightened style really helps get across the idea of masculinity being a silly and somewhat childish pursuit,” Eisenberg says. “If I could play this kind of stylized material for the rest of my life, I’d be thrilled.”
Although he loved Stearns’ writing, Eisenberg says delivering his lines with a straight face often proved difficult. “There were so many scenes that were written perfectly, it was sometimes hard for me and the rest of the cast to get through them without laughing,” he says. “For example, there’s a scene in the film where I punch my boss and tell him I’m going to think about his wife naked instead of coming to a barbeque he’s invited me to. I’m normally pretty good about not cracking up on set, but we shot that scene about 20 times and I just couldn’t get the monologue out of my mouth without laughing.”
Eisenberg, who has worked with some of cinema’s most acclaimed filmmakers, cannot praise Stearns highly enough. “Riley is one of the most talented people I’ve ever met,” he says. “In fact, he’s so good that I knew how every single shot was going to be used in the movie. That’s probably the first time I’ve ever experienced that on a set before. I understood why we did each take, and I understood why the camera was placed exactly where it was. He was so assured with what he wanted, and each scene had a very specific purpose.”
Stearns is quick to repay the compliment. “I don’t think anybody else could have played Casey as well as Jesse,” says the filmmaker. “The weird thing was, from the moment we met, I saw a lot of myself in him, and I think he saw some of himself in me. That was extremely helpful, since I put a lot of myself into Casey.”

A Kickass Brown Belt

For the role of Anna, the sole female student in Sensei’s karate school, Stearns cast award-winning British actress Imogen Poots. The director says he had wanted to work with Poots since seeing her in the 2015 horror thriller Green Room. “That performance just blew me away,” says the director. “So when her name came up to play Anna, I was totally on board.”
Like Eisenberg, Poots found Stearns’ screenplay wickedly funny and impossible to resist. “I loved the script from the very first reading,” she says. “The idea struck me as so original, and I enjoyed how honest the characters were. The whole thing just made me laugh out loud. Plus, it had Jesse Eisenberg, karate, and an adorable sausage dog in it. That’s my dream trio!”
Stearns was initially concerned about how Poots might respond to the film’s subject matter and its virtually all-male cast. “I always knew that this was going to be a movie about toxic masculinity, and I wanted the coolest character in it to be a woman,” Stearns says. “Once we started casting and I saw exactly how many dudes were going to be on screen though, I wasn’t sure how Imogen would react. As it turns out, she thought it was hilarious. I think there’s a certain amount of pride that comes from being the sole woman in this cast.”
To counterbalance the testosterone level of the ensemble, Stearns made a conscious effort to fill various key production positions with female crew members. “We really wanted to offset the overt masculinity on screen by having a strong feminine presence on set,” he says. “In the end, well over half of our crew was women and only two department heads were men. I think it helped the film not feel so one-sided, and it added a great deal of energy to the project.”
Having starred in a number of hard-hitting thrillers throughout her career, Poots was no stranger to intensely physical roles like the one she plays in The Art of Self-Defense. “I love my character in this film,” says Poots. “She’s a warrior who’s suffered blows both physical and emotional. For a long time, she’s been at the mercy of the men in the dojo. They’ve denied her progression and reward in the world of karate, so she’s understandably angry, and I really wanted to sink my teeth into her rage.”
Once on set, Poots was impressed by Stearns’ idiosyncratic approach. “Riley has a very unique and specific style, and he was very helpful in navigating the movie’s peculiar tone, while at the same time remaining true to the characters,” she explains. “On top of being kind, funny, and genuinely obsessed with martial arts, I think he’s also an exceptional writer and a wonderful director.”

An Enigmatic Sensei

In a film filled with odd characters, perhaps none is stranger or more extreme than Sensei, the dojo’s mysterious owner and main instructor. Stearns conceived the quirky karate teacher as a lifelong outsider who turned to martial arts as a way of gaining respect from those who once mocked him.
“I always imagined that Sensei was powerfully charismatic in the dojo, but out in the real world he probably wasn’t very cool,” says Stearns. “I saw him as a nerd who got picked on in high school, and he studied karate in order to become a person that others look up to. He’s both likeable and very scary at the same time.”
To play the unusual part (sensei means “teacher” or “elder” in Japanese and is a generic term for a martial arts instructor), the filmmakers tapped award-winning actor Alessandro Nivola. Nivola was shooting a movie in Africa when he received a call from Stearns asking him to consider the role. “I read the script, and it had a wonderfully weird and unique sense of humor,” says Nivola. “So I watched Riley’s previous movie Faults, and I saw that he was clearly a talent, so I told him yes and off we went!”
In addition to finding the script wildly funny, Nivola was drawn to Sensei’s internal struggle. “He’s a lost soul with a nearly psychopathic need to assert himself as a man in the world,” the actor says. “He’s both hilarious and upsetting in equal measure, and the delicate balance between those two extremes seemed really tasty to me.”
Like his fellow co-stars, Nivola found Stearns’ ear for dialogue extraordinary. “I loved Sensei from the minute he appeared in the script,” he says. “In his very opening speech, he gives a martial arts demonstration while describing what he was shopping for at the supermarket. It was one of the best introductions to any character I’ve played on film before.”
As he explored the character on the page, Nivola discovered a number of meaningful similarities between Sensei and his newest karate student, Casey. “Sensei’s background is hinted at throughout the script,” Nivola explains. “At some point in his life, he probably felt the same kind of impotence that Jesse’s character feels at the beginning of the movie, and his way of dealing with it was by arming himself with martial arts. So all of these misguided things he’s recommending to Jesse as a way of finding his true masculine power are things that he taught himself in the past.”
The chance to share the screen with Eisenberg was another element that persuaded Nivola to accept the role. “I’d never worked with Jesse before, so I knew this was going to be a rare treat,” he says. “He’s a totally unique guy with a rhythm that’s unlike anybody else’s. He can’t open his mouth without being funny, and together we recognized what the dynamic was between our two characters, and we had a lot of fun with it from the start.”
Eisenberg was equally excited to work with Nivola on the project. “When I read the script, I knew that Sensei was going to be a very difficult part for somebody to play because you have to get the deadpan tone exactly right,” he says. “If it’s too much, the jokes get lost. It required an actor with a sense of humor, but who doesn’t really make things comic, and Alessandro was the perfect choice for that. He understood how funny it was, but his instincts as an actor are naturally dramatic, which makes him really effective in the role.”
Stearns agrees that Nivola was the perfect actor to bring out both the humor and the menace in the character. “Alessandro plays Sensei as a guy with a lot of misplaced faith in himself,” observes Stearns. “I just love his devilish performance.”

Combat Training

The job of turning the cast members into convincing martial artists fell on the strong shoulders of fight choreographer and stunt coordinator Mindy Kelly — no small task given the production’s time constraints and the actors’ almost complete lack of karate experience. “Mindy did a fantastic job working with the cast,” says Stearns. “She got them ready for what they were going to be doing on camera, and helped them learn all the necessary combinations to make the fight sequences look great on screen.”
Eisenberg found the pre-production training sessions invaluable. “It was really helpful because on set the fight choreography changed based on the scenes we were shooting. So everyone needed to have a really good background in it to keep up with those changes,” he explains. “Of course, I didn’t have to be as good as Alessandro and Imogen, both of whom picked it up quite naturally. I just had to make sure I looked believable doing it.”
To get in shape prior to production, Poots and Eisenberg worked out together. “Jesse and I jumped into the deep end at a sweaty boxing gym in New York City,” says Poots. “We kicked bags full of sand and swung around those big gloves. Because I had no previous martial arts experience whatsoever, I was worried about screwing up the karate scenes. Mindy pushed me hard, which I’m grateful for. She managed to make everything look raw and real, and once I got the hang of fighting, the moves felt like a dance and I absolutely loved it. Karate is such a beautiful martial art, and to watch Mindy do the moves was startling.”
A devoted martial artist himself, Stearns was amazed at the amount of skill Poots managed to pick up in a relatively short time. “Imogen’s big fight scene in the movie is all her on screen,” he says. “We used a stunt double for one specific jiu-jitsu move, but other than that, Imogen did everything else you see in the film. There’s no way we would have been able to do that without Mindy making it happen safely.”
Like his co-stars, Nivola had never practiced any type of martial arts prior to working on The Art of Self-Defense, but his natural strength and agility gave him a head start. “I’m a relatively athletic person, so I wasn’t tripping over myself,” says the actor. “Luckily, Mindy and I drilled the moves over and over and over again. Throughout the entire production, I did intensive karate training in my hotel room, or wherever I could find space to practice.”
Stearns was deeply impressed with Nivola’s commitment to learning how to emulate a master karate instructor. “Alessandro had just come off an action movie in South Africa, so he was already in very good shape and picked things up quickly. He went into it extremely gung-ho and worked incredibly hard on his big fight scene with Jesse.”
Beyond practicing his karate routines, Nivola’s training involved learning how an accomplished martial arts teacher would carry himself. “Mindy was instrumental in helping me understand how Sensei would assert his authority over everyone around him without actually speaking a word,” Nivola says. “A lot of the time I would simply study her on set. She’s an amazing woman, but also kind of terrifying because of her extreme poise and the intensity of her gaze.”

Doing Less

Much of the humor in The Art of Self-Defense relies on the deadpan delivery of some outrageously offbeat dialogue. “The overall instruction that I gave the cast was that the characters are all speaking exactly what they’re thinking,” says Stearns. “It’s all very literal. Everything is black and white and there’s no middle ground.”
This idea took some getting used to for the cast, he says. “Occasionally, Jesse would try something and I’d ask him to do less with it. He was intrigued by that, and we’d go back and shoot it again. It wasn’t his natural instinct to do less, but everyone was laughing on set, so he realized it was the right path to go down.”
Nivola also embraced the script’s unusual tone. “There’s a kind of stylized delivery to Sensei’s dialogue where nothing is really emphasized,” says the actor. “Lines that are totally mundane are given the same amount of stress as things that are either terrifying or hugely important. That’s what creates the oddness in the humor. Sensei is totally casual about everything he says, so you almost miss the fact that he’s spouting things that are really strange and disturbing. The fact that he doesn’t acknowledge it is what makes it so funny.”

Canine Co-Stars

In addition to its award-winning human cast, The Art of Self-Defense features two extremely memorable canine performers. “Everyone says you shouldn’t work with animals on a film, but the two dogs we hired were so well-behaved on set, they just blew me away,” says Stearns. “For instance, Mocha, the dachshund, was the sweetest pup I’ve ever met. Her trainer happens to be a pet psychic, so she would tell Mocha to sit there and look at Jesse, and Mocha did it. I don’t know exactly how that works, but she made it happen.”
The film’s menacing German Shepherd was a bit more temperamental, according to Kortschak. “Roman, the Shepherd, was a former police dog. Oddly enough, he was much nicer than we wanted him to be. The script called for him to viciously bark on cue, but instead he just wanted to lay down.”
Luckily, Stearns was able to turn the German Shepherd’s mild personality to the film’s advantage. “I realized it might be much funnier if he didn’t actually bark. So we ended up with this supposedly vicious dog who’s basically just a sweetheart.
Eisenberg, who shares numerous scenes with both dogs, applauds Stearns’ canine direction. “Thanks to Riley’s assuredness and efficiency, the entire crew knew exactly what we needed from the dogs,” he says. “Once they gave us what we needed, we were free to move on with the rest of the scene, rather than desperately trying to get them to do something funny or compliant.”

Sight and Sound

The Art of Self-Defense reunited Stearns with several key collaborators from his debut feature, including director of photography Michael Ragen and composer Heather McIntosh.
“Michael and I have worked together on several things in the past, so he knows the exact style I’m going for before I even say anything,” Stearns says. “One of the main things I told him this time around is that I wanted the aspect ratio to be 1.85:1. I felt like that would be right for this movie, since the story didn’t necessarily demand a widescreen look. Instead, I wanted everything to feel much more contained.”
The film was shot on 4K digital, but Stearns and Ragen went back later and added additional grain to give the images a grittier look. Astute viewers will notice that the story’s tonal transition is mirrored visually. “As things progress, the images get increasingly darker,” says Stearns. “We purposefully embraced that visual moodiness to reflect what Casey is going through, particularly in those violent night classes during the second half of the movie.”
To accomplish that, Stearns and Ragen utilized a variety of techniques. “For example, we lit the dojo night classes using very harsh overhead lighting that looks entirely different from the softer and more inviting day classes,” says Stearns. “This makes the night classes feel like they’re taking place in a world that’s far more brutal and less welcoming.”
McIntosh’s musical score reflects those tonal transitions as well. “Heather’s score starts out slightly more traditional, composed of cello, various other stringed instruments, and some piano. Then, as the story begins to explore the darker side of the dojo, we introduce more atonal pieces, and the music becomes considerably more aggressive.”

Winning the Location Derby

Although the town where the story takes place is never specified, The Art of Self-Defense was shot in Louisville, Kentucky, using a mainly local crew. “I produced another film there the year before, so I felt very comfortable working in that area,” says Kortschak. “It’s an amazing place to shoot because there’s a wide array of neighborhoods and architecture styles.”
“I’d shoot again in Louisville in a heartbeat,” Stearns says. “It’s a great little city, and everyone there was excited about the film. There’s something nice about shooting in places like Kentucky that don’t see a lot of productions. The crew just cared so much about the movie.”
The filmmakers initially assumed they’d need to build the set of Sensei’s mysterious dojo, where most of the film’s action takes place. But while exploring Louisville, they quickly stumbled upon the perfect location to shoot the majority of the film’s interiors. “On our second or third day of scouting, we found the dojo,” says Kortschak. “It was previously a machine shop and was about to be torn down, so we held off the demolition long enough to use it for the shoot.”
Stearns developed a backstory for the dojo in which it had been a funeral home before being converted into a karate studio by Sensei. “He kept certain elements intact and destroyed others,” explains the writer-director. “That’s why it has so many weird hallways and areas that you’re not sure what they’re used for. Each time we reveal another part of the space, I wanted the audience to feel more and more uneasy.”
To transform an abandoned machine shop into a surreal martial arts school, Stearns worked closely with production designer Charlotte Royer. “We gutted the existing space and Charlotte was able to turn it into something very special,” he says. “She just handled everything so well. It’s crazy what she was able to accomplish in the time given. I think she just knocked it out of the park.”

Something New

Kortschak expects The Art of Self-Defense will be an eye-opening experience for many viewers. “This movie has some very important things to show all types of people,” says the producer. “It deals with toxic masculinity and sexism, both in and out of the workplace, and it touches on the idea of violence for the sake of violence. Riley also crafted a very subtle commentary on how guns are viewed in this country. Best of all, the film manages to tackle all of these hot-button issues using brilliant dark humor.”
Nivola echoes the producer’s sentiment. “People will find it funny, but I also want them to be unsettled by it and sometimes not know whether to laugh or not. And I’d very happy if it makes them question what it means to be a man these days.”
Eisenberg hopes people will enjoy the film as much as he enjoyed making it, particularly Stearns’ unique storytelling style. “I hope they publish the screenplay so people can read it because it’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever read,” says the actor. “It’s clear why each moment in the script is there, what purpose it serves in the larger context, and what purpose it serves promoting the themes of the movie.”
For Stearns, it all comes down to pleasing the audience. “At the end of the day, I want people to watch The Art of Self-Defense and enjoy themselves,” says the writer-director. “I hope it feels different than anything they’ve seen before, and that they find something entirely new and unexpected. It is super dark at times, but I hope audiences will find it as funny as I do.”

ABOUT THE CAST

JESSE EISENBERG (Casey) is an Academy Award-nominated actor and an acclaimed playwright and author. His feature film credits include Roger Dodger, The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland, Zombieland, The Social Network, Now You See Me, The Double, Night Moves, The End of the Tour, American Ultra, Louder Than Bombs, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Now You See Me 2, Café Society and Justice League.

Eisenberg’s upcoming films include The Hummingbird Project and Resistance, in which Eisenberg plays the French mime Marcel Marceau in the incredible true story of his time in the French Resistance.
Eisenberg has written four plays, including “The Spoils,” which recently completed a box-office- record-breaking West End run. He also wrote and starred alongside Vanessa Redgrave in his play “The Revisionist.” In 2011 he wrote and starred in the play “Asuncion.” His upcoming play “Happy Talk” will star Susan Sarandon and BD Wong. It will open in April 2019 at New York’s Signature Theatre.
Born in New York, Eisenberg is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. He is the author of the collection Bream Gives Me Hiccups from Grove Press and the forthcoming novel The Ziegfeld Files, for Audible.
He is currently on location shooting Zombieland: Double Tap, the sequel to the hit 2009 zombie comedy.

ALESSANDRO NIVOLA (Sensei) is both an actor and a producer. He won the 2018 British Independent Film Award (BIFA) for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Sebastián Lelio’s Disobedience, playing Rabbi Dovid Kuperman opposite Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams.
Nivola is about to begin filming the lead role in The Many Saints of Newark. Written by David Chase, the film is a prequel to his acclaimed HBO series “The Sopranos” and is set in the late 1960s.
Nivola leads the cast of “Chimerica,” the four-hour limited series adaptation of Lucy Kirkwood’s award-winning play. He recently wrapped Gideon Raff’s The Red Sea Diving Resort, opposite Chris Evans and Ben Kingsley. He was also recently praised for his work in Barry Levinson’s HBO film “The Wizard of Lies,” playing Mark Madoff opposite Robert De Niro’s Bernie Madoff.
In 2017 Nivola won the Tribeca Film Festival’s Best Actor Award for his performance opposite Juno Temple in One Percent More Humid. He also shared in the Screen Actors Guild Award and Critics Choice Award won by the cast of David O. Russell’s American Hustle. For his performance opposite Frances McDormand in Lisa Cholodenko’s Laurel Canyon, Nivola earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
The actor’s other film credits include Junebug, Coco Before Chanel, A Most Violent Year, Selma, The Neon Demon, Mansfield Park, Ginger & Rosa, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Jurassic Park III and Face/Off.
Apart from his extensive film work, Nivola has starred many times on Broadway. He received nominations for both a Tony Award® and an Outer Critics Circle Award for playing Frederick Treves opposite Bradley Cooper in the 2015 Broadway revival of “The Elephant Man.” He also earned a Drama Desk nomination for playing Belyaev opposite Helen Mirren in the Broadway revival of Turgenev’s “A Month in the Country” and an Outer Critics Circle nomination for his performance in “The Winslow Boy,” also on Broadway.
In 2014 Nivola and his wife, actress Emily Mortimer, co-founded the film and television production company King Bee Productions. King Bee currently has a first-look deal with eOne Studios and is developing a full slate of film and television projects. Nivola produced two seasons of HBO’s “Doll & Em” and also produced the feature film To Dust, starring Géza Röhrig and Matthew Broderick. The film won both the Audience Award and the Best New Narrative Director Award at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival before receiving a theatrical release.
Nivola grew up in rural Vermont and graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in English. He currently resides in New York.

IMOGEN POOTS (Anna) can next be seen on FX’s “Y: The Last Man.” She recently wrapped shooting on Vivarium, starring opposite Jesse Eisenberg. Prior to that, Poots performed in the West End production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
Poots can also be seen in I Kill Giants, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room, and opposite Andy Samberg in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.
On TV, she was the female lead in Cameron Crowe’s “Roadies.” Poots’ other credits include Frank & Lola, Mobile Homes, and Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups.ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

RILEY STEARNS (Director, Writer) grew up in Pflugerville, Texas. His short The Cub screened at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. His feature debut, Faults, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Leland Orser, premiered at SXSW in 2014 and was released theatrically.
He is a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under Renzo Gracie black belt Shawn Williams. The Art of Self-Defense is Stearns’ second feature.

CODY RYDER (Producer) has produced award-winning films, commercials and music videos filmed all over the world. Most recently, The Clovehitch Killer, starring Dylan McDermott, premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and was released by IFC to critical acclaim. Several of her independent films have premiered at Sundance, including Cop Car, starring Kevin Bacon; Other People, with Jesse Plemons and Molly Shannon; and Robot & Frank, starring Frank Langella and Susan Sarandon.  
Ryder is currently based in New York City.

ANDREW KORTSCHAK (Producer) is a principal at End Cue, a film development and production company located in Culver City, California. Since co-founding End Cue in 2013, he has worked to combine his interests in film, animation, technology and documentaries. Kortschak was recognized by Forbes magazine in its “30 Under 30: Hollywood & Entertainment” list for 2019. His most recent release was The Clovehitch Killer, a thriller starring Dylan McDermott and Charlie Plummer.
Kortschak is currently producing Bubbles, a stop-motion animated feature about Michael Jackson told from his pet chimpanzee’s perspective; Moonfall, a sci-fi project written by David Weil; and an as-yet-untitled film about “urban explorers,” written by Jon Watts and Chris Ford. Previously, Kortschak was a producer on that duo’s thriller Cop Car, starring Kevin Bacon and Shea Whigham, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015.
Kortschak’s other film credits include Mediterranea, which premiered at Cannes in 2015 and netted him an Independent Spirit Award nomination; The Benefactor, starring Richard Gere and Theo James; Print the Legend, a documentary that won a Special Jury Award at the 2014 SXSW Film Festival; and Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2013.
The producer sponsored an original content piece in collaboration with Epic magazine, “Silicon Is Just Sand,” a journey through the tech boom in Silicon Beach, and produced the short Sunspring, the first AI-generated original script utilizing an LSTM Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) trained with science-fiction screenplays.
Originally from Palo Alto, California, Kortschak hails from a background of tech industry innovators. He is a graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where during his studies he spent time working as a production assistant on Monsters University at Pixar Animation Studios. Since his graduation he has given several guest lectures to students on the process and strategy of independent filmmaking.

STEPHANIE WHONSETLER (Producer) is a feature and commercial producer and line producer. Her feature producing credits include the 2015 drama I Am Potential and 2019 thriller Only Mine. She is the executive producer of the upcoming thriller Perception and co-producer of The Clovehitch Killer, starring Charlie Plummer, Dylan McDermott and Samantha Mathis.
Whonsetler served as production supervisor on director Phillip Noyce’s upcoming true-crime thriller Above Suspicion, starring Emilia Clarke, Jack Huston, Thora Birch and Johnny Knoxville.
She produced the short film Aullido (Howl), which won Best Film at the Justice International Film Festival in 2015 and was chosen as an official selection at other festivals across the U.S. In 2014, INSP Studios hired Whonsetler to launch and build its Original Movies Division, developing a film slate and a studio model for producing low-budget features.
Originally from Louisville, Whonsetler spends much of her time in her home state working to build a film industry under Kentucky’s competitive tax incentives. She is a founding member of the Kentucky Film Association, a consultant to the Kentucky Film Office, and a film educator throughout the region. 
Whonsetler graduated from Denison University with a B.A. in communication. 

WALTER KORTSCHAK (Producer) is co-founder of End Cue, a film development and production company located in Culver City, California. He brings to the company more than 30 years of early-stage technology investment experience. As a producer Kortschak has several features in development including Taika Waititi’s stop-motion animation film Bubbles. He has also written an original feature-length screenplay, Triage, which is planned for production later this year.
Kortschak currently serves as executive chairman of SignalFire, a data-driven venture capital firm based in San Francisco. He is also a fund advisor to several micro-VC firms in Silicon Valley and an active angel investor in such notable companies as First Republic Bank, Lyft, Palantir, Trade Desk and Twitter. He was a managing partner at Summit Partners for 21 years, where he was responsible for investing in more than 50 companies, many of which achieved successful public exits. He started his venture career at Crosspoint Venture Partners and is a six-time Forbes Midas List investor.
Kortschak and his wife Marcia are active philanthropists who founded the Kortschak Scholars Program for PhD students in computer science at Caltech and the USC Kortschak Center for Learning and Creativity. They also endowed the Division Chair in Film and Television Production at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Kortschak received his B.S. degree from Oregon State University and an M.S. from Caltech (both in engineering) as well as an M.B.A. from UCLA. He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees at Caltech and is a past director of the National Venture Capital Association.