In Fleishman is in Trouble, Claire Danes and Jesse Eisenberg are in crisis. Danes' Rachel Fleishman has ghosted her ex-husband, leaving their kids with Eisenberg's Toby Fleishman who is trying to navigate the New York City dating scene as a divorcee. With two kids in tow, that's a little more difficult. But what starts as a minor inconvenience becomes a deep dive into a marriage that failed both husband and wife, who in turn failed each other.
Based on Taffy Brodesser-Akner's novel of the same name, Fleishman is in Trouble also stars Lizzy Caplan and Adam Brody as two of Toby's college friends who help him navigate the complex situation at hand. The eight-episode miniseries premiered its first two episodes on November 17, with six more to follow.
Ahead of the premiere, Screen Rant sat down with Danes and Eisenberg to discuss Fleishman is in Trouble, including how they became comfortable portraying such a complicated marriage and Toby and Rachel's love for each other.
Claire Danes & Jesse Eisenberg On Fleishman Is In Trouble
Screen Rant: Claire, you guys are depicting such an intense wild marriage. Did you and Jessie know each other before? And how did you guys kind of build up the relationship to be comfortable?
Claire Danes: We had met briefly before, but just one time, so we didn't have a huge sense of each other. We had huge cast dinners before we began rehearsing, and that was helpful. Our rehearsal process was pretty concentrated but very effective. But I have to say I had an immediate kind of rapport and kind of shorthand with this fine fellow. So it didn't take much cultivation or effort.
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, it was absolutely pleasurable and immediately comfortable and engaging. A wonderful experience, because she's the best. And she's so smart, thoughtful, and talented. Yeah, it was great. And then we also had, the woman who ran the show [Taffy Brodesser-Akner] is the woman who wrote the book. And so there was this very integrated relationship between the TV series and this incredibly specific, lengthy book, which talked about everything that happens in the series, but in a way that was kind of immediately resonant and emotional, and at greater length, because it's a novel. And so we had this just wonderfully rich experience of this very fraught, complicated marriage.
The show moves so rapidly through time and I thought of the block universe that's brought up by the Fleishman's son where everything's happening at once. So, Jesse, how do you kind of balance depicting these happier moments to these bitter moments? Going back and forth, it almost feels like whiplash when you're watching the show, so I'm curious, as an actor, how do you handle that?
Jesse Eisenberg: Well, I'm in a happy marriage, personally, but, like any other human relationship, you go through periods where you're feeling so angry at another person. Then, all it takes is thinking back to a previous happy memory to realize that, all relationships, when they're with another human being, are going to be fraught with all sorts of feelings. And this relationship that we have in the TV show, from the start, is doomed, but that doesn't mean that it didn't have incredible moments of euphoria and connection. And like any other relationship, when it's with another person, it's going to have all of those things in equal measure, and hopefully more of the good than the bad.
And speaking of the block universe and universes in general, I'm curious to know, did you ever think, was there a universe where Rachel and Toby workout? Did you do any sort of thought exercises imagining different avenues that they could have gone down? What was your personal perspective on that?
Claire Danes: Well, we do see them function in a healthy way at different points. So I think there's an innate chemistry that exists and deep love and respect that they lose along the way for various reasons that I found really fascinating. And there's something deeply tragic about the fact that they're not able to resuscitate the relationship or unpick a kind of fatal knot that developed at a critical juncture. Right. So I didn't really see it in those terms exactly.
But I think for Rachel, her trauma, the initial trauma of her mother dying at such a young age, was much more alive than she realized. And it got kind of reactivated and aggravated. And she just couldn't cope right with that. And she also wasn't conscious that it was happening. So she wasn't able to communicate it to her partner and ask for the help that she needed. And he couldn't see it in her either. So that's how I contextualize it. That's how I saw it. And I don't think there would be another outcome. There is no parallel universe.
About Fleishman Is In Trouble
Toby Fleishman, a recently divorced forty-something-year-old man, finds himself immersed in the world of app-based dating. But as he begins to find successes he never found in his youth, his ex-wife Rachel disappears without a trace, leaving him with only his kids. As he balances looking after his children, a promotion at the hospital where he works, and all the women in Manhattan, he realizes that he'll never be able to figure out what happened to his wife until he can be more honest about what happened to their marriage in the first place.
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Fleishman is in Trouble is now streaming on Hulu with new episodes premiering Wednesdays.