Jeremy Piven

The Piven family has created a new project together that will resonate with audiences around the globe. The Performance is the story of a Jewish tap dancer and his troupe who travel to Berlin in the 1930s to give a performance of a lifetime. The plot is based on a story written by Arthur Miller first published in The New Yorker.

Jeremy Piven plays Harold May and invokes his Jewish heritage in the role on the big screen.

He’s known for starring as Ari Gold in the series Entourage and won a Golden Globe and three Emmy Awards for the part. He also starred in the British show Mr. Selfridge and is previously remembered for the Ellen DeGeneres sitcom Ellen.

His sister Shira Piven directs The Performance and was raised in Evanston, Illinois where their parents founded the Piven Theater Workshop. Her first feature film titled Welcome to Me debuted in 2014.

The siblings sat down at NBC Tower to chat about the creation of The Performance.

JN: (Jerry Nunn) What does this passion project mean to you?

JP: (Jeremy Piven) I feel like it’s the best work of our lives. We didn't have a studio that was giving us votes, so we got to do and present the film the way we wanted to.

That's the great news. The bad news is we don't have a studio supporting us out here, so we don't have the commercials and the billboards. We have to do everything and it's an honor.

I'm just going to keep grinding!

SP: (Shira Piven) It's funny too, because I was just thinking when I get tired I have to tell people, “This is a very DIY.”

The movie definitely looks bigger than our budget. It has a big movie feel in a lot of ways.

When I start to feel overwhelmed, I remember that the kind of creative freedom that we've had doing this has been incredible.

My biggest creative fights were maybe with my brother, which is like fantastic, because we both want the same thing.

We really didn't have any studio breathing down our neck. I remind myself that creative freedom has been the trade-off and it's a great one to have.

JN: The cinematography is so great and I noticed all of your hard work on even the smallest of scenes. Was it a long filming process?

SP: We crammed a lot into 29 days of shooting.

JP: That’s the interesting duality of this film. If we didn't tell anyone that it's an indie film, they would never know it. We had all of the creative freedoms of an indie film, but it looks like this massive film.

That's why it's really fun to get out there and do everything we can to get the word out about it. By the way, I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, “There's nothing to see right now and I don't know what to watch. That's why you're seeing some of these kinds of unknown films come to fruition because people enjoy films like Anora. They want to see a great story.

For this film, I've never seen people react the way they have. They're gasping at certain points, sometimes crying, and they're really moved. It's what we all need right now.

This is a story that'll make us question things but also transports us, and that’s a little bit of a relief from everything that's going on.

SP: It's a strange and wonderful combination of a movie that asks some heavy questions to the audience. I don't believe in making things palatable, but it has moments of being wildly entertaining, and then it makes the audience remember the stakes.

Someone said at one screening, “It was so suspenseful that it was like an Alfred Hitchcock film.” I'm still unpacking that and I wondered, “How many Hitchcock films did she see?”

This movie is so different in style, but I think what she meant was that emotionally you're invested so you're on the edge of your seat, so that's a great combination.

What Jeremy is saying is that people want stories. There's something about a good story that, honestly, is irresistible.

Being in Chicago, we grew up in my parents' theaters and everything that they were doing as theater artists was about storytelling.

JN: I connected to The Performance in several ways because I took a tap class in college. Did you have shin splints from all of the tap dancing?

JP: I didn't have shin splints. I had ego splints because it was humiliating. I had to dare to look ridiculous and had to stay with it. Every year that I heard people not want to make the film,

I just got better at tap.

JN: It’s about making it look easy to audiences. It’s not easy at all. It’s hammering your feet into the stage.

JP: Yes, those hardwood floors were tough.

SP: Our choreographer Jared Grimes, who was just Tony-nominated for Funny Girl on Broadway, was incredible. He is an expert in this tap dancing period. It was not just the feet, so Jeremy not only had to learn the tap steps but also had to learn to engage his upper body as well. He had huge challenges doing this.

JN: During that time period, performing had a different style with pizzazz. Dancers overdid it sometimes.

SP: There was an element of ballroom. In the 90s there was a resurgence of tap with Savion Glover, but that was more about the upper body. In the 30s, it was more about a certain style of dance.

I always thought of Jeremy as a frustrated dancer and he had a certain anesthetic as a kid.

Do you remember the pratfalls that you used to do?

JP: [laughs] Yes…

SP: He used to jump up and fall on the ground, so he took right to tap dancing.

JN: Did you know I took classes from the Piven Theater Workshop in the ‘90s?

JP: You did?

JN: Yes, and I also did stand-in work for your series Cupid, so we were on set together a long time ago.

JP: It doesn't feel that long ago to me.

JN: What's something you learned from the 1930s that people can take away today?

SP: For me, the most important thing about making a movie or putting on a play is that it's relevant. There are so many things in our culture that take us out of the present moment.

I wanted this film to feel like it speaks to people and their concerns. It might even provoke them a little bit. There are a lot of things that make our movie very unique and it's a very specific character study. There are not many movies about an American Jewish tap dancer in 1937. That period had some very clear moral questions and everything now is sort of chaotic.

When we look at that period it can reflect on our times and when audience members see this movie, they almost become Harold May.

That's how I approached directing, this film had me constantly thinking about how the audience would experience it. Every time I watch the film at screenings I think about the journey of this character and how far he goes with what he wants in the world. That can sometimes be painful to watch in the theater and captivating at the same time.

The performance dances into theaters this March/April and up-to-date information on the film is available at theperformancemovie.com.