Actor and Chicago native Jeremy Piven joined Jen BT from 104.3 JAMS in Chicago to discuss his brand new film and labor of love, The Performance, centered around a gifted Jewish tap dancer recruited to perform one night in 1930s Berlin with his life on the line -- based on a story by famed playwright, Arthur Miller.
LISTEN NOW: Jeremy Piven discusses his career-defining role in 'The Performance'
In his recent travels promoting The Performance, Jeremy has stated that this is the best work of his career. “This is gonna be a very Chicago thing to say: I don't think it, I know it,” Jeremy says. “I really do. It took me 15 years to make this film, and every year that I couldn't find the funds and they said ‘No,’ I got better at tap dancing because my mother, Joyce Piven, gave me this short story 15 years ago out of the New Yorker.”
“Here we are, Harold May. He's a Jewish tap dancer in 1937… ‘Oh, I can do this.’ Actors are totally delusional,” Jeremy admits. “I was just like, ‘I'll learn how to tap dance.’ But it's almost like our superpower. Every year they said ‘No,’ I got better at tap until magically -- you and I were talking about timing as you walked up -- the universe aligned right now. This is the perfect time for this film to come out. And if you don't give up, which I didn't, on the other side of that is a miracle -- and this is a miracle.”
“Even the reviewers are saying ‘career-defining performance,’” he adds. “I mean, I'm 80 movies into the game and this is the best work of my life. But also, antisemitism is on the rise, and I play a Jewish tap dancer that hides his identity to dance for Hitler. You know, 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. I think a lot of people get their news from TikTok… I'm not slamming TikTok, it's just, you know, we need to know what really happened to inform where we're at right now.”
“This movie,” he says, “isn't some didactic film where it's gonna hit you over the head, and it's a really fun, wild romp that people are emotionally… it's a gut punch for them.”
Press play for Jen BT's full chat with Jeremy Piven, and be sure to check out the trailer for The Performance above.