Lengthy earlier than Jesse Eisenberg and Sebastian Stan each earned 2025 Golden Globe Awards nominations, the pair appeared collectively in an indie coming-of-age drama that marked the directorial debut of rocker Fred Durst. The Training of Charlie Banks hit theaters in 2009 starring Eisenberg as Charlie, an Ivy League freshman who’s troubled when highschool bully Mick (Jason Ritter) mysteriously resurfaces and inserts himself into Charlie’s life in upstate New York.
Filmmaker Peter Care (The Harmful Lives of Altar Boys) was initially hooked up to direct Peter Elkoff’s script, which was primarily based on the author’s autobiographical experiences. Finally touchdown within the director’s chair was Durst, who had change into an MTV fixture within the late Nineties because the frontman for rap-metal band Limp Bizkit. Durst has cited Matt Dillon’s position within the 1980 characteristic My Bodyguard as an inspiration for The Training of Charlie Banks, which co-stars Stan as Charlie’s charming faculty buddy Leo, plus Eva Amurri (Susan Sarandon’s daughter) and Charles Parnell. “I’ve had plenty of alternatives, plenty of massive films thrown at me by the years — tacky blockbusters, horror movies,” Durst mentioned on the time. “I’m extra into timeless items.”
The Training of Charlie Banks premiered at Tribeca in 2007, the place it received the “Made in NY” narrative characteristic award. “Fred grew up within the South, however he was so adamant about making [the film] authentically on location in New York,” Eisenberg mentioned whereas accepting the prize. Anchor Bay launched the film on March 27, 2009, and THR’s evaluation praised it for getting in “sudden, considerate instructions.”
Fifteen years later, Eisenberg and Stan are competing for the Golden Globe for greatest actor in a musical or comedy — Eisenberg for A Actual Ache, which he wrote and directed (and for which he’s additionally up for greatest screenplay; see web page 10), and Stan for A Completely different Man. Stan can be vying for greatest actor in a drama for enjoying a younger Donald Trump in The Apprentice. As for Durst, his most up-to-date directorial effort was 2019’s John Travolta-led The Fanatic, whereas he had performing roles within the 2024 initiatives I Noticed the TV Glow and Y2K. On the time of the Charlie Banks launch, Durst acknowledged that some viewers could have been stunned by his involvement: “Hopefully, there might be some individuals who go away [and] are impressed and caught off guard by only a stable, robust character piece.”
This story first appeared in a January stand-alone difficulty of The Hollywood Reporter journal. To obtain the journal, click on right here to subscribe.