Kieran Culkin

Kieran Kyle Culkin (born September 30, 1982) is an American actor. Known for portraying distasteful yet sympathetic characters across stage and screen, his accolades include an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.

Culkin began his career as a child actor in off-Broadway theater productions. He made his feature film debut alongside his older brother, Macaulay, in the Christmas comedy Home Alone (1990). After achieving his breakthrough role as a sardonic teenager in the comedy-drama Igby Goes Down (2002), which earned him his first Golden Globe Award nomination, Culkin took a break from the screen due to personal conflicts. He returned to film six years later by playing Wallace Wells in the action comedy Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). Culkin won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a grief-stricken Jewish drifter in A Real Pain (2024).

On television, Culkin found a career resurgence with his portrayal of Roman Roy in the HBO drama series Succession (2018–2023), for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. His voice acting work includes roles in Solar Opposites (2022–2025) and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023). On stage, Culkin starred in the West End and Broadway productions of Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth. He also portrayed Richard Roma in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross (2025).

Early life

Kieran Kyle Culkin was born on September 30, 1982, in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, New York. He was the fourth of seven children born to Christopher "Kit" Culkin and Patricia Brentrup. His father is a former stage actor, and his mother, a native of North Dakota, worked as a road traffic controller in Sundance, Wyoming. Culkin was raised Catholic with his six siblings: Shane (b. 1976), Dakota (1978–2008), Macaulay (b. 1980), Quinn (b. 1984), Christian (b. 1987), and Rory (b. 1989). He had an older half-sister, Jennifer Adamson (1970–2000), from his father's previous relationship. Actress Bonnie Bedelia is his paternal aunt. Culkin has German, Irish, and Norwegian ancestry.

For the first nine years of his life, Culkin and his family lived in a railroad apartment in Yorkville and struggled financially. The tenement was "barely suitable for a couple," Culkin explained to Vanity Fair. "It was just a hallway, and there were no separating doors, except for the bathroom, which didn't have a lock. [His parents] raised seven kids in that apartment—for years! They just kept bringing babies home to this little space." Because his father served as a sacristan at the St. Joseph's Church of Yorkville, Culkin attended its Catholic school for free until the third grade. He then studied theater, film and television at the Professional Children's School, but dropped out during his senior year of high school.

Culkin was "loved unconditionally" by his mother, and considers her to be his only parent. He was neglected by his father throughout his childhood and only remembers him as being a "constant, unwelcome presence" in the household. His mother handled all of the children's necessities while balancing night shifts as a telephone operator for a theatrical casting agency. According to the family's longtime talent manager, Emily Gerson Saines, his mother maintained "strong family values, like the family having a meal together, the Christmas tree, Thanksgiving. These are all important things to [Brentrup], and she instilled that in her kids." After living together for more than twenty years, Culkin's parents separated in March 1995. Brentrup was awarded sole custody of five of their seven children following a two-year, highly publicized custody battle. Culkin maintained a "great" relationship with his mother, but has been estranged from his father since.

Career

1988–1995: Early work

Culkin was raised as a performer and started acting at the age of two. Some of his earliest memories involve being led by his father's hand into Central Park and posing for headshots. His career began when a stage manager who worked for the Light Opera of Manhattan, an off-Broadway repertory theatre, heard the company needed some children for their productions. The manager relayed the message to Culkin's parents, who offered their children with no hesitation. Culkin started auditioning for roles with his older siblings when he was six years old. His first professional gig was through a television commercial based on learning disabilities; he was repeatedly berated by the unnamed director in a failed attempt to make him method act.

At age seven, Culkin made his feature film debut as Fuller McCallister, the youngest cousin of the protagonist Kevin McCallister (played by his brother Macaulay), in the Christmas comedy Home Alone (1990). He had "no idea" what the film was about while he was filming; the only notes he received from the filmmakers was, "Drink this Coke, wear the glasses, say the thing you memorized, look cute, and go home." Devin Ratray, who played Buzz McCallister, successfully convinced Culkin to believe that the film was actually about his character. Home Alone was originally met with mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. Culkin's small role was deemed memorable for its Pepsi product placement and bedwetting tendencies. Home Alone later became the second-highest-grossing Christmas film of all time, and was hailed as a Christmas classic.

In 1991, Culkin had minor roles in the romantic comedies Only the Lonely, which received mixed reviews, and Father of the Bride, which earned positive reviews. He was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor Co-Starring in a Motion Picture for his performance in the latter. Culkin reprised his role as Fuller McCallister in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), the sequel to Home Alone. His later appearances in Nowhere to Run (1993), My Summer Story (1994), and Father of the Bride Part II (1995) also received negative-to-mixed reviews.

1996–2002: Breakthrough with Igby Goes Down

Culkin alternated between lead roles in independent films and small parts in mainstream films as he entered adolescence. In 1996, he starred as a farm boy who overcomes his fear of animals in Bobby Roth's Amanda and was a guest caller on the fourth season of the television sitcom Frasier. He then starred as a boy suffering from Morquio syndrome in the coming-of-age film The Mighty (1998), which earned him a nomination for the Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actor in a Feature Film. Peter Chelsom, its director, was the first filmmaker that treated Culkin like a serious actor: "He talked to me like an adult. Before that, directors would just tell me what to do. I’d have no input. But [Chelsom] taught me how to study my lines and take them apart and how to dissect my character. I had no idea there was a real process to acting before that."

The following year, Culkin appeared in Wes Craven's Music of the Heart, a biographical film about violinist Roberta Guaspari. He also had supporting roles in the teen comedy She's All That, which grossed over $100 million worldwide against a production budget of $7–10 million, and Lasse Hallström's drama The Cider House Rules, which grossed over $88 million worldwide. Culkin returned to the stage in 2000 with The Moment When, an off-Broadway romantic comedy play by James Lapine that explored the lives of New York City's arts-and-lits set. During a performance, he got his co-stars Arija Bareikis, Mark Ruffalo and Phyllis Newman high by swapping a prop joint for a real one.

Culkin starred in his first regular role in a television series with the short-lived NBC sitcom Go Fish (2001). He appeared in two feature directorial debuts the following year: Peter Care's The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys as a mischievous Catholic schoolboy and Burr Steers's Igby Goes Down as the rebellious and sardonic teenager Jason "Igby" Slocumb Jr. Film critic Stephen Holden for The New York Times praised both comedy-dramas, but found Culkin's breakthrough performance in the latter to be "even richer" than the former. For his work on Igby Goes Down, Culkin won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Actor/Actress and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

2003–2017: Screen hiatus and theatre work

Igby Goes Down was the first gig that profoundly impacted Culkin's personal life. He realized in the midst of the film's success that acting had become his career, which was "terrifying" because he was never granted the decision to pursue it. As he needed time to figure out whether he genuinely wanted to be an actor or not, he took a break from the film and television industries and only focused on the acting jobs that interested him the most.