While shooting A Real Pain, Kieran Culkin didn’t love being told where to sit. This sort of direction had become unfamiliar for the Emmy- and Golden Globe winning actor, after four seasons of the freewheeling, improvisational methods on HBO’s Succession. Here, in the story of estranged cousins reuniting for a trip to Poland to honor their grandmother, Culkin found himself adapting to the relatively exacting rhythms of his director, Jesse Eisenberg—who just so happened to be his co-star as well. “It was tough because actors aren’t supposed to note other actors, and it was very awkward for me to be doing a scene with him and…go,’“Oh God, he’s switched hats, he’s wearing the director hat now,’” Culkin said. “That took a moment for me.”
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Last week, Culkin shared this and other insights alongside Vanity Fair’s David Canfield and Richard Lawson at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, joining the Little Gold Men podcast’s first live show of this awards season. For his wiry, affecting performance as the adrift Benji, Culkin is stirring strong Oscar buzz this fall and has already nabbed a Gotham Award nomination. Acquired by Searchlight out of Sundance, A Real Pain is coming off of a robust opening in limited release this past weekend, and as one of the most acclaimed films on the circuit right now, it’s primed to continue building momentum over the next two months.
And lucky us, because Culkin is never anything but himself in conversation—candid, unpredictable, sharply funny—even amid the buzz of campaigning. On stage before a sold-out audience, the actor reflected on his struggles to leave Succession behind, the cult phenomenon of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, his upcoming return to Broadway, and much more. Above, you can listen to the full episode; read on below for excerpts from their conversation with Culkin.
On how Eisenberg cast him in A Real Pain:
It must’ve been bizarre: He cast me without auditioning me or without seeing a single thing that I was in. And he acts like this is a totally normal thing. I mean, I found out after the fact he’s seen Home Alone, but I don’t think I got the part based on wetting the bed when I was seven, allegedly.
He’s like, “Well, I met you before.” And I’m like, “You met me twice in passing. That is not how you cast somebody. How did you know?” He must’ve been terrified on the first day that I was going to suck or something.
On Eisenberg’s style as a director:
Somebody asked recently if it made me feel like I want to direct, which I don’t. I don’t have that thing in me, but I get why the question is asked. We’re about the same age, we’ve been acting for a very long time. This made me look at it and the way he did it and go, “Well, okay, I don’t want to, but if I did, I would want to do it the way he did it.” He was very much in charge. It’s his movie, but he really leaned on all the departments and everybody there—and not just the heads of departments. He would ask somebody in one department what they thought of the shot, even though it has nothing to do with what it is they do. There was this feeling of, “We’re all making a movie. It’s his movie, but we’re all making his movie.” It was really nice to feel like there was that collaboration, that our opinion was heard.
On A Real Pain being his first post-Succession project:
[On Succession] we were given that freedom to talk over each other and just throw shit at the wall and see what happened. It was so much fun. I was scared going into a movie with a filmmaker who wrote it and was directing it. It’s his one vision, and to know that I’m now just doing that—we’re not all making this thing, we’re making his. I was a little bit afraid of coverage and pickup shots and fucking T marks and shit that I had been used to doing my whole life, [but] that we weren’t doing anymore on our show.
On how some offers after Succession felt like Roman Roy repeats:
There were a few of those. It’s also funny because people had a misinterpretation of the character of who Roman was. You can tell when somebody says, “Oh, he’s so snarky.” I’m like, “You’re only saying that because he’s short—as am I. You wouldn’t use that word if Roman was tall.” It’s just true. But there would be parts like that: “Oh, you’ve got the most basic one-dimensional idea of who this guy is and then sent me a script because, oh, get the little guy in a suit to do it.” But that’s easy to weed through, I think.
On his offscreen dynamic with Succession star Brian Cox:
Fantastic—similar but very different from what you saw on screen. He would have these big outbursts, but it was like a big teddy bear that suddenly got really angry because he hasn’t had a snack in a while. He’s freaking lovely. But it’s funny: the moment we would start doing a scene, I found myself terrified of him, and I was suddenly eight years old if it was just the two of us in a scene together. But then when it ended, we were just colleagues.
On preparing for Broadway’s Glengarry Glen Ross:
I’m doing a play in the spring, which I used to find to be so freeing. I have to do this dialogue that’s scripted, but no one’s going to interrupt me; it’s just me and the actor on stage once we get there. I’m scared of how restricting that is. Once I figure out the blocking and everything, now I’m just doing the same thing eight times a week—and I’m terrified of what that is. I don’t think I’m ever excited going into a job. It’s just terror.
I’ve never seen the movie. I’ve never seen a production of the play. I’m not going to watch the movie or anything like that until after. I got to read it fresh and go, “Oh, I like this guy.” Turns out a lot of people like this character and this play. Oh, it turns out it’s a great play. Who knew? Everyone.
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The post Live With Kieran Culkin: On ‘A Real Pain,’ Post-‘Succession’ “Terror,” and His Next Big Role appeared first on Vanity Fair.
