Kieran Culkin Never Cared What People Thought of His Work. A Real Pain Changed That

Kieran Culkin never used to care what people thought of his movies or TV shows. But since making A Real Pain — the new Searchlight Pictures drama in which he stars opposite writer-director Jesse Eisenberg as his troubled but lovable cousin Benji as they embark on a Holocaust tour of Poland — he’s finds himself deviating from his normal routine of tuning out public reactions to his work for the first time.

“The most rewarding part is new to me, because it’s the fact that it’s getting a very positive response,” Culkin told MovieMaker on Monday on the SCAD Savannah Film Festival red carpet ahead of a screening of A Real Pain, at which he received the festival’s Virtuoso Award and sat for a Q&A.

“I’m not saying that’s new, not to say that things I’ve done haven’t gotten positive responses, but in the past, I just didn’t care,” he says.

But this time, he does care. And he deeply enjoyed working with Eisenberg, whom he calls “a weird, fast-talking, neurotic genius.”

“There’s something about this connecting with people that I’m actually quite happy with. I think in the past, I just like, I didn’t mind if things didn’t connect. I liked the work, I’m proud, or maybe it does connect, I just [didn’t] care,” he says.

This year, Culkin won his first Emmy for best lead actor in a drama series for his portrayal of Roman Roy, the son of a billionaire media mogul, on Succession. If Succession is a family drama, then so is a A Real Pain, which revolves around his character’s relationship with his cousin David (Eisenberg) and how their lives have changed since they lost their grandmother.

Also Read: 9 Succession Parallels With the Murdoch Family Too Wild to Ignore

More From Kieran Culkin About A Real Pain

“The character I play, Benji, he has a lot going on. He definitely has some issues that he hasn’t figured out yet. There’s not a name to it, there’s no real, I don’t know, what you might call a diagnosis or something to it. And I don’t think he’s a guy who’s kind of figured out life, but he had only like a very small amount of people in his life that sort of kept him anchored,” Culkin says.

“One was his grandma, who had just passed by the time the movie starts, and then his cousin is sort of drifting, they’re relationship is drifting apart. So he’s kind of at sea a bit. And yeah, that was sort of what that family is to him. He mentions in the movies something where, like, t’hey go away, when we need them most.’

But if you ask Culkin what first stood out to him about the script for A Real Pain, he’ll say he couldn’t tell you.

“That’s a good question. I wish I had a better answer,” he says.

“I read it and connected with it right away. I connected with this character right away, within the first few pages. But I don’t really know why. I felt like it was so well written that I was able to see immediately the dynamic between these two characters, and I was able to sort of sense their history, where they’ve come from, who they are. It was right away. It was right on the page, and I just got excited about it.”

Explaining why he dislikes something is easier, he says.

“I can give you all the words as to why I didn’t like something. But for this one, it was just so well written. I just immediately was like, I’m excited to get in there and just play, which is what we got to do,” he adds.

A Real Pain arrives in theaters this fall.

Main Image: Kieran Culkin at SCAD. Getty Images for SCAD Savannah Film Festival