Kieran Culkin Bio
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).
Early Life and Background
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, Dakota, Macaulay, Quinn, Christian, and Rory. He had an older half-sister, Jennifer Adamson, 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, and his parents raised seven kids in that apartment for years. 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.
Path to Hollywood
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. 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). Home Alone later became the second highest-grossing Christmas film of all time and was hailed as a Christmas classic.
Kieran Culkin Career
Early Career (1988–1995)
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. 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 and Lasse Hallström’s drama The Cider House Rules. 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 and Burr Steers’s Igby Goes Down.
Breakthrough (2002–2003)
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. 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.
Notable Works and Milestones
Culkin’s performance in the final season of Succession earned critical acclaim and numerous accolades, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in A Real Pain (2024).
Kieran Culkin Award Nominations
Kieran Culkin has received several nominations throughout his career, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Igby Goes Down and multiple nominations for his role in Succession.
Kieran Culkin Awards Won
Kieran Culkin has won several prestigious awards, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and two Golden Globe Awards for his performances in various projects.
Kieran Culkin Family
Kieran Culkin is married to Jazz Charton since 2013, and they have three children together. He maintains a close relationship with his mother, Patricia Brentrup, and has been estranged from his father since his parents’ separation.
Personal Life
Kieran Culkin enjoys cooking, playing retro video games, and watching professional wrestling. He is proficient in American Sign Language and has a complicated relationship with celebrity culture, having been exposed to his brother Macaulay’s fame at a young age. Culkin has also developed a creative partnership with Dior and has been involved in various fashion campaigns.
