Kieran Culkin reached new heights of fame when he scored the role of Roman Roy in ‘Succession’, but it’s a completely different situation than what his brother Macaulay Culkin faced at a young age.
His older brother, whom Kieran calls Mack, found success in the ’90s with ‘Home Alone’, followed by standout performances in ‘My Girl’, ‘Richie Rich’ and ‘The Good Son’.
But all Kieran could think was “poor bastard” as he watched his brother’s stardom escalate to insane levels at the tender age of 10.
“He was young and he had to try to accept this level of fame as a reality,” Kieran told Esquire for the magazine’s April digital issue, revealing that “Even as a kid, I remember thinking : This sucks for him.”
Kieran has spoken in the past about how much his brother’s extreme fame scared him, telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2021 that Macaulay was allegedly “harassed on the street”.
“One time a woman took off her hat and looked at him and said, ‘Yes, it’s him!’ You’re not that cute. And then he put his hat back on and left,” the “Igby Goes Down” actor said.
Seeing the circus that surrounded her brother’s celebrity seems to have affected her relationship with fame. Kieran told THR that he turned down many offers after messing up his role in 2002’s “Igby” because he “definitely wasn’t ready for it all.”
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“I couldn’t have handled it and I think I knew it,” he explained. “I wasn’t going to deal with any kind of success or attention that came with it. So I literally ran away from her.”
Kieran, who just turned 40, seems to have found his footing in stardom and stardom with his role on the hit HBO series.
Tune in this Sunday to watch the fourth and final season of “Succession.”
