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 (20182023), 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 (20222025) 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 New York City. His father is a former stage actor, and his mother, a native of North Dakota, worked as a road traffic controller in Sundance, Wyoming. Shane, Dakota, Macaulay, Quinn, Christian, and Rory. 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, He was neglected by his father throughout his childhood and only remembers him as being a "constant, unwelcome presence" in the household. Brentrup was awarded sole custody of five of their seven children following a two-year, highly publicized custody battle.