Kieran Culkin is already having reservations about his first post-“Succession” role.
Culkin is set to star in Jesse Eisenberg‘s sophomore directorial effort “A Real Pain,” which follows two cousins, played by Culkin and Eisenberg, who travel to Poland after their grandmother’s death and end up joining a Holocaust tour.
During an Interview magazine discussion with Taika Waititi, Culkin admitted to trying to “get out” of the indie project due to its filming location. Culkin cited the issue of traveling with his young family as a reason not to do the film but credited Eisenberg’s moving semi-autobiographical script as a film he could not turn down.
“This is going to sound terrible, but I’ve tried to get out of it because it’s going to make my life miserable. But I don’t want to not do it because it’s such a beautiful script,” Culkin said. “I was finding every reason to not do it. I was like, ‘I’ll watch his first film [“When You Finish Saving the World”], maybe it’s going to be terrible.’ I watched it, and I was like, ‘Shit. It’s really good.’”
Culkin continued, “Well, let me reread the script, I’m going to find holes in it. Maybe I was in a good mood when I said yes to it. I reread it and it was so wonderful. When I finished it, I went to my wife and I was like, ‘I’m sorry, honey. Fuck, I have to go do this movie.’ It’s just too good.”
The “Succession” actor added of the premise of Eisenberg’s film, “It’s based on, I guess, what happened in his life. He and I play cousins and our great-aunt has died. Our great-aunt who dies is a Holocaust survivor in the movie, and in her will, she’s given us a trip to go see the town where she was born and the house she grew up in.”
He revealed, “The reason I wanted to get out of it is I have a 1 1⁄2-year-old and a 3 1⁄2-year-old, and we’re going to be bouncing around Poland. I don’t like being away from them for more than two days at a time, and it’s not practical for me to have them there the whole time. I’m working on trying to convince my wife to come out for two weeks and bring the kids. It’s just a lot on her. We do have a nanny here, but she can’t travel with us. So she’s doing that all herself, and she really earns her half of what it is I do for a living. Except sometimes that can be like, ‘Look, there’s a nice paycheck here, so let’s work really hard.’ And sometimes, like this, I’m like, ‘This is for me, I want to do it, and you get nothing out of this except hard work.’ It’s a hard sell.”
Culkin also opened up about his sustaining hopes for a fifth season of “Succession,” despite creator Jesse Armstrong announcing the current fourth season as its final installment.
“I always thought five seasons. It was just a number I had in my head,” Culkin said. “This season is very, very different, which is exciting, but makes me feel like, ‘Couldn’t there be a five, now that the show is kind of different?’ I want to see what else happens. And there very well could be. Jesse knows that.”
