Kieran Culkin is doing less homework than a more novice actor might when it comes to starring on Broadway in a production of David Mamet‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Glengarry Glen Ross.” In fact, until rehearsals start early next year, he’s not doing any homework at all to play broken Chicago realtor Richard Roma in “Leopoldstadt” director Patrick Marber’s adaptation.
“We start rehearsals in early February. I am trying to not — yeah, I am not digging in,” Culkin told IndieWire when asked about the play during a recent interview ahead of “A Real Pain.” “I’ve read [Mamet’s play] twice, and I’m not going to take a look at it until the day before rehearsal.”
Understandably, Culkin is quite busy on the awards circuit through at least February. He’s widely tipped for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for “A Real Pain,” with many, many awards ceremonies to come ahead of the Oscars.
The 1984 play — set in a cutthroat real estate office where four brokers engage in duplicitous, curse-laden behavior in and out of house — became an Oscar-nominated 1992 dark comedy directed by James Foley. In that movie, Al Pacino played Richard Roma, a character so slimy that he even preyed upon another’s repressed homosexuality to get a leg up. He lost the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1992 before winning the next year for his leading role in “Scent of a Woman.” As Culkin explained, he’s not closely studying Pacino’s performance, either.
“I’ve never seen the film, and I’m not going to. I’ve never seen a production of it. I get to go into it completely [blind],” Culkin said. In the play, four closers compete to sell worthless properties to unsuspecting customers.
Pacino “was terrible, by the way,” Eisenberg, who had only seen one movie of Kieran Culkin’s before casting him to play his cousin in “A Real Pain,” joked in the same junket chat.
While Culkin said, “I think I would be able to watch it,” he added, “I just don’t want something in the back of my head. I don’t want anybody’s performance in there at all.”
The new Broadway version set to bow in spring 2025 will also star Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr. Culkin’s “Succession” co-star Jeremy Strong also recently appeared on Broadway in the Henrik Ibsen revival “An Enemy of the People,” which earned him a Tony award. Culkin has twice appeared on Broadway before, in “The 24 Hour Plays” in 2006 and “This Is Our Youth” in 2014.
Culkin was recently quoted as saying he didn’t know he truly wanted to be a full-time actor until midway through Season 1 of “Succession,” which earned him an Emmy in January for Best Actor in a Drama Series.
He told IndieWire, “I’ve been acting since I was, like, six, but around the age of 20, you start to go, ‘Is this what I want to do?’ I don’t think at six you’re at a good age to start making career decisions for your life… I was like, let me continue working on acting and do things I like in the meantime while I try to figure out what it is I do. I did this tiny little movie called ‘Infinity Baby,’ and I remember being on set and feeling like, ‘Oh, I have the hang of this now,’ and, ‘Oh, OK, I guess this is what I am going to do for a living.’ I didn’t have the joy and love for it. It was ‘Succession’ where I felt that thing. I’m trying to get better at it, but I still have that thing where I am quite precious about the thing I do… that I am the right casting for it.”
“A Real Pain” opens in theaters Friday, November 1.
