Kieran Culkin

Kieran Kyle Culkin was born on September 30, 1982, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, the fourth of seven children born to Christopher "Kit" Culkin and Patricia Brentrup. His father, a former stage actor, served as a sacristan at St. Joseph's Church of Yorkville, which allowed Culkin to attend its Catholic school tuition-free through the third grade. The family lived for the first nine years of Culkin's life in a railroad apartment in Yorkville, a space Culkin described to Vanity Fair as barely suitable for a couple, let alone the seven children his parents raised there. His mother, a North Dakota native who worked night shifts as a telephone operator for a theatrical casting agency, handled the children's daily needs and is the only parent Culkin considers his own; he has been estranged from his father since his parents separated in March 1995, following a two-year custody battle that awarded Brentrup sole custody of five of their seven children. Culkin's siblings include Shane, the late Dakota, Macaulay, Quinn, Christian, and Rory, and he also had a half-sister, Jennifer Adamson, from his father's previous relationship. Actress Bonnie Bedelia is his paternal aunt. Culkin has German, Irish, and Norwegian ancestry and attended the Professional Children's School before dropping out during his senior year.

Culkin began performing at the age of two and started auditioning alongside his older siblings at six, after a stage manager connected with the Light Opera of Manhattan, an off-Broadway repertory theatre, passed word to the family that child performers were needed. His first professional engagement was a television commercial. At seven, he made his feature film debut playing Fuller McCallister, the youngest cousin of the protagonist, in the Christmas comedy Home Alone (1990), appearing alongside his older brother Macaulay. He reprised that role in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992). Additional childhood film appearances included Only the Lonely and Father of the Bride, both in 1991, the latter earning him a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Young Actor Co-Starring in a Motion Picture, as well as Nowhere to Run (1993), My Summer Story (1994), and Father of the Bride Part II (1995).

As he entered adolescence, Culkin moved between lead roles in independent productions and supporting parts in mainstream films. He starred in Bobby Roth's Amanda (1996) and appeared as a guest caller on the fourth season of the television sitcom Frasier that same year. His performance as a boy with Morquio syndrome in the coming-of-age film The Mighty (1998) earned him a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Leading Young Actor in a Feature Film, and its director, Peter Chelsom, was the first filmmaker Culkin credited with treating him as a serious actor. In 1999, Culkin appeared in Wes Craven's Music of the Heart, the teen comedy She's All That, and Lasse Hallström's The Cider House Rules. He returned to the stage in 2000 with The Moment When, an off-Broadway romantic comedy by James Lapine, alongside Arija Bareikis, Mark Ruffalo, and Phyllis Newman. A short-lived NBC sitcom, Go Fish, gave him his first regular television role in 2001. The following year, he appeared in Peter Care's The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and then starred as the rebellious teenager Jason "Igby" Slocumb Jr. in Burr Steers's comedy-drama Igby Goes Down (2002), a performance that earned him his first Golden Globe Award nomination and established him as a distinctive screen presence.

After Igby Goes Down, Culkin stepped back from film work for several years due to personal conflicts. He participated in The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway in 2004. His return to the stage included productions of Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth, which he performed in both West End and Broadway runs, a credit verified in his Broadway record spanning 2006 to 2025. He also portrayed Richard Roma in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross in 2025.

Culkin returned to film in 2010, playing Wallace Wells in Edgar Wright's action comedy Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. On television, he found a major career resurgence beginning in 2018 with his portrayal of Roman Roy in the HBO drama series Succession, which ran through 2023 and for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. His voice acting credits include Solar Opposites from 2022 to 2025 and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off in 2023. In 2024, Culkin won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a grief-stricken Jewish drifter in A Real Pain, a performance that also brought him a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award. His career accolades in total include an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.