Kieran Culkin won the award for Best Supporting Actor, and his speech was quite emotional.
The 42-year-old actor had been the frontrunner for the prestigious honor, having already claimed major accolades, including a Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild award leading up to the Oscars.
In A Real Pain, directed by Jesse Eisenberg, Culkin portrays Benji, the charismatic yet troubled cousin of Eisenberg’s character, David. The film follows the pair as they embark on a tour of their Jewish heritage in Poland.
Culkin, the younger brother of Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin, first gained prominence over two decades ago in the cult comedy Igby Goes Down.
More recently, he earned international acclaim for his role as the sharp-tongued Roman Roy in the hit series Succession, a performance that won him a Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild award.
The actor took to the stage at the Dolby Theatre and was clearly overcome with emotion, as he noted that he has no idea how he got to this point in his career, as he just loves acting so much.
Check out the speech below:After thanking the production team, Culkin then turned his attention to his wife Jazz Charton and began telling quite a personal story.
Noting that a year previously, Charton had promised him that they could have a third child if he won the award that year.
Culkin bagged that award and said that he wanted to have a fourth child, to which his wife replied that it could happen if he ever won an Oscar, clearly thinking the day would never come.
Well, it seems as if their family is now going to grow once again!
Regarding his win, A Real Pain follows cousins David and Benji, played by Eisenberg and Culkin, as they tour Poland in honor of their grandmother. Their journey is complicated by long-buried family tensions.
Despite the film’s success, Culkin nearly backed out just two weeks before filming.
Exhausted from an extended shoot on the final season of Succession, he was ready to prioritize time with his family. That was until one of the film’s producers—two-time Oscar winner and Culkin’s ex-girlfriend Emma Stone—stepped in.
Or, as Eisenberg described it, she had to “blackmail him".
“[Kieran] was trying to drop out of the movie two weeks before we were shooting,” Eisenberg said during a screening at the Palm Springs Film Festival in January, according to Collider.
“Like all the money had been spent, and he was trying to drop out in New York. So one of our producers, Emma Stone, essentially like blackmailed him to come back to the movie behind my back, and literally took him off the plane with his kids and flew to Poland with him.”
Eisenberg added: “I have a video of her holding his kid’s hands going through customs like a proof of life video that he made it, and he showed up to rehearsal late, even though we had made the rehearsal around when his plane was getting in.”
The director later compared the situation to “a hostage swap.”
Culkin and Stone, who dated from 2010 to 2011 after meeting on the set of Paper Man, have remained close friends. Culkin told the Associated Press that Stone used their bond to persuade him to stay, deploying “reverse psychology.”
“She let me off the hook completely,” he said, explaining that she was supportive and understanding when he called to quit.
However, she also made it clear that the film would fall apart without him—though she reassured him it wasn’t his problem to worry about.
“And I think it was the moment I got off the phone that I was like, ‘Oh f***, I’m doing this movie,’” Culkin admitted.