Kieran Culkin stopped to chat at The Hollywood Reporter‘s studio during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday with his A Real Pain co-stars Jesse Eisenberg (who also wrote and directed the film), Jennifer Grey and Will Sharpe.
The Succession alum has kept busy for the past few years, winning a slew of awards for his role in the HBO show, including an Emmy for best actor in a drama series. Now that the series has ended, Culkin is looking forward to focusing on fatherhood.
“I’m really looking forward to it when I get home because the last couple weeks I haven’t really been much of a parent, which makes me feel like shit and makes me feel like I’m not me,” the actor said about his plans for his time off after the Sundance premiere of A Real Pain. “I’m going to turn the world off for about a week and just be a dad. ‘Did you read the email?’ No, I did not. [I’m doing] nothing at all, except just diapers and bath time and stuff for like a week.”
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Culkin saw a silver lining in the months-long work break during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, as that period allowed him to spend quality time with his children, Kinsey and Wilder. “It had been really…probably shouldn’t say, I don’t care… lovely for me. I’d been hiding behind it,” he admitted. “I’m like, ‘No work? Fantastic.'” He felt the same way when he spent 2020 without work amid the pandemic shortly after the birth of his daughter Kinsey.
“I get these, thankfully, these large periods of time where I get to just do that, and that’s where I feel like I’m most me,” he said. Without another project lined up following A Real Pain, Culkin is excited to have “a few more months” of downtime at home again.
