Actor Kieran Culkin says he didn’t truly appreciate his love for acting until working on the HBO series Succession a few years ago.
Despite having acted since childhood, Culkin, now 41, recalled telling his wife halfway through Succession season 1: “I think I know what I want to do for a living, I think I want to be an actor.”
He explained that early on Succession, he was fixated on memorizing lines perfectly. But one day he decided to let go and trust the process, which unlocked a “weird freedom” in doing something new.
“I found a weird freedom in doing something completely unknown…and had been forced to trust people that it turns out were great,” Culkin said at a Tribeca Film Festival panel.
Culkin admitted he used to dislike rehearsing and watching himself act. But Succession made him start doing both to keep up with changes to the show he was a fan of.
The former child star says he previously went through a “crisis” at age 19 or 20 questioning if acting was really his passion, since he had been doing it from such a young age.
But his experience on Succession, which earned him an Emmy, made Culkin realize his true love for the craft after over 30 years of acting.