Kieran Culkin Credits Ex-Girlfriend Emma Stone For ‘A Real Pain’ Oscar Win: “I Got Talked Into It, Which Obviously, I’m Very Glad That I Was”

Kieran Culkin is feeling grateful to the Academy after his Oscar win and he’s even more grateful to Emma Stone for convincing him not to walk away from the role.

Talking backstage to reporters after his Best Supporting Actor Academy Award win for A Real Pain, the Succession alum opened up about the true shock of hearing his name called as the first trophy of the night was handed out.

“I’m not fully inside my body right now. I’m trying my best to be present,” Culkin told the room as he shook his head in disbelief.

Responding to one question about how he nearly stepped away from the movie just weeks before filming, Culkin told the room that he could not be more grateful for being convinced to stick with the project.

“It was just the way the schedule changed right before we started. It was taking me away from my kids for almost a month, and I was like, ‘Well, I don’t want to do that.’ And then I got talked into it, which obviously, I’m very glad that I was,” the actor said with a laugh.

Culkin — who used his acceptance speech to drop the F-bomb and ask his wife, Jazz, for two more children — has previously stated that he wanted to back out of the film but that it was Stone, his ex-girlfriend, who talked him into sticking with it. The Easy A star — who won her own Oscar last year in the Best Lead Actress category for Poor Things — produced the film alongside her husband and business partner, Dave McCary.

In January, Jesse Eisenberg spoke at the Palm Springs Film Festival and went so far as to say Stone “blackmailed” Culkin into playing Benji in A Real Pain. The Social Network star said at the time the movie is only alive today because of the actress’ intervention.

“[Kieran] was trying to drop out of the movie two weeks before we were shooting,” he said, per 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.”

Along with starring in A Real Pain, Eisenberg wrote and directed the script, which follows two very different cousins on a voyage to their grandmother’s childhood in Poland, where she lived before World War II. The film also received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute

The Oscar-winning moment is some 35 years in the making for Culkin, who made his on-screen debut in 1990’s Home Alone, starring alongside his older brother, Macaulay Culkin. Since then, the younger Culkin has done everything from sci-fi to dramatic television, winning an Emmy in 2024 for his role as Roman Roy in Succession.

On his Sunday Oscar win, Culkin told reporters that it will take a good chunk of time before he knows how he is truly feeling. He did, however, give credit to Eisenberg’s writing of the character for giving him the canvas to paint his now Oscar-winning role.

“It just felt like it was the first time I ever read something and went, ‘I fully understand this guy,’” Culkin said. And it worked out well!

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