Kieran Culkin is no stranger to awards show acceptance speeches — so he isn’t afraid to call out his fellow winners for taking too much time on the podium.
“Thank you for this incredibly heavy award,” Culkin said on Sunday night while accepting the SAG Award for male actor in a supporting role for “A Real Pain.” “I don’t think there’s any way anyone can hold this for 45 seconds… which is the allotted time, Adrien Brody!”
He laughed before immediately clarifying that he was joking: “There was no reason to take that shot. I love you. Take your time.”
Brody, a frontrunner in this year’s lead actor category for A24’s historical epic “The Brutalist,” took the jest in stride, chuckling from his seat in the audience.
In “A Real Pain,” Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg play mismatched cousins who take a Holocaust tour in Poland to honor their late grandmother. During his speech, which definitely went over the allotted 45 seconds, Culkin thanked Eisenberg — who also directed the movie — as well as the filmmaker’s sister, Hallie Eisenberg.
“For those of you who don’t know, [Jesse] cast me in this movie without auditioning me or seeing my work or seeing me in anything ever… which he thinks is normal, and I can’t even get into how annoyingly wrong he is,” Culkin cracked on stage. “But he cast me because his sister told him to. And he puts a lot of faith in her, which is really sweet but dumb. So yes, thank you Jesse for putting me in this movie. But I want to take a moment to thank Hallie: Thank you, Hallie, for thinking of me and putting your name into your stupid brother’s ear.”
Though Culkin had formidable competition — he was nominated alongside Jonathan Bailey (“Wicked”), Yura Borisov (“Anora”), Edward Norton (“A Complete Unknown”) and Jeremy Strong (“The Apprentice”) — the 42-year-old has been the odds-on favorite to win after picking up nearly every precursor award. He’s already won the supporting actor honor from the Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, Critics Choice Awards, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association (shared with Borisov), among several other critics groups awards.
During Culkin’s rambling speech, he also quipped it was “funny” the “heaviest of all awards is the one given by actors.” He then channeled a fictional meeting of actors as they deliberated on the statue to hand out at SAG Awards: “It needs more weight,” he cracked.
Culkin has been on an awards hot streak in recent years, entering this year’s Oscar season on the heels of his critically acclaimed performance as Roman Roy in the final season of HBO’s “Succession,” which earned him an Emmy and a Golden Globe. Yet he admitted that this recognition from other actors is particularly meaningful.
“It’s hard to be sincere,” Culkin said. “But it’s actually a huge honor.”
