Kieran Culkin rose to fame Fuller McCallister in the Home Alone franchise alongside his elder brother Macaulay. Born into a showbiz family, Kieran followed his father Kit and older siblings into acting when he was just seven years old but family life in New York City was far from easy for the Culkins.

The fourth of seven children, Kieran has spoken about how the family had very little money and were forced to share a cramped railroad apartment in Yorkville during his formative years.

He along with his siblings also had a dysfunctional relationship with his father, although Kit’s distance, bullying and frostiness was tempered to some degree by their adoring mother, Patricia Brentrup.

The Culkins find fame at an early age

It seemed that the only way the Culkins could clamber their way out of financial hardship and prosper was through acting. But even global success was unable to bring the family together - Macauley famously sued his parents, who were helping themselves to a 15 per cent cut of his earnings. Kieran meanwhile remains estranged from his father, who split from Patricia in 1995.

Today, only Kieran and his younger brother Rory remain in the acting game. Macauley, physically and emotionally exhausted by the relentless Hollywood machine, took a six-year break only to find the cut-throat industry which had exploited him as a child didn’t want him back.

Kieran continues working in Hollywood but admitted in an interview with The Guardian that he wouldn’t know what else to do. “I thought, ‘I guess this is what I’m going to do for a living because I have no other skills. I’m serious: I have literally nothing. I’m a high school dropout. I don’t even know how the internet works. I have never had social media. I don’t know what LinkedIn is. I don’t know what Reddit is. I don’t know what things are and I’m supposed to get out in the world and get a job?’”

Now a father of two himself, Kieran hopes he won’t fall into the trap of making the same mistakes his own dad made and says he doesn’t dwell on the miserable side of his upbringing. “Us siblings, we’re already cooked, we’re baked. My godfather has this thing, he goes: ‘I will fully indulge anybody that wants to complain about their upbringing and childhood. I want to hear everything about that. And you can completely blame your parents for everything until you’re 30, and then figure shit out.’ He’s oversimplifying it, but I like that.”

And he remains eternally grateful to his mother Patricia for the sacrifices she made in bringing them all up. “How did my mom do it? I have no idea. 15 to 20 kids in the house. I can’t believe I’m back at the grocery store sometimes three times a day. My mom had to do it on coupons. She would get cheap liver at Key Food, two giant gallons of milk, all that. For me, getting them [his kids] to sleep is enough...”

This year, the 42-year-old received his first Oscar nomination for his role as Benji Kaplan who jets off to Poland with his cousin for a Holocaust Tour in Jesse Eisenberg‘s comedy drama, A Real Pain. He will be up against Edward Norton, (A Complete Unknown), Yura Borisov, (Anora), Guy Pearce, (The Brutalist) and Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice) in the Best Supporting Actor category.

If he wins a golden statuette on Sunday, Culkin will become the first person in 12 year to pick up the Best Supporting Actor from a production that has not been nominated for Best Picture. Christopher Plummer was the last to achieve the feat, winning the Oscar for for Beginners (2011).

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