How Kieran Culkin felt about Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone fame

HBO's "Succession" Season 4 Premiere
HBO's "Succession" Season 4 Premiere / Jamie McCarthy/GettyImages

Kieran Culkin would rather be home (alone) than in the throes of fame.

The Succession star recently reflected on how he felt seeing his brother Macaulay Culkin shoot to child stardom after he starred in the 1990 holiday classic Home Alone.

"Even at that time, as a kid, I remember thinking, 'That sucks for him,'" Kieran recalled during an interview with Esquire published on March 27. "Poor f--king guy. He was little and having to try to accept that level of fame as reality."

In fact, for Kieran—who also had small roles in Home Alone and its 1992 sequel as a McCallister cousin—seeing Macaulay thrust into the spotlight impacted how he saw his own career.

"I had this unhealthy relationship with what I did for a living," the Golden Globe nominee explained. "I really wanted to do it, but I didn't want to be successful at it."

Kieran even labeled fame as "not a very nice thing" back in 2021, citing due to the lack of anonymity.

"I have friends that are very famous," he told NPR at the time. "They can't walk down the street without several people stopping them. Some people probably enjoy it, and they probably have been able to figure out life with it. But I think for the most part, it comes to people and they go, 'Oh, I've made a horrible mistake,' and now they have to manage it."