It isn't any of Kieran Culkin's business if his movies do well

This attitude doesn’t come from a lack of concern over the quality or impact of his work as much as a fear of the type of all-consuming, life-altering fame that stars like Daniel Craig and Chappell Roan have gotten candid about in recent months. “I don’t personally know anybody that has hit a level of fame that likes it,” he said, which, anecdotally, really does seem to be true. “I have a friend who became famous overnight and his horror story was realizing, ‘Oh, it’s too late. I [expletive] [sic] my life’… I remember when he told me that story years ago, I was like, ‘Oh man, I hope that never happens to me.'”

Of course, Kieran Culkin hasn’t been anonymous since at least the first episode of Succession, if not before. (He does have an instantly recognizable brother, after all.) Still, he hasn’t hit a level of notoriety that would keep him away from his family in any fundamental way, despite the fact that his A Real Pain press tour did force him to miss a parent-teacher conference he would have otherwise loved to attend. (“I think I’m getting to the place of having to accept that I can’t always get home,” he said.)

Regarding awards and accolades, he continued, “That stuff is nice, but the real stuff is me being home with my kids, when I’m reading them books and singing them songs until they go to sleep. That’s the whole point of life. The rest of it I’m doing so I can get back to that.”

Keep scrolling for more great stories from A.V. Club.