“You start getting greedy,” jokes Kieran Culkin when he joins Little Gold Men to talk about how he reacted to Succession’s 25 Emmy nominations this time around, the most of any show.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is so cool—where the hell is Alan Ruck’s nomination?’” says Culkin. “I’ve been waiting on him. He’s just so extraordinary in the show.”

A guide to Hollywood’s biggest races

Culkin, who has just begun filming the fourth season in New York, may be quick to give credit to his costars and the writers for the show’s success. But his work as the troublesome youngest son, Roman, has been one of the series’ most talked-about performances, a huge feat when part of an ensemble that earned a record 14 individual acting nominations at this year’s Emmys. This season, Roman pulled back some of that skeevy exterior to reveal vulnerability and family loyalty but still got himself into plenty of trouble (like accidentally sending a dick pic to his own father).

Culkin, 39, who resides in New York with his wife and two children, was 7 years old when he got his first acting role, in 1990’s Home Alone, which starred his brother Macaulay. He continued to work throughout his youth in films like Father of the Bride, The Mighty, and The Cider House Rules, and as a teenager in 2002’s Igby Goes Down. But Succession has catapulted him to a new level. Culkin describes it as a career-altering job for him, allowing him the freedom to experiment on set in a way he never has before.

Listen to the episode above, and find Little Gold Men on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you get your podcasts. Read a partial transcript of Culkin’s interview below.

Vanity Fair: Since you’ve been playing Roman for a while now, do you know how much the writers take into consideration your voice when writing for him?

Kieran Culkin: I wouldn't have a sense of how much I'm influencing the writers on how they do it. I did talk to one writer about that because with Nick Braun and Greg, I said, “do you always have Nick's voice in your head?” And they were like, “oh, I guess sort of maybe on a subconscious level” but they're not aware of it in the same way that I'm not always aware of why I make choices as Roman. It just all works really well. Sometimes I’ll feel like I'm going to have my guard up a little bit because I’ll see like one tiny little thing that I'll fixate on, on the page, that feels almost like it’s a little too on the nose Roma, like “this is such a Roman thing to say or do.” And nine times out of 10, when I come from to set, there's already been a fix done on it. The writers have caught that before I'd even had to say anything.The writers are so good.

Filming of the third season was delayed from April 2020 to November 2020. What was that time like for you? I think you’d just had a baby.

When we finished the second season, we were just a couple of weeks away from becoming parents. We were supposed to start work when she was about six, seven months, but then, with lockdown, we live in this tiny apartment and she's just learning to crawl. My wife blames me for the pandemic as well, because, like a week before [it started] I took her out for lunch, and I ordered a glass of champagne. I mapped out the year ahead: “I just booked this movie and I'm going to go right from that, into the next season, into this play that I'm doing into this.” It was four jobs in a row. I was like, “this is the next year and a half of our lives.” I lifted my glass and she goes, “are you sure? You shouldn't probably like jinx it. I think you don't celebrate things like this until after they've happened.” I said, “it's going to be fun. It's all like it's happening.”A week later: lockdown, no jobs.

You mentioned in an interview that working on Succession made you realize you really did want to be an actor. That’s pretty wild since you’ve been acting for 30 years now.

I think because I've been acting since I was a kid, it was never something I pursued or ever properly chose to do. Maybe when I was about five or six, I said, “I want to be an actor.” I was never quite sure what I wanted to do, which I think is normal. I just struggled with that for a long time. There were aspects of the job that I used to really struggle with, particular this kind of thing, doing an interview — I just didn't understand why, and I didn't like it and I was always very uncomfortable with it.

There's some really cool things that come with doing the show, things that I've been completely spoiled by, like they almost never put marks down on the floor. Now, if I do a job and I'm doing a rehearsal and somebody puts a T mark on my foot, I'm probably going to be very annoyed. I don't often know where the camera is. It's just such a dream.

When did you feel like you really had a grasp on playing Roman? Was it right from season one?

If I go back and watch the pilot, which I actually did recently, or at least I've watched the softball sequence of the pilot recently, you can tell that a few of us, myself included, didn’t have it yet, which I think is normal. It's not quite there. It's just sort of an idea. I felt like I had that idea when I auditioned for him. I felt so comfortable just putting myself on tape. I guess it gets fine tuned. I remember coming home from work around the time of shooting, like the sixth episode, and my wife asked me how work was. And I said, “it was actually really good. I think we may have something here.” So it was probably right around then. I had a pretty good sense of Roman from the beginning, but it's not complete until I get a real sense of who all the other characters are.

You’ve talked before about your concern and disinterest in fame, but I have to assume this show has made you more recognizable on the street. How are you handling that?

It's mostly fine. Most people's instincts when they do like a double-take, the first thing to do is they reach for their phone and that camera comes out and they have to [indicates taking a photo]. Then there's the awkward moment of saying something like, “Hey, did you take a picture?” when they will inevitably say no. And then I feel like an ass because I was assuming that they’re taking pictures of me. But the only part that actually bothers me is that people do that same exact thing when I'm out with my kids. That's just obviously a violation and I don't think people know it. I can say that because when I confront people about it, you can see in their face, they didn't realize they were doing something horrible. Like, could you imagine if I just went to a playground and started taking pictures of your kids? You think “there’s the guy from the show,” but I'm holding my daughter while I'm trying to order a bagel. And this guy is like three feet from me taking a picture of me. In that one particular case, I just got mad. I started yelling at the guy in the bagel place. Immediately, he saw what he did and he's like, “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

How has your experience on Succession influenced what you’re looking for next?

I get the feeling that if I ever start getting complacent in my process then I'm probably doing it wrong because it always seems to be changing. I thought when I was like 18, I thought I had sort of cracked it, and for a couple of years, I had a particular way of working. And then that sort of changed when I started doing more theater. And then that evolves and changes. And now it works really well on this thing for now, and so I'm assuming that it will turn into something else.