Colman Domingo and Kieran Culkin on A REAL PAIN, SING SING and More for VARIETY Magazine

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In a new conversation for VARIETY’s Actors on Actors issue, Colman Domingo and Kieran Culkin discuss why Sarah Snook is Culkin’s favorite “Succession” scene partner (and reveals that she’s the godmother to his son), Jeremy Strong’s position that actors are storytellers, fatherhood, “A Real Pain,” “Sing Sing,” and more. 

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Culkin on why Sarah Snook was his favorite “Succession” scene partner: “You’re not supposed to have favorites; I have a favorite. There would be times, just for fun, I would take her line, and then give her a little side-eye. And then the scene would go on, and when it was my line, she would take mine and go, ‘Got you, bitch.’ Right before we were about to finish shooting, she goes, ‘Are you ready to cry? No one’s ever going to cast the two of us in anything. We’re never going to work together again.’ I just bawled. When you’re on a show like that, and we play brother-sister, people will always make that comparison. So she’s probably right…She lives in Australia, so it’s hard to keep up. I’m not the best with the phone thing. I always relied on the fact that there was going to be another season. But she’s my son’s godmother and one of my favorite people in the world.”

Culkin on Jeremy Strong’s position that actors are storytellers:  “I object to when actors call themselves ‘storytellers.’ I don’t really like that. Sorry, Jeremy [Strong]. I don’t think I’m telling the story. Jesse Eisenberg was really good at making sure everyone was involved, but he wrote it. He’s telling the story. We’re all helping him.”

Domingo and Culkin on fatherhood:

Domingo: “What do you like about being a father?”

Culkin: “Absolutely everything except dinner time. I love everything else. It feels like nothing else matters. I’m a dad now, and my only role in life is that. That’s real life. All this is lovely, but I’m just trying to get home. Do you ever want kids?”

Domingo: “I wanted kids in my 20s. Now, I have a lot of really good furniture.”

Culkin on how he got cast in “A Real Pain”:

“Whenever I haven’t auditioned, I’m like, ‘You might not like this at all. You just did this because some producer said, “You gotta give it to this guy.”’ But if I’ve auditioned, then at least you know what you’re expecting. On ‘A Real Pain,’ Jesse Eisenberg hadn’t seen ‘Succession.’ He cast me without auditioning me or seeing me in anything, ever. And he thinks this is totally normal. He’s like, ‘I met you before.’ We met twice in passing. That is not how you cast someone.”

Domingo on working with formerly incarcerated people in “Sing Sing”:

“Greg Kwedar, our director, invited everyone to bring what they had and didn’t judge whatever it was. I was shooting ‘The Color Purple’ right before and doing pickups for ‘Rustin’ right after, so I literally had 18 days. I had to go in there a bit more raw, in a way I was uncomfortable with. I like to prepare a lot. This was the first time I was like, ‘Oh no, I have to not know exactly what’s happening.’ But it made sense for this film, because here I am, working with guys who have lived experience. There can’t be any polish. I have to lean into them where they are.”

Domingo on costar Clarence Maclin:

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he? There’s one take, my favorite of the film, when he has me cornered in a tight space, and I offer him the word ‘beloved.’ Then he just walked away. I’m like, ‘No, no, he’s got to really let that word work on him.’ So I leaned into my director like, ‘Could he just hang in there with it?’ And he did. I have to give it to Greg Kwedar. He rarely wanted to call ‘cut.’ Everyone wants to cut so quickly. I’m like, ‘Yo, give me a little bit. There’s more. There’s always more.’”

[Photo Credit:  Alexi Lubomirski for Variety]

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