Kieran Culkin made his debut as Saturday Night Live host this week, but it wasn’t his first time on the show. The actor concluded his opening monologue by remembering when he accompanied his brother, Macaulay Culkin, back when the Home Alone star hosted the sketch comedy series 30 years ago, “almost to the day.” The younger Culkin recalled that he was nine years old then, and that he appeared in three sketches, “two of which are non-problematic.”
In his monologue, Kieran introduced a brief clip of Macaulay being lifted in the air after the episode, “for the goodnights.” He said that while his brother basked in the glory of his success, he, Kieran, was standing on the sidelines, “clearly jealous.” He said, “My brother’s up there, he’s got his arms up, all like victorious. And I’m down there on the ground, like, ‘me, I want uppies.’”
So, Kieran continued, he tugged at cast member Kevin Nealon and demanded that he be lifted up, too. Nealon, Kieran recalled, went, “Yeah, okay, sure,” and lifted him up, and Kieran, in his own words, proceeded to ham it up “for the cameras,” and flex his muscles. He joked, “I don’t know what that was. Like, a De Niro impression?” as the clip played.
He added:
“Anyway, I wanted to show that clip for two reasons. One, in the hopes that someone will pick me up at the end of the show, and two, because I have waited 30 years to be back on this stage and say, ‘we’ve got a great show for you tonight!’”
Kieran got his wish at the end of the episode, when cast members lifted him up in the air while he mimicked his nine-year-old self and flexed.
Kieran is perhaps best known for his role in the hit HBO series Succession, which is currently airing its third season. He plays Roman Roy in the show, a tragicomedy about the ruthless but ageing patriarch of a media family and his squabbling adult children. He described Roman as “one of the nicer characters on the show, which still makes him one of the top ten worst humans on TV.” He continued, “Sometimes people will be like, ‘you know, that part really suits you,’ which isn’t really a compliment.”
Succession also features Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Nicholas Braun and Matthew Macfadyen, among others. Joining Kieran as the musical guest in the month’s first SNL episode was Ed Sheeran, who was given the go-ahead to perform at the last minute, after testing positive for COVID-19 last month.
The Season 47 premiere of SNL was hosted by Owen Wilson. Future hosts include Jonathan Majors and Simu Liu. You can watch Kieran’s monologue here: