Kieran Culkin seems up for anything in his Saturday Night Live promos
The last time Kieran Culkin was on SNL, cue cards were banned. What can we expect from the Succession star's first hosting gig?
TV News Kieran Culkin
The Saturday Night Live promo segments never appear to be anybody’s favorite gig. Even when a genuinely funny person is hosting the coming week’s show, this exercise in pre-show hype comes off more like an obligation than anything cast, crew, host, and musical guest really want to do during the frenzied walk-up to Saturday’s live show.
Still, Succession star Kieran Culkin gives off the playfully committed vibe in his two riffs alongside Heidi Gardner and Chris Redd. After all, why can’t there be ghosts? Studio 8H certainly has had its share of strange occurrences, and personalities unlikely to be dispelled by anything as insignificant as a little death. “Okay, well I guess we can have ghosts,” finally demurs the promisingly game Culkin, acceding to his future castmates’ wide-eyed pleas that ghost comedy is the best comedy.
So, what does the new promo clip for Kieran Culkin’s SNL episode tell us?
Of course, Culkin’s been in 8H before, if he can remember back to when his older brother Macauley hosted the show back in 1991. Kieran, then just tagging along for his Home Alone megastar big brother’s hosting gig, made a few onscreen appearances in support, but, since time is a horrifying thing, that was almost exactly 30 years ago.
Now, with Macauley having moved onto a well-deserved early semi-retirement into the worlds of music, podcasting, and the odd, disastrous Quentin Tarantino audition, it’s the 39-year-old younger Culkin’s time to shine. Playing along with Redd and Gardner’s name-game goofs about his first name rhyming with the last of musical guest Ed Sheeran (honestly, “Kieran and Sheeran, beerin’ and hearin’” sounds like a fun time), everyone’s favorite/least-favorite member of the plutocratically evil Roy family posited a time when he and Sheeran would wind up together. (Where he would, naturally, be Kieran Sheeran, since nobody could resist the rhyme, regardless of career branding.)
As for this week’s show, it’s probably a safe bet that a guy who’s been in the acting game literally since he was able to read a script will handle the infamously tough gig with professional aplomb. For one thing, with notorious stage dad Kit no longer making demands of SNL producer Lorne Michaels (the elder Culkin reportedly banned all cue cards from Macauley’s show, making that the only episode in SNL history where everyone memorized their lines), Kieran should have some measure of control. And if Kieran doesn’t get as cool of a musical guest (Macauley got David Bowie, albeit with saggy side project Tin Machine), at least we’ll always have Kieran Sheeran. (Ed Sheeran’s COVID recovery having robbed us of a fan-mounted Mountain Goats write-in campaign is always going to sting a little bit.)
27 Comments
Of course, Culkin’s been in 8H before, if he can remember back to when his older brother Macauley hosted the show back in 1991. Kieran, then just tagging along for his Home Alone
megastar big brother’s hosting gig, made a few onscreen appearances in
support, but, since time is a horrifying thing, that was almost exactly
20 years ago.
Math is hard.
Macaulay and Kieran Culkin were on SNL *30 years* ago…not 20. Time really is a b*tch, eh?
Well, since time is a horrifying thing, almost exactly 30 years ago, right?
30. It was almost exactly 30 years—You know what? No. Let’s all pretend.
Listen they don’t have a copy proofreader, you think they have an arithmetic proofreader?!
“since time is a horrifying thing, that was almost exactly 20 years ago.”Still in a bit of denial that you have to shave off ten years, huh?
I was doing the math and thinking, “OK, 20 years ago Kieran, the younger brother, now 39, was 19,… How the fuck old was Macauley when he did Home Alone?!?!?!”Anyway, let’s see how long it takes for this to get corrected.
I know Perkins doesn’t read the comments, so he won’t be reporting it to anyone, so….
2:18PM PDT, and it’s still wrong.If a website is counting on readers as proofreaders, they should at least have a more direct contact to someone who can fix them and make the site appear professional.
I’m only one man
Thank you for your continuous work. And I mean continuous.
What are those things on Heidi’s shoulders? Straps or did she run into some Nickelodeon Gak
Live jellyfish, it’s all the rage!
If it were closer to Christmas (though I realize Halloween being done means the floodgates are open) and not in that location, I’d say some kind of stylized reindeer antlers, maybe? Definitely seen that general shape mounted on Christmassy hats.
Cory Booker?!
“Rosario Dawson, she and I are, uh, dating. So my question is ‘does that make sense?’ Like when I stand next to her in a photo, that looks regular?”
Fuller! Go easy on the Pepsi
ok
C- Kieran tries his best and is up for anything on an otherwise erstwhile and middling entry into the SNL catalog. I’m Hip to the Music of TODAY.
While he’s really funny on “Succession” my first introduction to Kieran was when he was in “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” as Wallace Wells. That cast was stacked, but he stole every scene just like in the books. Also, an episode of “Fargo” but that was a bit less funny. Anyway, love his rapport with J. Smith-Cameron, they make a good team.
Wasn’t that the youngest Culkin, Rory in Fargo. Ends up in a freezer?googles… oh.. nope you’re right. I guess the hideous mustache threw me off. I think I was watching Waco at the same time so… ya know.
Yeah you are right as well, he ends up in a freezer. He definitely has a bit of the youngest sibling, unconfident, unchallenged, nobody takes him seriously energy that he brought to Roman in “Succession” though thankfully Rome has lasted more than a few episodes.
Kieran has always been the better actor of the Culkin brothers. I first saw him in The Mighty back when he was 15.It could have been a pretty schlocky film but was saved by a pretty frickin’ phenomenal cast. With personages no less great than Gena Rowlands, Harry Dean Stanton, Gillian Anderson, and James Gandolfini in supporting roles (plus Sharon Stone chewing scenery as an overprotective “mom of sick kid” character), Kieran and co-star Elden Henson stole almost every scene. The ones they didn’t went to Anderson.
Gillian Anderson is another favorite of mine. Love her. Gandolfini is fantastic as well.
Igby Goes Down is a special little movie as well.
I am not sure of how much range Kieren has as an actor, but he is perfectly cast in Succession. I am always amazed at the alchemy at work, when shows seem to have perfect casting, writing, acting, set design etc. Ted Lasso and Succession pull off that alchemy that is unexplainable. Both of those shows are cast so perfectly, you can not imagine another actor replacing anyone on these shows.