-Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kieran Culkin!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-♪ Hustlin' is the key to success ♪
♪ Money is the key to success ♪
♪ The life is getting lit, sipping more, getting blessed ♪
♪ The games people play, the games people play ♪
♪ Success is just an ordinary ♪
♪ Money is the key to success ♪
-Come on.
Come on, bud. It's --
-Crazy! -It's crazy.
It's so good to see you. -Thank you.
-We love you. Obviously, the audience loves you.
You got a big standing O, man.
I didn't even get a standing O when I came in.
-There was, like, a sign that says "stand up," right?
-No, we don't have a "stand up" sign.
-No? Okay. Just an "applause" sign.
-Trust me, for the monologue, they didn't stand up for me.
-I saw it. It was good. -Yeah, right.
You're hosting "Saturday Night Live" tomorrow.
-Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.
It's absolutely insane.
-Yeah, so thank you for coming down, taking the time.
-Thank you for having me.
It's like -- it's been a dream of mine
and it's just surreal, and everyone says, like,
"Just try to capture moments," or something,
because it just moves so fast.
-Yeah. -And I can't really do that,
'cause there's just so much work to be done.
Like, we did a table read and there was, like 38 scripts.
And I get about halfway through and...
-It's so much work, but you know what's great,
is at the end --
I always feel like at the end of the whole show
when the band's playing the good nights,
it's actually -- you're just hugging, you're saying goodbye,
that show's in the can.
It's live. So it's just awesome.
It feels great, and you're like, "Whew. All that work.
-Must be a nice moment.
I mean, you were part of the cast
and then you've also done hosting duty.
Is there, like, a huge difference between the two?
For you? -No.
-Really? -I don't remember, you know?
I just kind of remember the ride,
and I was so green and learning when I was just on the cast,
but then hosting, you're kind of going back to school
and you remember the smell of the paint from the studio.
-Yeah. -It's interesting.
-You're a bit at an advantage, I would assume,
because as the host, I'm given, like,
so much stuff to do, but I also have never done it before,
and I'm just told to, like, keep pace with everyone
who's been doing it so well for so long.
-Just trust in Donna.
-I've heard. I've heard about Donna.
-She'll take care of you. She will take care of you.
-But this isn't the first time
you were on "Saturday Night Live," my friend.
-No. -I did some research here.
Some crack research.
Look at you, you were here with Dana Carvey.
-Yeah! -This is 1991.
-That's me.
-What do you remember about this?
-I actually remember quite a lot from that.
By the way, it was 30 years ago, almost to the day.
I had to look it up.
My brother hosted in November of '91.
-Wow. -It's crazy.
There's little snippets I remember.
I was trying to think about it, like walking around the studio
and someone saying, like,
"Does it look smaller than you remember?"
I'm like, "No, it's just --" -"I was smaller."
-I was smaller, so it already looked huge.
But I remember, like, during rehearsal day,
being on the stage and I was with my mom
and Kevin Nealon walks by, and she grabs him and she goes,
"Oh, hey, you're great.
By the way, you're my son's favorite."
And he goes, "Oh, thank you very much.
That's nice to hear."
And I went, "Mom," 'cause I'm 9.
Kids don't have a filter.
"Mom, I told you, he's my second favorite.
Dana Carvey's my favorite."
[ Sour note plays ] -Oh, my God.
You said that to Kevin?
-I did, and I remember actually seeing him
like, take this little, tiny dagger and go,
"Well, still very nice to meet you."
-He's a funny dude, too. -Yeah, he's good.
He picked me up at the end of the show.
-Did he really?
-Yeah, I think I asked him to do it.
I hope so.
I hope I gave him permission. -You did. Yeah, yeah.
Last time you were here, you and your wife
were weeks away from having your first child.
-Yeah.
-And you now you have two children.
Congratulations. -Thank you.
We have two kids, yeah. It's nuts.
Life is nuts.
-Life moves fast, like you were saying.
But do you see a difference,
having two children as opposed to one?
-Well, yeah. Yeah.
So...
But it's not that bad.
I've had friends say, like, "By the way,
having two kids is not twice as hard,
is exponentially way harder."
But I haven't found that to be the case.
It's sort of like the first kid changes your life entirely
and the second kid is just more of the same.
You know, it's kind of that. -You're already in the madness.
-Yeah, we're sort of already in it.
I remember when I was on your show last,
we were talking about my wife, who was pregnant,
and it was a little bit odd,
because my wife pretty openly hates children.
[ Laughter ]
She doesn't like other kids, babies...
-That's a problem, yeah. -Just doesn't like them.
It was like, "I hope I like my kid."
I'm like, "I'm sure you will, honey."
And she did.
By the way, so now we're two kids in,
she still doesn't like kids.
-She loves your kids. -She loves our kids.
And she likes, you know, good kids.
There's a thing, man.
There's good kids and there's bad kids.
Just, it exists. -Oh, yeah.
Oh, it's real. -Like, right away.
Like, at a year and a half, you're like,
"That kid sucks."
[ Laughter ]
"That kid's gonna be someone awful."
-That is so funny.
-And she has such a, like, temper for terrible kids.
There was this one kid who --
My daughter was about one, almost one.
She was just learning to walk,
and you know at that age, you have kids --
Like, when they're just learning to walk,
they kind of like those things that you grab hold to
and that have wheels so it kind of helps them learn to walk.
So she was just kind of unsteady on her feet,
and she went to this other kid at the playground --
it was like a truck or something.
The kid was about three and a half,
something like that, and she grabbed his truck.
The kid came over and goes, "No!"
And took the hands off and he pushed my daughter
to the ground.
My wife didn't see this.
I saw it, so I got angry and I ran over
and she's crying and I'm holding her.
I'm trying to keep my composure, because, you know,
I'm trying to reason with a three-year-old.
So I'm trying to tell him, "You can't do that,"
and he goes, "Well, I don't want her touching my thing."
I was like, "Well, that doesn't matter.
You don't push people."
And he goes, "I didn't want her touching --"
And then I start going, "Oh, yeah? Well, look at me.
I'm touching your truck!
You want to push me?" -Oh, no!
-"Push me!" -Oh, my God!
-Yeah! -You lost your mind.
-And then I see my wife coming over and I'm thinking
she's gonna be the voice of reason, right?
Like, I'm thinking she's gonna calm me down.
The moment I see her walking, "She's gonna calm me down."
Instead, what she does is
she goes to this poor, little kid
she picks up his truck,
she moves it like five feet from him.
She goes, "You know what? Why don't you...
[bleep]!"
[ Laughter ]
Sorry, I know I can't say that on this show.
-Totally fine. -Yeah. Sorry.
Long story short. -Kids are fantastic.
You love them.
I want to talk about "Succession."
-Yeah. -It's a big deal.
[ Applause ] -It's a thing. Yeah.
-People like it. -Renewed for a fourth season.
Congratulations on that.
You play Roman. -Yeah.
-But I heard that you originally read for a different part.
-They wanted me to read for Cousin Greg.
-Really? -Yeah,
which I just didn't feel right for.
-I don't think...
They made the right call, by having you do Roman.
-Yeah, well, they asked me to read for Greg.
I knew I was wrong, and I kind of --
Normally, in any other script,
I would be like, "Okay, I'm not right for the part.
I'm gonna close it. I'm not gonna continue reading on."
But I just kind of liked the script, so I read on.
I was like, "Oh, there's this guy,"
who's first line is something I can't say on your show.
-Eh, you already did. -I already did.
So let's just go full...
-You're good at that. -Yeah, well.
He says, "Hey, hey, mother[bleep]."
-There you go. -"Well...
I kind of like this guy. I like the way he talks.
I can do that."
I'll doing it on national television right now,
getting bleeped.
-You nail it. You're so great in that show.
-I asked. I was like, "Can I audition for Roman?"
And then the response back was,
"We're not auditioning for that part yet,"
but I just sort of put myself on tape anyway and sent it in.
I was like, "Here's three scenes, if you want to..."
And Nick Braun is fantastic as Cousin Greg.
-Of course. The whole cast is fantastic.
The thing that's great,
because there's certain people you love,
but they're all bad, kind of.
-Yeah. -In kind of a weird way.
-Yeah, but that's okay.
I like watching TV shows where the characters are terrible,
and then there's part of me that feels like
maybe there's something there?
Like, maybe they won't be terrible?
Like, I find myself rooting for Tom Wambsgans.
I find myself going, like,
I really want him to stand up for himself and be like
a really good guy and then in the next scene,
he's using a human footstool.
And you're like, "Maybe he's just awful.
Why am I rooting for this guy?"
-I want to show a clip.
Here's Kieran Culkin in "Succession."
Take a look.
-Okay, well, we can, uh... talk about it over lunch, maybe?
-Uh, not today, Roman. I have a date.
-[Bleep] off. With who? Montgomery Clift?
The ghost of Christmas past? -Laurie.
-Who? -Laurie.
He's ex-DOJ.
He worked the Arthur Anderson prosecution.
I want to see if there's a back-channel there.
-Laurie.
And you said he wants to back-channel you
in the parking lot, or...
-Yeah, so the thing is, I'm dating.
I am dating. -Mm-hmm.
-And that needs to be understood.
-Okay. I got it. Yeah. Yeah. You're -- you're drawing a line.
Or otherwise, you know, Laurie will --
[In British accent ] knock my jolly old block off.
If he can find his sword stick
and fire up his motorized bath chair.
-Come on.
"Succession" airs Sunday nights on HBO!