Kieran Culkin unintentionally found a way to pay homage to his late sister Dakota Culkin, who died after being hit by a car in 2008.
Culkin recently opened up about the grief of losing a sibling. The Succession star, who’s two years younger than child star Macaulay Culkin, is one of the seven children of Kit Culkin and Patricia Brentrup.
He recalled the siblings’ tight-knit dynamic growing up, which makes it harder for him to recover from the loss of one of them.
The A Real Pain star told CBS Sunday Morning, “We lived in a tight space where it was just seven of us running around. It was like a sort of little wolf-pack mentality. Whenever the door would open to let the kids in, I used to stand aside and make sure, and I used to count to make sure all six of them got in before I got in.”
He continued, “That’s how I remember growing up, too. I couldn’t fall asleep until they all fell asleep. Like, I only existed because they did around me.”
“I only knew who I was because of who my siblings are,” Culkin explained. “So, to lose one was losing a big piece of myself. Losing one of my favorite people in the world, it doesn’t get easier. But you get used to it.”
The Emmy winner revealed how he found a way to keep Dakota’s memory alive through hit show Succession, saying, “After a couple seasons on Succession, I realized there was some stuff that Roman did that I was like, ‘Oh, that’s my sister. That was her sense of humor.’ She could find exactly what the right thing to make fun of you was that would get to you, but be really funny and make the room laugh. That was her.”
Kieran Culkin’s fans can see him in Jesse Eisenberg starring A Real Pain in theaters.
