Kieran Culkin realized he wanted to be an actor 'halfway through the first season' of Succession

Kieran Culkin didn’t realize he wanted to be an actor until he was nearly three decades into the job.

The 41-year-old, who made his on screen debut in Home Alone at 7, recently revealed that he didn’t truly unlock his passion for the job until many years later — when Succession came along. While chatting with Jesse Eisenberg at a Tribeca Film festival panel for their upcoming movie, A Real Pain, Culkin opened up about his relationship to the craft.

"It wasn't until about halfway through the first season of Succession where I came home and told my wife, 'I think I know what I want to do for a living, I think I want to be an actor,'" Culkin recalled at the panel attended by PEOPLE. “I'd been doing it for about 31 years at that point.”

He added, “I spent a good couple of decades trying to figure out what else to do and then landed on the thing I was doing." 

Growing up, Culkin was one of seven siblings aspiring to work in the entertainment business, while being managed by their now-estranged father, Kit Culkin. Reflecting on their early start, Kieran said he eventually felt like acting wasn’t the career he “chose,” but one he fell into.

He explained, “I had that sort of crisis at like 19, 20, which I think is sort of normal. I think a lot of people at that age are trying to figure out what the hell they want to do with their life.”

But after being cast in Succession, Culkin decided to let go of the “panic” that came with a new role.

“I went, 'Fine, f--- it. I don't know anything, and we're just going to do it completely differently this time,'" he shared. “And I found a weird freedom in doing something completely unknown that I hadn't done before and had been forced to trust people that it turns out were great.”

Culkin starred as Roman Roy in four seasons of the hit HBO series. The role earned him both a Golden Globe and an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

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Despite Culkin’s many credits in film and television his A Real Pain costar and director admitted that he wasn’t too familiar with his work when he cast him. 

“You’re a magical person in my mind, because I don’t think I’ve ever really seen you in almost anything,” Eisenberg said during the panel. “And then, when I thought about you in the movie, I purposefully didn’t watch anything. And Succession, at the time when I was writing, it was like not as deep as it was now that it’s over.”

“So why did you cast me?” Culkin asked.

“You have an intuition about people,” Eisenberg answered. “I had an intuition about you.”