Kieran Culkin

Interview, Feb, 2003 by Illeana Douglas

Though Holden Caulfield thought the movies were full of phonies, chances are he'd have liked Kieran Culkin. Like Salinger's antihero, Culkin was raised in New York City, was educated in elite private schools, has a beloved older brother, and is candid, inquisitive, and sharp as a razor. The critics pounced on the similarities after Culkin's performance in last year's Igby Goes Down (in which, astonishingly, his character embodied almost all the same traits), calling it, and the actor, "Caulfield-esque." But Culkin was too busy stepping out from his brother Macaulay's shadow, into the realm of adult roles and into the public consciousness to get bogged down under heaps of praise. He went back to work and, as Illeana Douglas discovers, set about reading The Catcher in the Rye to learn more about this Holden guy everyone's been talking about.

ILLEANA DOUGLAS: Kieran! What's up?

KIERAN CULKIN: How are you, lovely?

ID: I'm good. How's life?

KC: It's beautiful. I'm sitting [in an affected English accent] in my apahtment. Or, my flat.

ID: Tell me, how's London, and how's your play. This Is Our Youth, going?

KC: The play's going good. London's fun. I like it. It's a lot like New York, so I like that, you know?

ID: So the folks at Interview are describing you as a "New Catcher in the Rye," a modern-day Holden Caulfield. I hear they have a picture of you holding a copy of the book.

KC: I'd just finished reading it that morning, when they came in for the shoot. What a coinkidink, huh?

ID: Good karmic thing! Now, was this the first time you've read it? Over the years I've periodically read The Catcher in the Rye and Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger, even Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. I still have my old paperbacks from high school.

KC: Do you really?

ID: I do! And I have written on the inside of the cover all the different times that I've read it. It says "Train to New York, Summer, 1986." "Filming Household Saints, 1992."

KC: Oh, God. Cool.

ID: So now that you've read The Catcher in the Rye, do you dress like Holden Caulfield-you know, wear the winter hat and everything?

KC: No, I never wear the hat. I just carry around a big green sombrero with me. Pretty similar.

ID: And call everyone a bunch of phonies?

KC: Oh, yeah. They're all fucking phonies! The thing is, I think Holden's supposed to be like, six-foot-something, with gray hair. I'm like, one-foot-nothing. And bald.

ID: Well, he's an iconographic, even mythological character. Now, Kieran, how would you describe Holden Caulfield's personality?

KC: [pauses] I should be able to do this-I just read the damn book two weeks ago. All right: He's totally dissatisfied and unhappy. Notice how everything depresses him? I know people like that who are, like, no matter what you do, they're just not going to be happy. They're not going to be satisfied.

ID: Yeah. It's interesting: Everybody sort of identifies with him, yet if you were actually hanging out with someone like that, you'd--

KC:-You'd hate him.

ID: You'd be like, "Holden, come on!"

KC: Not even--he'd go off on one of his rants, and you'd just sit there silently and awkwardly in a group of people. That just depresses me. I hate that.

ID: In real life you can pull off the Holden thing for a little bit, but then you start getting into your late twenties, [laughs] and it's time to--

KC: -- Relax a bit.

ID: But your character in Igby Goes Down was definitely--

KC: -- Holden. Outsiderish. Didn't like anybody. Yup.

ID: You must identify on some level with playing those kinds of characters, the outsiders. Do you think you'll get tired of playing that kind of part, or is it really within you?

KC: It's within me to a point, but eventually I'm going to want to play something radically different-you know, try a whole bunch of new things. It's just a matter of what's out there that's good, I guess.

ID: Have you done any other movies since Igby, or did you go right into the play?

KC: No, I didn't do anything for, like, a year and a half except laze around. This is my first actual job since Igby.

ID: And this is the first play you've done since we did The Moment When together [in 2000].

KC: Yeah, and that was my first real play. When I was little I was like a prop on the stage. "Go here. Smile here. Wave there."

ID: Do you remember the night on our show when you were doing the monologue that closes the show and a guy yelled out--

KC: -- No, it was a woman, and yeah, I remember, I was sitting on the edge of the stage-I'm no more than two feet away from her-and I take a pause in the middle of my monologue, and she goes, "Is that the end?" [Douglas laughs] And I just say, "No!" right to her face, turn back to the audience, and continue my monologue.

ID: Now, I remember--it may have been for The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys-you were going to an audition, and I was at your house and I said, "Do you want to go over the scene?" And you said, "No. I never do that. I always do it by myself." Why is that?

KC: I get a little self-conscious with people watching me. I like doing it by myself. It's because I don't trust anybody else, I guess, until I'm actually doing it. But I've also learned in the past two years or so that when I go with my instincts, nine out of 10 times I'm wrong.