A Real Pain star Kieran Culkin has revealed a deal he and his wife ‘shook’ on dependant on whether or not he won an Oscar during his chaotic acceptance speech.
Tonight (March 3), the 97th Academy Awards ceremony kicked off and has seen Succession star take home the award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in A Real Pain. Catch it for yourself here:
Culkin beat fellow nominees Yura Borisov for Anora, Edward Norton for A Complete Unknown, Guy Pearce for The Brutalist and his former Succcession co-star Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice.
During his acceptance speech, Culkin revealed he and his wife, Jazz Charton, made a deal which was linked to him ever winning an Oscar.
Reflecting on his acceptance speech for Lead Actor in a Drama at the 2024 Emmys, he revealed: “About a year ago, I was on a stage like this and I very stupidly, publicly said that I want a third kid from her because she said if I won the award she would give me the kid. Turns out she said that because she didn’t think I was going to win.”
Culkin explained he later turned around to his wife and said ‘really I want four’ and she turned back around and said she would ‘give him four’ if he ‘won an Oscar’.
Culkin continued: “I held my hand out, she shook it and I have not brought it up until just now.”
And well, tonight is the night.
Directing his speech towards Charton – seated in the audience – Culkin resolved: “You remember that honey, you do? Okay, then I just have this to say to you Jazz – love of my life, ye of little faith.
“No pressure, I love you, I’m really sorry I did this again and let’s get cracking on those kids, what do you say?”
Elsewhere in his speech, Culkin also praised A Real Pain co-star Jesse Eisenberg – who also wrote and directed the movie – branding him ‘a genius’.
He joked: “I would never say that to your face. I’m never saying it again. So soak it up.”
Culkin and Eisenberg star in the film as mismatched cousins who reunite for a road trip in Poland, going on a Jewish heritage tour to honor their late grandmother.
A Real Pain was also up for the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, but lost out to Sean Baker’s Anora starring Mikey Madison.
The biggest Oscars snubs ever
Citizen Kane loses to How Green Was My Valley (1942)
Orson Welles’ epic tale of the rise and fall of a media baron topped BFI’s Sight & Sound poll of the best films ever made for 40 years, but this apparently wasn’t enough to win an Academy Award.
The gong instead went to How Green Was My Valley, which it’s fair to say has not stood the test of time to quite the same extent.
To add insult to injury, Welles had a falling out with the Academy prior to the ceremony, and the audience booed every time his name was mentioned.
Citizen Kane was nominated for nine Academy Awards, but only took home the statuette for Best Original Screenplay.
E.T. loses to Gandhi (1983)
Even Richard Attenborough, who ended up winning Best Picture for his biopic Gandhi, thought Steven Spielberg’s E.T. should have won.
He is quoted in Joseph McBride’s Steven Spielberg: A Biography as saying of the moment his win was announced: “I didn’t go to the podium, I went over to Spielberg. He got up, I put my arms round him, and I said, ‘This isn’t right, this should be yours’.”
Spielberg’s tale of the bond between a lonely child and a horrifying looking alien remains one of the most beloved films of all time, absolutely dominating the box office following its 1982 release
The Shawshank Redemption loses to Forrest Gump (1995)
While both of these films are pretty much universally adored, The Shawshank Redemption still tops IMDb’s 250 highest rated list and is regularly cited as one of the greatest movies of all time.
While in hindsight, the fact the film failed to win any of the seven Oscars it was nominated for is pretty odd, The Shawshank Redemption was a box office bomb, and in the year of its release was massively overshadowed by Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction.
Nevertheless, one fan admitted they were ‘blown away to find out that the movie didn’t win a single Academy Award’ on Reddit.
Saving Private Ryan loses to Shakespeare in Love (1999)
In yet another upset for Steven Spielberg, his epic World War Two drama lost out to romcom Shakespeare in Love.
This has since been chalked up to the sinister machinations of Harvey Weinstein, who Den of Geek reports started a ‘whisper campaign’ claiming the only good part of Saving Private Ryan was the first 20 minutes, with the rest being ‘sentimental hokum’.
DreamWorks marketer Terry Press recalls Spielberg telling him ‘I do not want to get down in the mud with Harvey’ when he was urged to fight back amid Weinstein’s bullish campaign tactics.
Brokeback Mountain loses to Crash (2000)
The following year saw another shock Best Picture upset, with the widely reviled Crash triumphing over Brokeback Mountain.
A Reddit user called it ‘truly the greatest robbery of all time’.
Director Ang Lee claimed in a 2024 Deadline interview that support for his tragic gay love story ‘had a ceiling’ amid the Academy of the time.
He even recalls being told to stay in the wings of the stage in-between his Best Director win and the announcement of Best Picture, being told by a stage manager: “Everybody assumes you will win.”
It’s clear this one still hurts for many cinephiles, with one calling Crash’s win ‘absolutely criminal’.
