From child actor to Oscar winner, Kieran Culkin has made a name for himself in Hollywood, creating distance from his former fame as Macaulay Culkin’s little brother. With his recent Academy Award win for Best ing Actor in A Real Pain, it feels like a good time to look back at some of Culkin’s previous work — particularly his role in the 1999 teen romance movie, She’s All That. In the modern retelling of Pygmalion, popular high school jock Zack Siler (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) accepts a bet to turn nerdy girl Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook) into the prom queen.

Culkin played Laney’s brother, Simon, in She’s All That. He’s your typical annoying younger sibling, who is also bullied at school. A noticeable aspect of Simon’s character is that he wears hearing aids, but curiously, he doesn’t show any signs of being deaf or hard of hearing. The question of why Simon wears hearing aids is never answered in the movie, but the actor did shed some light on the subject 25 years later.

Kieran Culkin Has No Idea Why His She's All That Character Wears Hearing Aids

Simon Was Originally Supposed To Be Deaf In The Movie

In an interview with The Daily Beast in 2014 (via Cinema Blend), the conversation steered toward Kieran Culkin’s ing role in She’s All That. The actor humorously recalled: “It’s one of those movies that always seems to be on — and I only know that because friends are always telling me, and then they’ll ask, ‘Why did you have hearing aids?’ and I’ll be like, ‘I don’t f****** know!’”

Even as hilarious as his claims were, it turns out that Culkin’s ignorance of this seemingly superfluous character trait wasn’t entirely true. He later elaborated in a video interview with Esquire in 2024, saying:

“They said that my character was going to be deaf, and have no dialogue. And I said, ‘Great, that’s the thing I came for, and I actually know a little sign language, and it’ll be fun. Then I get there and they said, ‘Well you know what, what we’re actually going to do is we’re going to give you these hearing aids that you wear at school so you’ll talk, but at home you’ll do the sign language. So they established that in the first day and then they’re like, ‘Actually we decided to get rid of the deaf thing and the sign language. I was like ‘Okay,’ but it’s like [they said] 'we established these, so you gotta wear them now.’ And it will just never be referred to again.”

Although Culkin tells the anecdote with a shrug, it’s clear that he finds the whole situation amusing. It’s not uncommon for filmmakers to change certain character details, but in this case, it was quite a strange oversight.

Culkin's Refreshingly Glib Approach To Hollywood Is Part Of His Charm

His Brings Elements Of His Persona Into His Succession & A Real Pain Roles

Having begun his acting career at such a young age, Kieran Culkin has plenty of amusing stories to share. Thankfully, his experiences in the world of Hollywood haven’t changed his down-to-earth demeanor. In fact, his view of the inner workings of the Dream Factory is often met with sarcasm and a wry smirk, and he constantly resorts to self-deprecation. It was the famous persona that Culkin was able to twist into villainous form for his Emmy-winning role as the sadistic yet vulnerable middle Roy sibling, Roman, in Succession, but far Culkin's most famous work.

Proof of Culkin’s charming sense of humor can be found everywhere, including in his recent Academy Award acceptance speech. Upon arriving at the stage, he almost immediately began cursing with barely any thought for decorum before joking about his A Real Pain co-star, Jesse Eisenberg. In a 2024 interview with The Guardian, Culkin described his thoughts on choosing an acting career as an adult:

“I thought, ‘Oh, I guess this is what I’m going to do for a living because I have no other skills. I’m serious: I have literally nothing. I’m a high school dropout. I don’t even know how the internet works. I have never had social media. I don’t know what LinkedIn is. I don’t know what Reddit is.”

Well, I, for one, am glad that Culkin chose to continue acting — even though a part of me will always see him as Fuller, the kid who wets the bed in Home Alone. Though the She's All That actor may not have his finger on the pulse of internet culture, it’s clear that the internet loves Kieran Culkin, and hopes to see plenty more of him in the future.