Jesse Eisenberg reveals reason of Kieran Culkin’s absence at BAFTAs

Jesse Eisenberg accepted fifth accolade of the award season on behalf of Kieran Culkin at BAFTAs.

Kieran won the supporting actor award for his performance as Benji Kaplan in A Real Pain on Sunday at London’s Royal Festival Hall. However, the actor was absent from the ceremony.

While accepting Culkin’s award, his costar as well as writer and director of the film, Eisenberg explained the reason of his absence.

"Kieran would love to be here. We spoke this morning," he said. "He's in New York with a family member who's quite sick, and he is so devoted as a family dad that he tried to drop out of my movie two weeks before we started shooting because he didn't want to leave his kids."

The filmmaker, who had earlier won an award for best screenplay at the event, said, "I know I just won an award, but this is also like the fifth award I've accepted on Kieran’s behalf. We have a similar life, but his is about 27% better than mine."

The Now You See Me actor went on to praise his co-star, saying, "He’s real, it's beautiful and it's admirable his devotion to his family.”

"He's one of these lucky people who's brilliantly talented, but who, for some random luck of the cosmos, has his priorities in order." He continued, "So I'm so honored to accept this for him."

Kieran won against Yura Borisov for Anora, Clarence Maclin for Sing Sing, Edward Norton for A Complete Unknown, Guy Pearce for The Brutalist and Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice.

His win follows the streak that began from this year’s Golden Globes, Critics' Choice Awards, National Society of Film Critics Award and National Board of Review Awards.