© Kevork Djansezian-USA TODAY
Kieran Culkin was one of the night’s biggest winners at the 97th Academy Awards, taking home the ‘Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role’ golden statue for his role in A Real Pain. On the red carpet before he was awarded the night’s first big award, he confirmed a story about ‘pranking’ Mark Ruffalo during a play they did together called ‘The Moment When.’
Mark Ruffalo recently spoke about the ‘prank’ when he was a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The story goes that during the play the cast members shared a joint, a prop joint, that had no psychoactive effects. 17-year-old Kieran Culkin thought it would be hilarious to swap the prop ‘joint’ out for a real one which, according to Mark Ruffalo, wasn’t a problem for him but it was for his cast mates that toked less often.
Here is Kieran Culkin’s confirmation of the prank and below is Mark Ruffalo’s retelling of the ‘prank’ that got the cast members on stage blazed.
@oscars The only real pain was not having more time with Kieran Culkin. #Oscars #Oscars2025 #AcademyAwards #KieranCulkin #ARealPain @Searchlight Pictures @ameliadimz
Mark Ruffalo‘s retelling of the story is pretty great. How he was on stage passing around what he thought was a prop joint with his fellow cast members when suddenly it began to hit.
@fallontonight Mark Ruffalo tells his side of Kieran Culkin’s joint swap prank that left him unexpectedly high onstage during a live production of The Moment When 😳 #FallonTonight #TonightShow #MarkRuffalo #KieranCulkin #JimmyFallon
This story is eerily reminiscent of a camping trip I went on a few years ago for a friend’s birthday. There were 16 dudes on the trip and someone brought chocolates and brownies. One guy ate a chocolate thinking it was of the cannabis variety and it was in fact, not, it was the fungi-type of chocolates.
It wasn’t until about 2 hours in that I saw him wandering the beach by himself staring at the sunset and went out to talk to him that he realized it was not in fact a normal THC-chocolate. There is nothing quite as jarring and unsettling as when your body is expecting one thing and it the stimuli is very, very different. It’s hard to see this as a ‘prank’ but given that it was 25 years ago they are all able to laugh about it now.