Kieran Culkin’s Golden Globes speech was Roman Roy all over: “Suck it, Pedro!”

Succession’s enfant terrible Roman Roy always knew how to deliver a childish insult and chase it with a reminder he does, in fact, have a heart. This was Keiran Culkin’s plan of attack during his acceptance speech at the Golden Globes on Sunday night.

“Oh nightmare,” he said while collecting the gold statue. He then swallowed nervously, explaining himself by saying, “Sorry, burping, indigestion… didn’t need to say that.”

Like an expertly plotted dark comedy, Culkin’s speech recovered from its awkward start to deliver an unexpectedly moving story. The actor gave us a potted history of him and the Golden Globes, explaining that he was nominated 20 years ago, and accepted after losing that it had been his only shot. “I still remember thinking, I’m never going to be back in this room again,” he said.

For anyone watching who remembers Culkin in Igby Goes Down, for which he was nominated in 2002, they might recall that he played a sardonic and rebellious teenage boy who now reads a little like an early Roman Roy blueprint. Culkin recalling his younger self on stage is exactly what he did with Roman on Succession: showing us the little boy inside the man.