Kieran Culkin says Roman isn't 'OK' at the end of 'Succession' and will wind up alone: 'Have you ever seen Roman with a friend?

• "Succession's" Kieran Culkin said he thinks Roman Roy loves his family but will no longer have them in his life.
• Roman, he said, winds up alone at the end: "Have you ever seen Roman with a friend?" Culkin asked.

Kieran Culkin said he believes his "Succession" character Roman Roy isn't doing as well as some fans of the show might think.

Speaking to "Variety," the 40-year-old actor argued that Roman might have ended up in a better place than his siblings during the show's finale, "But that's not saying very much, is it? None of the siblings are in a particularly good place at the end."

In one of the show's final scenes, Roman is seen drinking a martini alone with a smirk on his face. "A lot of people just go, 'Well, he's got tons of money — he'll be fine!' Which just isn't really the case for these people. I don't think it's as simple as, 'Well, I guess I've got my riches and my martini, I'm fine.' I don't think he's OK. No."

Culkin said he derived a lot of his sense of Roman's destiny from showrunner Jesse Armstrong, who told him that "'Roman has gone back to where he was at the beginning. What's really sad about that was all of this was for nothing. It's been a waste of his time. Like, what's the point? What did he learn? What did he gain?'"

"There was something about the tragedy of him having gone absolutely nowhere and learning absolutely nothing in the last two years," director Mark Mylod told The Hollywood Reporter in May. In the final scene, "the one thing he does have is a smattering of self-knowledge, and I think that self-knowledge recognizes the pointlessness, and it drifts out in that ambiguous, grimace-soaked smile that we see in the character in the end."

Culkin seemingly disagrees. "I think he has evolved as a person. I don't think he's gained nothing from this. I think there's something he must have taken away from it, whether or not that's for better or for worse. The thing that gets me, even at the end of season three, was if Roman's cut out of the company, and there's no reason for him specifically to come to the office and interact with his siblings, they don't have the capacity to say, 'Hey, I miss you. Let's get together and hang out.'"

"I think he not only just genuinely loves his family, I think he needs them. Now that it's done, and he's out, and they're all out: When is he going to see them again? Who does he have? He has fucking nobody. That's it. And siblings are out there, somewhere. And it's not like we're gonna get together for a beer. He's very much alone. Have you ever seen Roman with a friend?"