Kieran Culkin Is ‘Happy’ He ‘Made My Wife Keel Over’ Voicing a ‘Genius’ Beluga Whale in NerdWallet Super Bowl Ad (Exclusive)

It’s safe to say Kieran Culkin’s efforts were a job whale done!

Personal finance company NerdWallet dropped a teaser for its unique new 2025 Super Bowl commercial on Jan. 26, which uses a fun approach to help highlight its offerings that will allow users to make smarter financial decisions. The 30-second spot featured a man named Richard on a boat tour who is seemingly the only person able to hear (and communicate with) a Beluga whale approaching the vessel.

Though the voice of the sea-bound creature was initially kept under wraps, it’s been revealed that the Succession alum is the man behind it all.

Culkin, who is now an Oscar nominee thanks to his efforts in A Real Pain, tells PEOPLE exclusively about his role selection process — and what intrigued him about lending his voice to what he dubs a “genius” Beluga whale.

“I really don’t know until I can actually see it, and even when I see it’s hard to see it. So when this comes, it’s like, ‘Do you want to be a beluga whale?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t even know what that means. Show me,'” the actor, 42, recalls. “So they had to put it together and show me what that meant. I think I’m always a little bit apprehensive when it comes to any kind of job, if I’m on it, but I always like the idea if I’m going to do something like this and I’m trying to get better at voice acting because it’s tough.”

“I started pursuing it a few years ago thinking that I can apply my 30-plus years of acting into it, but I couldn’t. It’s like a completely different muscle that I don’t have, that I’m still working on,” he continues. “I’m always really interested in it. But, what I’ve learned is that when something comes my way that’s just straight narration or a commercial, I find that I’m just really not very good at it. So I’ve said, ‘If something like this comes up, let me know if there’s a character.’ This came to me with the idea of a character. So I was like, ‘Okay, well, let’s see.'”

“I never expected to be a whale here, but here it is!” he adds.

So, what did Culkin find so intriguing about this part? “He’s a genius,” the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World actor remarks.

“We got to play around in the booth, so we got to find out who the beluga sort of was,” he explains. “I think [when] he started off, he was kind of a jerk. That was what we were first finding. Then, it sort of turned into something else that he actually kind of wants to be helpful to this guy. He’s partially messing with him, but also trying to inform him and help him. I’m like, ‘Oh, this is fun,’ the way that this is in just a couple of sessions in a booth, like, evolving.”

While fans will likely get a kick out of the actor applying his signature humor to the part, Culkin says he “was proud” that his efforts as the Beluga whale sparked a positive reaction from his wife, Jazz Charton.

“I showed my wife it to see what you think, and she actually laughed really hard,” he recalls.

“I had to pause it, which I’m really happy about, because it was something I wasn’t sure that I could do that they put in the script,” he says, referencing the moment where the aquatic mammal tells the man he’s communicating with to “stop going, ‘Ah ah ah ah ah.'”

“But they said, ‘Do it kind of like a dolphin or whale,'” he explains. “So I gave it a shot and they used it. I go, ‘Ah ah ah.’ And that made my wife keel over. Whatever writer came up with that, that was pretty clever.”

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The Super Bowl takes place on Sunday, Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m. ET in New Orleans and airs on Fox. NerdWallet’s official 30-second ad spot will air during the third quarter of the Big Game. In the meantime, the extended 60-second version can be viewed on NerdWallet’s YouTube channel.

To learn more about NerdWallet’s services, head to their website here.