Macaulay Culkin is a child star who has been able to reclaim a pretty blessed life despite some personal rough patches that sometimes seeped into the public eye. In fact, the Culkin family is enjoying a nice bit of success as his brother, Kieran, just nabbed an Oscar for his role in A Real Pain. Macaulay may not have had a singular-defining comeback role, but he’s been able to make appearances in projects like Changeland, American Horror Story and The Righteous Gemstones. He’s had a social media presence that people support, and every Christmas, we still see him as Kevin McCallister when Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York make the holiday rounds.
IndieWire reports that Culkin’s recent appearance on Hot Ones (the talk show with hot questions and even hotter wings) has an interesting revelation. The Home Alone star reveals that he missed out on starring in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore because he was retired at the time and didn’t see the script until later. He explains, “Well, you have to understand, at least then, I was retired for at least a big chunk of that, for at least like six or seven years of that. Like I just went to high school, I got married way too young, things like that, you know. I was actually pretty good at reading. I was kind of vivaciously reading through the scripts. But there was a couple that slipped through.”
Culkin continues,
I remember about two years later, kind of clearing out the house, throwing out the old scripts, and I saw the one that I didn’t read was Rushmore. I was like, ‘Ah dang. I probably could have done that one.’ Although I can’t imagine anyone but Schwartzman doing that part. But at the same time, I was like, ‘Oh man, that would have been a ball and a biscuit, that one.’”
Jason Schwartzman would land the breakout role. However, Culkin’s career trajectory might’ve turned out to be very different had he gotten a reinvention at that time. However, despite being remembered most for Home Alone, Culkin has shown himself to be a good sport as he is always up for talking about his memories of making the movies — to the point where it would annoy his wife, Brenda Song. As she explains it, “Christmastime came around — and it’s a tradition, I’ve always watched Home Alone every Christmas,” Song said. While watching the film, Song says Macaulay “started telling me all the behind-the-scenes stories. And I was like, ‘Stop. Stop. You’re ruining it for me.’”
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