The movie that sent Macaulay Culkin into Hollywood exile: “I needed to float around”
Hollywood is a tricky place to navigate for anyone, let alone a child – just look at Macaulay Culkin. He shot to fame when he was just nine years old after bagging the lead role in the Christmas classic Home Alone, and soon he became the biggest child star in the world.
Culkin was certainly placed in a vulnerable position when he was thrust into the limelight at such a young age – I mean, his performance in the festive favourite led Michael Jackson to strike up a bizarre friendship with the child that certainly raised eyebrows, and the actor was subject to much media attention over the years as he grew up under the watchful eye of nosey gossip rags, with his early adulthood defined by accusations of drug addiction and off-the-wall behaviour.
Really, Culkin was just trying to find his way following a childhood defined by Hollywood movies, attending premieres, and being scrutinised by journalists who were desperate to publish any dirt they could find, no matter how exaggerated; thanks to the success of Home Alone, he appeared in the sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, while roles in the likes of the tear-jerker My Girl and Richie Rich further secured his success as a child star. Yet, the latter film proved to be his breaking point, at least for several years.
He was only 14, but he felt like he’d done his time in front of the cameras, and even though he was ready to live a normal life, Culkin was never going to experience total normalcy, considering that he was the face of one of the most popular Christmas movies ever made, but he could at least try.
So, following the critical failure of Richie Rich, he went into somewhat of a Hollywood exile, retreating away from the bright lights and prying eyes for almost a decade. Talking to Deadline, Culkin explained the decision behind his hiatus.
Elaborating, “I mean, here’s the thing: This is a line of work that found me. I didn’t find it. It’s like that. So yeah, I had to go on that journey. I had to go away a while, after, I think, Richie Rich. I don’t think I did anything on screen for about seven or eight years, boom.”
It was a time of needing to explore his options and see where he wanted to go from here: “Just with high school and messed around and stuff like that. I needed to float around a little bit outside, just figure out what I wanted to do.”
In the end, he realised that acting was something he shouldn’t give up completely, adding, “I came to the conclusion that this was something that found me, and maybe there’s a reason for that.”
So, he dipped his toes back into acting in the strangest way possible, appearing in the campy black comedy Party Monster, in which he wore some extravagant outfits and feathered eyelashes, and the truly bizarre film naturally shocked people, which might be a reason why Culkin’s acting roles have been sporadic since then, but he has never stepped away from Hollywood completely.
