This may shock you, but Macaulay Culkin doesn’t watch Home Alone during the holidays. The actor, who became a household name thanks to the 1990 hit, recently sat down for an interview with Ellen DeGeneres to promote his new parody lifestyle blog and podcast Bunny Ears; in it, he revealed that he tends to ignore his past work.
“I don’t really watch them all that often,” Culkin said of the films that made him a child star. Home Alone, in particular, is one he tends to avoid, he said, recalling that when the cast reunited for a 15-year anniversary DVD commentary, he realized it was the first time he had seen the movie in years.
“It’s background radiation at Christmastime,” lamented Culkin. “I’ve had people who want to sit down and watch it with me, which is both flattering and creepy.”
If anything, Culkin continued, when he watches the film, he can’t help but be distracted by memories of what was going on behind the scenes. “I’m remembering that day on set, like, how I was hiding my Pepsi behind the couch. I can’t watch it the same way other people can.”
Still, the film remains a holiday classic—and the season torments poor Culkin to this day. Nearly 30 years later, strangers still come up and ask him to do the classic Home Alone face. Save your breath, folks; he won’t be doing that again anytime soon.
“No. Been there, done that already. I’m 37 now, O.K.? O.K., mom?” Culkin joked.
Culkin also shared that it was slightly disorienting to turn 18 and finally get hold of the money he earned as an actor.
“I felt like some kid worked really, really hard and I inherited all of his money,” he said. “It allows me to treat everything like a hobby. I do nothing for my dinner nowadays. I can do all kinds of projects that I want to do.“
Indeed, after a streak of hit movies, Culkin stopped acting in 1994, opting out of child stardom in order to live a somewhat normal life. His exit from the industry came at a difficult time in his personal life; in 1995, his parents separated, resulting in a fierce custody battle over Macaulay and his six siblings. Culkin has reportedly been estranged from his father ever since.
He has, however, acted in a handful of projects since then, most notably the 2003 club-kids drama Party Monster and the 2004 dramedy Saved!, though none of those projects have earned the same acclaim as his early work. Culkin has made headlines for more sordid things, however, like his 2004 arrest for drug possession, and shocking 2012 photos that appeared to show him looking dangerously gaunt, inspiring rumors that he was addicted to drugs. “No, I was not pounding six grand of heroin every month or whatever,” he said in a later interview with The Guardian, dispelling concerns.
In the intervening years, Culkin has since developed a more lighthearted public persona. He joined a Velvet Underground parody band called the Pizza Underground. He started a T-shirt meme war with Ryan Gosling. And in 2015, he starred in a viral short as a disturbed, grown-up version of his Home Alone character—which apparently didn’t quite convey the message that he’d like to be done with Kevin McCallister once and for all.
