Macaulay Culkin: an actor at 4, a multimillionaire at 12, a has-been at 15, and a surprise comeback at 23. Now that's a career!

Interview, Feb, 2004 by Michael Stipe

It might be easier to conquer Mount Everest than Hollywood, so how did Macaulay Culkin, 10 years young and 4 feet low, pull it off? Two words: Home Alone. The 1990 blockbuster sent Culkin's star soaring to heights untouched by a child actor since Shirley Temple ruled the movie house. But like every other top-tier celebrity, Culkin, along with his family, friends, and finances, became tabloid fodder. So at 14, with a string of disappointing films behind him and the bulk of his teenage years before him, he retreated from the public eye. To the movies' good fortunes, the now 23-year-old returned to the screen with last year's Party Monster, a biopic of 1980s New York City club kid Michael Alig. This spring he'll shine in the high school drama Saved, produced by R.E.M. visionary Michael Stipe, who interviewed Culkin at a Manhattan restaurant; he arrived to find his subject having a beer and ready to talk freely about the past, present, and future.

MICHAEL STIPE: [to waitress, speaking in French] Do you have any 1664 beer?

WAITRESS: [speaking in French] No. This is an Austrian restaurant.

MS: Oh. I thought maybe you might. Can I have a black coffee, and then I'll move on to a Campari and soda on the rocks? Thanks. [to Culkin, speaking in English] So, what are you working on?

MACAULAY CULKIN: I just signed a TV deal.

MS: To produce or act?

MC: To act. I'm seeing if there is something for me.

MS: Why TV?

MC: It's a place where I could do something on a weekly basis and see if I like it. My girlfriend [Mila Kunis, of TV's That '70s Show] is always telling me I'd be miserable doing television. I'm one of those people who'd probably go crazy if I had to do something week in and week out for five years. But I'll check it out.

MS: Now, this issue of Interview is called "Born With a Dream," and it's about artists who knew early in life what they wanted to do professionally, who achieved success at a young age, and who continue to inspire and evolve into their adult years.

MC: Wow.

MS: Cool, huh? Say, when did you do your first interview? Do you remember how old you were?

MC: I was 6. I did a radio interview for a station in Connecticut or something, and it was the worst interview ever. It was all yes and no answers.

MS: It might be interesting if I ask you questions like I'm addressing a 6-year-old. [Culkin laughs] What is your favorite food?

MC: Pizza.

MS: What's your favorite color?

MC: Red. Sometimes blue.

MS: [laughs] Okay. So, tell me, what do you want to be when you grow up?

MC: An actor or a fireman. I always wanted to be a fireman.

MS: I always wanted to be an archaeologist, because they get to dig in the dirt all day and wear bandannas around their necks.

MC: I think every young kid wanted to do that when Jurassic Park [1993] came out.

MS: I was in my thirties when Jurassic Park came out.

MC: Still. [both laugh] I've always said I want to get this whole acting thing out of my system by the time I'm 30, so I can go off and be a writer.

MS: Really? You want to write?

MC: Yeah. I write a good amount. I've been gathering up a backlog of stuff and maybe I'll do something with it someday, but I don't want to talk about it just yet because that would jinx it.

MS: Are you superstitious that way?

MC: Vaguely. I'm not one of those people who has to tie my shoelaces the same way every day, but, yeah.

MS: I recently figured out that I take pictures rather than keep a diary. I don't even have to print the photographs--it's just a way of marking time for me.

MC: Mm-hmm. It's so easy to forget the things that happen to you because it all happens so fast. Sometimes I'll just remember weird things. Like, when Bob Hope died, they were showing clips of him on TV, and I said to my girlfriend, "I tap-danced with him once." I'd totally forgotten that.

MS: Wow. How old were you?

MC: Nine, maybe 10. It was for one of his last Christmas specials. I remember I went to his hotel room to rehearse with him, and he was zoned out on medication or something, and I'm thinking, How is this going to happen? And then comes the time of performance, and he gets out there and he was completely full of life. It was quite amazing to see.

MS: I'll bet. So is your writing like a diary? Is it marking time?

MC: I stay away from the typical terms of a diary. It's not like, "Today I woke up and had a piece of toast." I write a lot of essays, short stories, dirty poetry, things like that. It's something I do for myself. I'm not interested in making an industry of it. That's what it was like before, when I was 9, 10 years old. People were making an industry of me, and I don't want that anymore.

I did 14 movies in six years, I had a cartoon TV show, and I don't want to do that again. I just want to make unique pieces of art. That's why I quit everything when I was 14 and sat around for eight years before I did another movie. It's not like I didn't get offered teen movies or horror movies, but I didn't want to do those things. Because of what I did when I was 10 years old, I'm not living from paycheck to paycheck, and I can do things because I want to do them. Technically, my lawyer got paid more for Party Monster than I did, but I love that movie and I'm so glad I did it.