A very young Macaulay Culkin first appeared on screen 35 years ago thanks to his starring role alone at home (1990). More than three decades later, the actor’s story, both personal and professional, continues to reflect the lights and shadows of a childhood marked by fame and family and media pressure. After years of keeping a low profile at his own desire, Culkin (New York, 45) has gradually returned to public life, carefully choosing when and how to show himself, and always with humor as his flag. Coinciding with the 35th anniversary of the premiere of the film that catapulted him to stardom, the interpreter wanted to remind his followers of a fact relevant to him: what his real name actually is.
During the event A nostalgic night with Macaulay Culkinwhich commemorated the premiere of the hit film in Long Beach last Saturday, November 22, the performer said that his name is “Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin” and that he was previously Macaulay Carson Culkin. He made the legal name change in 2019 after conducting a poll in which his social media followers could vote to change his middle name. This module was announced in Tonight’s show with Jimmy Fallon in November 2018. A month later, in December of the same year, he shared with his followers the result of the vote: he would have exchanged Carson for Macaulay Culkin.
Options included “The McRib is Back” and “Kieran”, in homage to his little brother, now also an accomplished actor. “Macaulay Kieran Culkin. It would have been fantastic. I love my brother. Between me and him we have exactly one Oscar”, he declared in the quote, in relation to the award that Kieran won at the last edition of the Academy Awards for his role in a real pain. “If someone comes up to me at the airport and asks me, ‘Excuse me, are you Macaulay Culkin?’, I can say, ‘Well, Macaulay Culkin is my middle name,’” he said, laughing. And he added: “I did it all as a joke. And a bit for Fallon.”
This meeting with followers included a screening of alone at home and a moderated Q&A session with the protagonist, plus a trivia game for kids.
His relationship with actress Brenda Song and the birth of his two children, Dakota, four, and Carson, two, have contributed in recent years to strengthening the image of a more mature Culkin focused on his private and family life, although he has not forgotten his past either. In fact, he revealed that his firstborn mixes his memories with those he saw of his father on the small screen. “He thinks he’s Kevin. I asked him, ‘Do you remember sledding down the stairs?’ He said, ‘Yes, of course.’ I asked him, ‘Do you remember when you had yellow hair?’ AND! News in 2024. The boy even believes he “fought the thieves”: “You’re a liar who lies. That was me!” the boy scolded jokingly.
Unlike Kieran, who didn’t want his children to see the film in which he also has a small cameo, Macaulay believes that sitting down with them and explaining everything that happens was very helpful. “They can’t really follow the story, so I told them the story as it was happening,” he added in the aforementioned interview. He is also sure that when they understand that the protagonist is their father, they will be speechless. “I’m a lot taller now. I have a lot more body hair, but yeah, that was me,” he added. alone at home has become a must-see movie at Christmas time, but its protagonist took some time to “embrace” it: “I accept it and, at the same time, I make fun of it. It’s more fun to accept it than to fight it.”
Since becoming famous, the actor has had to deal with the consequences of becoming Hollywood’s broken toy: psychological abuse, workplace exploitation, poor education and drug abuse. A time that is now behind us: “I’m probably in the best moment of my life,” he said last March to podcasts Revelation of the brothers by Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson.
