Meet ‘Home Alone’ Child Actor and What He Looks Like Now
The iconic movie, ‘Home Alone’ released in 1990, was one of the movies that thrilled kids all over the world back in the 90s and afterwards.
It’s been almost 30 years since Home Alone hit cinemas, yet it always brings fond memories for the adults that watched it while growing up. The kids of this generation also love to watch the movie with as much excitement as their parents had while watching it back in the days.
It’s one of the movies that were always aired on Television during the Christmas holidays and kids look forward to watching it. Despite the fact that the film is almost 30 years old, it is still a funny film that restores our faith in Christmas miracles.
Child actor, Macaulay Culkin played Kevin McCallister in Home Alone. After the huge success of the first Home Alone and the accolades it received, a sequel was produced, Home Alone2 and that also became a blockbuster.
Let’s look at a brief summary of this movie that stole the hearts of many kids in American and virtually all the countries where the movie was screened.
Summary of the story of Home Alone
Home Alone is a 1990 American comedy film written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus. Home Alone tells the tale of a young 8 years old Kevin McCallister, who is accidentally left ‘home alone’ at his American home when his family travelled to France for Christmas vacation.
The film follows an eight-year-old boy (Culkin), who must defend his home from two burglars (Pesci and Stern) after his family mistakenly, leaves him behind on their Christmas vacation.
Kevin wakes up after his family rushed to the airport to find the house empty and, thinking that his wish has come true, is overjoyed with his newfound freedom.
He relishes the independence initially yet things turn twisted when thieves try to break in. The two hilarious thieves called themselves “Wet Bandits”, Harry and Marv, a pair of burglars that have been breaking into other vacant houses in the neighborhood and have targeted the McCallisters’ house. Kevin tricks them into thinking that his family is still home, forcing them to put their plans on hold.
Kevin rigs the house with booby traps to take on the burglars. Harry and Marv break in, spring the traps, and suffer various injuries. While the duo pursues Kevin around the house, he calls the police and flees, then lures Harry and Marv into a neighboring home which they previously broke into.
They ambush him and prepare to get their revenge, but old man, Marley intervenes and knocks them unconscious with his snow shovel.
The police arrive and arrest Harry and Marv, having identified all the houses that they broke into due to Marv’s destructive characteristic of flooding them. His family rushed back on Christmas day to be with him and discovered all the mess he made in their absence.
Home Alone was indeed a successful film and they went on to film the 1992 sequel ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York’. The current President of the United States of America also appeared in that movie. He owned the hotel that was used to act Home Alone2 and insisted he wanted to be a part of it too. So they gave him a cameo appearance. Trump’s cameo in Home Alone 2, was when he was showing Kevin the way to the Plaza Hotel. It was reported that whenever film productions requested to film in one of his buildings, Trump, the egomaniac, would insist that a part was written for him in the movie.
All the same, with a total gross of $476.7 million, ‘Home Alone’ was the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever, and held the record until it was overtaken by The Hangover Part II in 2011. The film received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Culkin.
What Macaulay Culkin looks like now
Macaulay Culkin shot to international stardom when he played Kevin in the original 1990 film. He repeated the role for Home Alone 2 (1992) and after their successes; he went on to star in My Girl (1991), The Good Son (1993), The Pagemaster (1994) and Richie Rich (1994).
Macaulay Culkin began acting at age four and was the most successful child actor of all time and the richest as well. He made so much money that his parents constantly fought over who will manage his fortune.
Mack’s parents were never legally married, so when they split up in his mid-teens, it wasn’t a divorce. A custody fight over the children dragged on for two years. Also at stake was Mack’s trust fund—his earnings were reported to be $15 million to $20 million.
In his personal life, he suffered heartache when he effectively ‘divorced’ his parents in 1994 to stop them handling his vast fortune at 14. He became legally emancipated from his parents and had the rights to manage his own money with the help of professional finance managers.
He retired from acting at age 14; to see if could have a normal life. He tried to make a comeback in 1998 but has not been so successful like when he was a child. Culkin married actress, Rachel Miner in 1998 when they were both 18 but they separated in 2000 and divorced in 2002. Since 2013, Culkin has lived in Paris.. As of October 2017, Culkin has been in a relationship with his Changeland co-star Brenda Song.
See what the child actor looks now. He will be 40 years old by August this year.
Friendship with Michael Jackson
During the huge success of the first Home Alone movie, Culkin became close friends with pop singer, Michael Jackson and appeared in Jackson’s 1991 ‘Black or White’ music video.
Speaking of how they met, the actor remembered how the sudden fame he got from his hit movie ‘Home Alone’ isolated him from his school friends and that Michael was one of the few people who knew what he was going through.
Jackson later faced allegations of sexually abusing boys, but Culkin maintained that he had never seen him do anything inappropriate. Sleepovers with Michael Jackson became public knowledge when he was called as a defense witness at the singer’s molestation trial.
In 2005, Michael Jackson faced a lot of accusations that he was a child molester and his trial garnered media hype. At Jackson’s trial for sexual child abuse, Culkin testified that he had slept in the same bed with Jackson but he was never molested. He dismissed the allegations as ‘absolutely ridiculous’.
In an interview on the ‘Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum’ podcast, he explained how his friendship with the legendary pop star came to be and said: “A lot of things were happening, big and fast with me and I think he identified with that.”
Culkin attended Jackson’s burial on September 3, 2009. He is also the godfather of Jackson’s children, Paris Jackson, Prince and Michael Jr. In 2020, he told Esquire magazine: ‘I never saw anything; he never did anything’.
But despite Culkin’s denials, his friendship with Jackson—which began when Culkin was a child; Jackson was 22 years his senior—remains the subject of speculation for many, including some of Culkin’s acting peers.
His stint as a drug addict
On September 17, 2004, Culkin was arrested in Oklahoma City for the possession of 17.3 grams (0.61 oz) of marijuana and two controlled substances, 16.5 milligrams (0.25 grains) of Alprazolam and 32 milligrams (0.5 gr) of Clonazepam, for which he was briefly jailed, then released on a $4,000 bail.
After being arraigned in court for misdemeanor drug offenses, he pleaded not guilty at the trial (October 15, 2004, to June 9, 2005), then later reversed the plea to guilty. He received three one-year suspended prison sentences and was ordered to pay $540 in fees. This affected his acting career so greatly that he hardly appears in blockbuster movies anymore.
All the same, Macaulay Culkin gave a great performance in Home Alone as a child actor and this ever green movie will continue to receive great reviews whenever it is screened on any television.
Did you enjoy this movie as much as I did when you were a child? What do you think of the actor now? Please drop your comments below.
