Kieran Culkin has recalled a director calling him “dummy, idiot, stupid” to get him into character during his first acting job when he was just six years old.
Culkin’s first acting gig was in an advert that had “something to do with learning disabilities”. The director’s attempt to get him into character didn’t work so well, as he was too young to understand what the director was trying to do.
“First professional experience I had was a commercial when I was six,” Culkin said in an interview for the Smartless podcast. “The concept was I’m standing in front of a chalkboard with chalk in my hand and I don’t know how to solve the easy thing in front of me. And the kids in the class are supposed to be calling me a dummy and stupid, all that.”
“I have a distinct memory of being there and the director going, ‘Okay, action.’ And he starts going, ‘Dummy. Idiot. Stupid,’” Culkin said. I’m thinking like, ‘I get it. I’m six. Stand here and look sad. I’m not fucking Method. I’m six. What’s wrong with you?’”
Culkin continued to act as a child, alongside his brother Macaulay, who he starred with in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Earlier this month, Culkin revealed why he hasn’t yet allowed his children, aged five and three, to watch the classic festive films.
Speaking to E! News, he has now said that he hasn’t allowed his kids – Kinsey, who is five, and Wilder, who is three – to watch the first movie yet because “there’s still some scary parts” for them to see.
“For the three-year-old, there’s the tarantula [and] there’s the guy at the end who said, ‘I’m gonna bite off all your fingers.’ That’s scary for a three-year-old,” Culkin explained.
In a separate interview with the Los Angeles Times, the Succession star also admitted that he didn’t fully grasp Home Alone‘s plot when they were filming scenes for the 1990 movie.
“I had no idea what that movie was about when I saw it, and I was in it,” he said. “I was at the premiere, and I was dying laughing. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen.”
Culkin continued: “Devin Ratray, the guy who plays Buzz, lied to me and told me the movie was all about him, and I believed him. And then when I saw it, the movie’s cracking me up, and I go, ‘Mac was on set all the time. That makes sense the movie would be about him.’”
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