Former child star Macaulay Culkin made his return to Hollywood after a decade-long hiatus in 2003 with the film Party Monster. Now, decades later, the Home Alone star revealed the one role he regrets passing on.
“You have to understand…at least then, I was retired for at least like six or seven years. I went to high school. I got married way too young. Things like that, you know,” Culkin, 44, said during a Thursday, August 7, appearance on Hot Ones. “I was actually pretty good at reading. I was kind of voraciously reading through the scripts, but there was a couple that slipped through.”
“I remember about two years later, clearing out the house and throwing out the old scripts and I saw the one that I didn’t read was Rushmore,” he recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh dang.'”
The role ultimately went to Jason Schwartzman, which the My Girl actor admits he “can’t imagine” anyone else playing Max Fischer.
“But at the same time I’m like, ‘Oh man, that would have been a ball and a biscuit,'” Culkin added. “I probably could have done that one.”
Related: Macaulay Culkin Confirms Wild ‘Home Alone’ Lore in Rare Interview
Culkin has since returned to Hollywood and even partnered with wife Brenda Song, with whom he shares children Dakota and Carson, for the upcoming film Zootopia 2. He opened up to host Sean Evans about being “dad famous.”
“I take my kids to school and the other kids go, ‘That’s Dak and Carson’s dad,'” he said. “I’ve never felt more famous, like more complete famous than that… My kids have no idea that me and Brenda are famous. They see Mama on TV — when she’s not around I put on Suite Life — but they are thoroughly unimpressed that we are on TV. I’m not intending to raise a nepobaby no matter how much they are going to be like that.”
Macaulay Culkin Regrets Skipping This Role During Temporary Retirement first appeared on Men’s Journal on Aug 7, 2025