Originally appeared on E! Online
Macaulay Culkin may take acting breaks, but that doesn’t mean he wants to stay home alone forever.
The “Home Alone” star set the record straight on speculation of his acting career, which began back when he was just 4 years old.
“Technically, I’m retired right now,” Culkin said on the Dec. 29 episode of the “SmartLess” podcast. “I retire and then, if I find something I like, I unretire, do that, and I immediately retire afterwards. Every gig is my last.”
The 45-year-old, whose latest role is in the new season of “The Fallout,” stepped away from the spotlight after the release of 1994’s “Richie Rich” when he was 14. At the time, he told hosts Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes, he had earned the “lion’s share” of his income.
“I quit for nearly a decade,” he explained. “Just went to high school, fell in love, got drunk for the first time, things like that.”
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“I was in a position where I could just put my thumb up my butt and play video games all day long, you know?” Culkin — who shares sons Dakota, 4, and Carson, 3, with Brenda Song — continued. “I could do anything I wanted, really.”
And what he wanted to do at that point in his life was spend time around people his own age.
“When I was younger, I never worked with people my own age,” the “My Girl” star explained. “I was always working with adults. I had a yearning to go to school, to have contemporaries and things like that.”
“I was doneskies,” he added of his mentality at that point in his life. “I was like, ‘I hope you all made your money because there’s no more coming from me.’ I made my name. I made my mark. I made my fortune. The only reason why I even do it now is because I like to do it. Pay, pleasure, prestige — that’s the only reason to do a gig.”
While he eventually returned to acting, Culkin said that he wanted to make sure that it was something that he actually wanted to do — and not just something his parents chose for him when he was a child.
“I was kind of just drifting around, and tried to figure out what I wanted out of life and so forth,” he shared. “This was a calling that found me. I didn’t find it. I wanted to explore that in a different way, on my terms.”
Macaulay Culkin is getting candid. In a rare interview with Sean Evans on the Aug. 7 episode of “Hot Ones,” the 44-year-old actor peeled back the curtain on life as a dad, his relationship with Brenda Song and talked about “Home Alone.”
