Macaulay Culkin does not want to be famous.
The now 35-year-old former child star is trying to live his life quietly, mostly in France. He is also apparently poised for a comeback. Sort of.
The “Home Alone” star gave an interview to The Guardian that was supposed to center on his return to acting. But it turned out he doesn’t really have any major gigs lined up to speak of. Instead he talked about being hunted by paparazzi and doing advertisements for a European insurance company.
Culkin doesn’t mind work. It’s the fame he rejects.
“I don’t just turn my back, I actively don’t want it,” Culkin said. “The paps go after me because I don’t whore myself out.”
“You take on a prey-like attitude, always scanning the horizon,” Culkin continued. “It’s strange on dates, as it looks like you’re not paying attention. But I’ve stopped trying to think of myself in the third person, because that’s just gonna drive me nuts.”
The actor said he coped with being stalked by photographers by thinking of himself as “Mac” and the hunted one was “Macaulay Culkin.” The man who started acting at the age of 4 said the cameras have been omnipresent since he became an adult.
It was those lenses that captured a photo of Culkin looking emaciated in 2012, which led to rumors he was strung out on drugs.
Culkin said he “was not pounding six grand of heroin every month or whatever.”
“The thing that bugged me was tabloids wrapping it all in this weird guise of concern,” he said. “No, you’re trying to shift papers.”
Not that Culkin resents his celebrity status.
“It’s allowed me to become the person I am, and I like me, so I wouldn’t change a thing,” he said. “Not having to do anything for my dinner, financially, lets me treat every gig like it’s the last.”
