Career
Culkin began acting at the age of four. Early roles saw him appearing in a stage production of Bach Babies at the New York Philharmonic. He continued appearing in roles on stage, television, and in films throughout the 1980s. Notable parts in this period included an episode of the popular action series The Equalizer in which he played the victim of a kidnapping, and also in the TV movie The Midnight Hour. In 1989, he starred in Uncle Buck with John Candy.
Culkin rose to international fame with his lead role as Kevin McCallister in the blockbuster film Home Alone (1990), where he was reunited with Uncle Buck writer and director John Hughes and Uncle Buck co-star John Candy. He reprised the role of Kevin in the 1992 sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Culkin also starred in a Saturday morning cartoon entitled Wish Kid, and hosted Saturday Night Live in late 1991.
Despite the huge success of Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and My Girl, other films Culkin acted in, such as The Good Son, only did reasonably well (although he was nominated for MTV Movie Award in the category for Best Villain for his performance in the film). Getting Even with Dad, Richie Rich, and The Pagemaster, all released in 1994, were only mildly successful at the box office. He also appeared in a filmed version of The Nutcracker as the title role in 1993, which was staged by Peter Martins from the 1954 George Balanchine New York City Ballet version of the ballet. He appeared in the 1998 music video for the song "Sunday" by the rock band Sonic Youth.
After several years of inactivity, Culkin returned to acting in 2000 with a role in the play Madame Melville, which was staged in London's West End. In the spring of 2003, he made a guest appearance on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. His role as Karen Walker's deceptively immature divorce lawyer won him favorable reviews. Culkin headed back into motion pictures in 2003 with Party Monster, in which he played a role very different from those he was known for, that of party promoter Michael Alig, a drug user and murderer. He quickly followed that with a supporting part in Saved!, as a cynical wheelchair-bound, non-Christian student in a conservative Christian high school. Though Saved! only had modest success at the box office, Culkin received positive reviews for his role in the film and its implications for a career as an adult actor.
Culkin began doing voice-over work, with his appearances on Seth Green's Robot Chicken. In 2006, he published an experimental, semi-autobiographical novel, Junior, which featured details into Culkin's stardom and his shaky relationship with his father. Culkin starred in Sex and Breakfast, a dark comedy written and directed by Miles Brandman. Alexis Dziena, Kuno Becker and Eliza Dushku also star in this story of a couple whose therapist recommends group sex to them. Shooting for the film, Culkin's first since Saved!, took place in September 2006. The film opened in Los Angeles on November 30, 2007, and was released on DVD on January 22, 2008 by First Look Pictures. Culkin's next project was a role in the thirteen-episode NBC television series Kings as Andrew Cross.
In 2009, Culkin appeared in a UK-based commercial for Aviva Insurance (formerly Norwich Union) to help promote their company's rebranding. Culkin stared into the camera citing the phrase "Remember me."
On August 17, 2009, Culkin made a brief cameo appearance on WWE Raw at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri, following a "falls count anywhere" match between Hornswoggle and Chavo Guerrero, in which Guerrero was defeated by the classic Home Alone gag of rigging a swinging paint can to hit him upon opening a door. Culkin appeared in the doorway and said, "That's not funny."
In February 2010 Culkin appeared in an episode of Poppy de Villeneuve's online series for the New York Times The Park.
On March 7 of the same year, he appeared alongside actors Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall and Jon Cryer in a tribute to the late John Hughes.
In April 2011, Culkin was featured in musician Adam Green's experimental film "The Wrong Ferarri" which was entirely shot on an iPhone. In the same month he also appeared in the music video for Stamp Your Name On It performed by Green's former bandmate Jack Dishel/Only Son.
In September 2012, he appeared in a video on YouTube explaining how he turned his apartment in New York into a painting workshop.
Read more about this topic: Macaulay Culkin
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)