Esquire did a fantastic interview by Ryan D’Agostino who spent time with Macaulay Culkin where people are able to get a deep sense of who the actor is and why he is the way he is currently.
The interview seemed to humanize the actor more than he has been portrayed since he became an adult. He’s only done around four movies in the last 20 years. Culkin who goes by the name “Mack” now says he’s enjoyed the life he lives now thanks to that one ‘little movie’ that’s allowed him not to work as much to very little.
During this interview, Michael Jackson was brought up and Culkin was asked about his relationship with the King of Pop and why was he left out of the HBO documentary.
I’m gonna begin with the line—it’s not a line, it’s the truth: He never did anything to me. I never saw him do anything. And especially at this flash point in time, I’d have no reason to hold anything back. The guy has passed on. If anything—I’m not gonna say it would be stylish or anything like that, but right now is a good time to speak up. And if I had something to speak up about, I would totally do it. But no, I never saw anything; he never did anything.
Macaulay Culkin on Michael Jackson Relationship to Esquire
The connection shared between Jackson and Culkin is beyond compare, many people will understand the dissatisfaction of parent wanting more when you’ve done enough, but many will never be able to know the persistence of pressure to be perfect by a parent. Moreover, the pressure was mounted by being in the public eye inevitably taking away their respective childhoods. No child should suffer this sort of pressure.
Now the only relationship Culkin has with the Jackson family is with his goddaughter Paris, Michael’s daughter. He’s taught her some interesting habits like stealing spoons from all sorts of places, the two even have matching spoon tattoos. They’ve been known to gift one another spoons as well.
Culkin gave Paris advice as she’s entered the realm of celebrity. “Don’t forget to be silly, don’t forget to take something away from this whole experience, and don’t forget to stick something up your sleeve.” Those are words to keep her honest as Culkin has indeed needed himself at a young age.
He understands that people think he’s weird and off, but he’s okay with it, he prefers to stay in the comfort of himself as opposed to discomfort orchestrated by an outside agenda. A perfect example of that is doing press for a project that he’s involved in. He’s in his comfort zone on the movie set but he isn’t fond of the studio demands for the press that comes with once he’s finished on a project.
The Shawshank Redemption. The way he gets out of prison is to crawl through a tube of shit, you know? It feels like to get to that kind of freedom, I’d have to crawl through a tube of shit. And you know what? I’ve built a really nice prison for myself. It’s soft. It’s sweet. It smells nice. You know? It’s plush.
Macaulay Culkin analogy to Esquire