Macaulay Culkin Reveals The Film That Got Away

Macaulay Culkin has a career most in Hollywood could only dream of, but there’s one film that got away.

The “Home Alone” star opened up about a script he missed in his younger years when he was on a break from acting, even though he thinks the person who got the role was perfect for it.

“I was actually pretty good at reading — I was kind of voraciously reading through the scripts, but there was a couple that slipped through,” Culkin shared during his appearance on “Hot Ones” earlier this month.

“And I remember about two years later, kind of clearing out the house, throwing out the old scripts, and I saw the one that I didn’t read was ‘Rushmore,’” he said, referencing Wes Anderson’s 1998 film. “I was like, ‘Oh, dang. I probably could’ve done that one.’”

Culkin said he “can’t imagine anyone but [Jason] Schwartzman doing that part” in “Rushmore,” which ended up launching a decades-long partnership between the actor and Anderson.

“But, at the same time, like, oh man,” Culkin shared. “That would have been a ball and a biscuit, that one.”

While Culkin spoke about a role that got away from him, a certain “Saturday Night Live” star lost out on a chance to act with the “Home Alone” star for an entirely different reason.

“Home Alone” director Chris Columbus spoke to The Independent in 2020 about the late Chris Farley, who nearly scored a part in that film.

“[Chris Farley] auditioned for the Santa Claus role and he was not in particularly great shape,” Columbus recalled. “We had an 8 am audition with him on a Saturday morning and I’ll never forget it.”

Columbus said he and Farley went to the same church, and ran in the same circles in New York. Farley was still up-and-coming, and was not yet on “SNL,” but Columbus knew him as the “sweetest guy in the world.”

“He came in and I don’t think he had gone to sleep that night so the audition did not go particularly well. I regret it,” Columbus added. “I think he would’ve been great in the film but I do love the guy who played Santa Claus [Ken Hudson Campbell]. He was very funny.”