Macaulay Culkin Opens Up About the Big Role He Almost Played That Could Have Changed His Career

Macaulay Culkin became a household name as a kid thanks to Home Alone, but in the mid-1990s, he stepped away from Hollywood and didn’t make a movie for nearly ten years.

While fans can only guess at all the projects he missed during that time, Culkin recently revealed one role that could have been a major moment in his career.

Speaking on the YouTube show Hot Ones, Culkin shared that he had received the script for Wes Anderson’s film Rushmore but never read it. “I was actually pretty good at reading, I was voraciously reading through the scripts, but there was a couple that slipped through. And I remember about two years later, [I was] kind of clearing out the house [and] throwing out the scripts, and I saw the one that I didn’t read was Rushmore.”

“I was like, ‘Oh dang, I probably could’ve done that one,’” he said.

It’s important to note that being sent the script didn’t guarantee that Culkin would have landed the part. Still, it’s interesting to think about how he might have fit into the film.

Rushmore eventually became Jason Schwartzman’s debut role, and he earned critical praise for his performance, going on to become one of Anderson’s frequent collaborators.

Culkin himself admits he can’t imagine anyone else in the role, but he still wonders about the “what if.” “Although, I mean, I can’t imagine anyone but [Jason] Schwartzman doing that for him but, at the same time, like, ‘Oh man, that would have been a ball and a biscuit that one,’” he said.

The role in Rushmore was that of Max Fischer, a high school student who becomes fascinated with an elementary school teacher, while his mentor, played by Bill Murray, also develops a relationship with her. Many fans can imagine Culkin bringing his own quirky energy to the character, similar to the unique roles he has taken on since returning to acting.

Rushmore, released in 1998, was co-written by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson and became a defining indie film. The movie helped launch Schwartzman’s career and gave Murray a second career in independent cinema.

The film was praised by critics, won awards at the Independent Spirit Awards, and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 2016 for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

While we’ll never know what it would have been like to see Culkin in the role, the thought of him sharing the screen with Bill Murray in a Wes Anderson movie is an exciting “what if” for fans. It’s a hell of an idea if nothing else.

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