Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone Experience Influenced Harry Potter's Casting

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In terms of turning child actors into stars, few directors have a track record quite like Chris Columbus. He helped make Macaulay Culkin into a downright sensation when he helmed "Home Alone," a defining hit of the '90s. Columbus is also the man responsible for getting the "Harry Potter" franchise off the ground, directing the first two movies, "The Sorcerer's Stone" and "Chamber of Secrets." Therefore, he also helped make stars out of Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger).

It's hard to argue with the results; "The Sorcerer's Stone" made $975 million at the box office and jump-started a multi-billion-dollar franchise. Columbus was keenly aware of what the movie's would do for Radcliffe and his castmates. What happened with Culkin on "Home Alone" and in the aftermath directly influenced how he went about handling the casting process on "Harry Potter."

"We went from shooting 'Home Alone' 1 [where] nobody cared, but in the course of a year, Macaulay Culkin became a huge star, and that was unexpected," Columbus shared in the documentary "Child Star" (via Entertainment Weekly). "It's not like Harry Potter, where you know that it may be extraordinarily successful."

Indeed, J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" book series had already become a global sensation. As long as Columbus did his job, it was a star-making opportunity. The director understood that this meant big things not just for an actor like Radcliffe, but everyone else in his circle. As Columbus explained...

"I came from a working-class family, and I've seen it a couple of times with kids when you see someone who comes from a working class family, and suddenly they're thrown into — the kid becomes the breadwinner for the family."

This is where the experience that Columbus witnessed first hand working with Culkin came into play. The "Home Alone" movies were massive hits that turned the actor into a cultural sensation. And while Columbus isn't a fan of the movies after "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," it did inspire an ongoing franchise. Culkin went on to star in tons of other movies, including "My Girl" and "Richie Rich."

"Once we wrapped, I didn't know what was going on" Columbus shared with The Guardian in 2013. "We didn't know that much about the [Culkin] family at the beginning; as we were shooting, we learned a little more. The stories are hair-raising. I was casting a kid who truly had a troubled family life."

Culkin has been open about his abusive father, Kit Culkin, and his struggles at home, which prompted him to step away from acting for a number of years. In a 2001 piece for New York Magazine, the actor shed some light on what was going down behind closed doors. 

"I was making God-knows-how-much money, and Kit was making me sleep on the couch, just because he could. Just to let you know who's in charge and just to let you know if he doesn't want you to sleep in a bed, you're not going to sleep in a bed."

"I was growing a little more tired – during 'The Good Son,'" Culkin shared. "I just said to Kit, 'Listen, I'm really getting tired and I'm not at school as much as I'd like to be; I really need some time off.' He said, 'Yeah, sure,' and the next thing I knew I was on the next set doing the next thing." 

When casting a role like Harry Potter, or any of the surrounding characters, there was tremendous pressure. "I had to put blinders on because that's all I was hearing everywhere," Columbus recalled. "You go on the street, you go into a pub, you go anywhere, and people are saying, 'Who are you gonna cast? Who's gonna be Harry Potter, who's gonna be Harry Potter?' And that, you take that information and you bring it back to the actor and the actor's parents: 'This is gonna get pretty intense.'"

Daniel Radcliffe would go on to be defined by "Harry Potter," even to this day, even though he's had a great career since. The same can be said for many of the cast members from the movies. Columbus said that he "felt a tremendous responsibility" to ensure that the young cast "knew what they were getting into." Radcliffe and the rest of the core youngsters had to sign on for multiple movies at once at a young age.

"That's the rest of your life as a child star," Columbus said in the doc. "That's gonna be your legacy, and you have to learn how to live with that." The director also revealed that, in no small part thanks to what happened with Culkin, the parents were a major factor, not just the actor.

"I realized that parents had to be a big part of it. I can't have [an actor] go home to a really sort of shaky environment for the sake of a film. It's not worth it. It was as important to cast the parents as it was to cast the kids."

You can grab the "Harry Potter" 8-film collection on 4K or Blu-ray from Amazon.