Chris Columbus learned how bad child actors have it via Macaulay Culkin and adjusted accordingly for Harry Potter.
Macaulay Culkin was one of the biggest child stars ever. But his time in Hollywood – especially at a young age – was plagued with all sorts of issues. Whether it had to do with who would control the money he earned as a minor or the constant media attention he was given, Culkin had far from the ordinary childhood. But if there’s one positive that came of it, it’s that his Home Alone director learned how to approach the impending stardom with the child actors on Harry Potter.
Chris Columbus recently revealed he “felt a tremendous responsibility” in how he worked with the Hogwarts students because of how he saw Macaulay Culkin being treated. “[I] knew what they were getting into. That’s the rest of your life as a child star…That’s gonna be your legacy, and you have to learn how to live with that.” Thankfully, by and large, the Harry Potter cast has kept level heads and proven to have continued success in the industry, whether on stage or screen (something we hope for the young cast of the upcoming series). Culkin would dip much further out of the limelight, taking some much-needed time off beginning in the mid-’90s, only turning up a decade later for various movies, TV appearances and, yes, pizza-themed parody bands.
Columbus offered another comparison to Macaulay Culkin and the Harry Potter team while noting the level of immediate pressure he faced during the casting process. “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. It’s not like Harry Potter, where you know that it may be extraordinarily successful…I had to put blinders on because that’s all I was hearing everywhere. 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.’”
While the sheer superstardom of Macaulay Culkin was a lot for people and Hollywood to handle, it is cool to see Chris Columbus learning from those days as he took on the monumental task of casting and working with the likes of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. That’s just the sort of care that an adolescent cast would need, so good on Columbus!