Macaulay Culkin Reveals the Role of a Lifetime He Missed When He Took a Break from Acting

When Macaulay Culkin was a child, he became a household name thanks to Home Alone. But in the mid-1990s, he stepped away from Hollywood and didn’t act for almost ten years.

Fans have long wondered what projects he might have missed during that time. Now, Culkin has shared a story about one role he could have had, Wes Anderson’s Rushmore.

Culkin appeared on the Hot Ones YouTube series and talked about scripts he received but never read during his hiatus. He revealed that he was sent the script for Rushmore, Anderson’s second film, but never opened 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 receiving a script didn’t guarantee Culkin the role. There’s no confirmation that Anderson specifically wanted him for the part.

Still, the idea that he might have played Max Fischer is tantalizing. “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,’” Culkin added.

Rushmore, which came out in 1998, was Jason Schwartzman’s debut. He played Max Fischer, a high school student who becomes obsessed with an elementary school teacher, while Bill Murray played a wealthy industrialist and mentor who also takes an interest in the teacher.

The film helped launch both Schwartzman’s career and Murray’s second act as a respected actor in independent cinema. Rushmore received positive reviews, won Independent Spirit Awards, and has since been preserved in the U.S. National Film Registry for being culturally significant.

Culkin, who will appear in Fallout Season 2 later this year, has often chosen offbeat roles in his career. Many fans imagine that he could have brought a unique charm to Max Fischer, adding a different energy to Anderson’s quirky, stylized world.

There’s a part of movie history that might have looked very different if Culkin had taken a chance on Rushmore. It’s fun to think about the alternative universe where he shared the screen with Bill Murray in a Wes Anderson film.

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