Macaulay Culkin’s Family Abuse Affected ‘Harry Potter’ Casting Search

Chris Columbus has directed some of the most iconic child performances in movie history as the filmmaker behind “Home Alone” and the first two “Harry Potter” films, and his tip for finding the right kids is to make sure they have the right parents. Columbus sat down with Demi Lovato for her Hulu documentary “Child Star” (via Entertainment Weekly) and said that his experience with Macaulay Culkin‘s stardom in the wake of “Home Alone” informed his casting search on “Harry Potter.”

“We went from shooting ‘Home Alone’ [where] nobody cared, but in the course of a year, Macaulay Culkin became a huge star, and that was unexpected,” Columbus said. “It’s not like ‘Harry Potter,’ where you know that it may be extraordinarily successful. … 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.”

Columbus realized from the start that his “Harry Potter” casting search was being closely watched by the entire world, explaining: “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?’ You take that information and you bring it back to the actor and the actor’s parents: ‘This is gonna get pretty intense.’”

The filmmaker “felt a tremendous responsibility” to make sure whichever child actors he was casting in the “Harry Potter” franchise “knew what they were getting into” as stars like Daniel Radcliffe were required to sign on for multiple films at once.

“That’s the rest of your life as a child star,” Columbus said. “That’s gonna be your legacy, and you have to learn how to live with that.”

Columbus was not aware during the making of “Home Alone” that Culkin was dealing with a troubled family life at home. The actor has long been outspoken about the abuse he endured at the hands of his father, once telling podcaster Marc Maron: “He was a bad man. He was abusive, physically and mentally — I can show you all my scars if I wanted to.” The instant stardom from “Home Alone” did not mix well with Culkin’s troubled family life, so it was important for Columbus to find kids for “Harry Potter” who had a solid foundation at home.

“Suddenly, I realized that parents had to be a big part of it,” Columbus told Lovato in the documentary. “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.”

“Child Star” is now streaming on Hulu.