#1153 - Macaulay Culkin

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Boom, and we're live.

SPEAKER_2 (0:07)

And we're live!

Joe Rogan (0:08)

Pull the sucker up there.

Macaulay Culkin (0:09)

Yeah, a little closer, a little closer.

Joe Rogan (0:11)

Yeah, right about there. How are you, fellas?

Macaulay Culkin (0:13)

Fantastic, how are you doing?

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Very nice to meet you.

Macaulay Culkin (0:15)

Nice to meet you, too.

Joe Rogan (0:16)

You're remarkably normal.

Macaulay Culkin (0:18)

Oh, thanks.

I know, people are always struck at how normal I am. I'm like, just like, wow, really? I think my reputation.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

You've made it through the maze of being a famous child. That's a very unusual maze.

Macaulay Culkin (0:31)

Yeah, my life is unique to me. That's what I like to say. You know, yeah, and I'm almost like a peerless person, like to a certain extent. There's not too many people. I can look left and right and we, you know, I like we have similar experiences.

Joe Rogan (0:44)

Yeah. Is there anybody that you ever contacted like Jodie Foster or someone who's made it through and seems pretty put together?

Macaulay Culkin (0:53)

Not really. No, not really. I mean, it's kind of a weird cold call, you know, hey, Jodie Foster.

Joe Rogan (1:01)

But I think it's such a small clan of people. Like if a comic called me that I knew, you know, they wanted to talk to me, I would talk to them because it's such a small clan of people.

Macaulay Culkin (1:10)

I mean, we do have our weekly therapy sessions.

SPEAKER_2 (1:13)

You know, yeah.

Macaulay Culkin (1:14)

You say, yeah, me, Elijah Wood, Jodie Foster, you know, yeah, like we all get together and yeah, we weep, you know, actually we do primal screaming. That's what we do.

Joe Rogan (1:25)

I was describing when it was like I have a friend who Ricky Schroeder, who is yeah, obviously he was very famous when he was young as well.

Macaulay Culkin (1:33)

And my favorite theme songs, TV theme songs of all time. Silver Spoons.

Joe Rogan (1:38)

And I was saying like the way you developed is not like the way the recipe calls, like the recipe calls for you to have a childhood and try to figure out life and then become a man and try to find yourself and then try to find your path. And by the time you he became a man, he was already famous. And the same thing with you. You were already famous as you were developing and learning.

Macaulay Culkin (2:01)

Yeah. You know, yeah.

I don't know exactly how to like kind of even describe it because it's always the way my life has been kind of thing in the same way that like a lot of kids like, you know, they go out and they, you know, catch bugs and play Sandlot baseball or whatever. Like, yeah, it's just like, yeah, like, that's the way it is. Like, you don't really realize how unique the whole situation is until you have perspective because you have nothing to compare it to really other than, I guess, TV shows and movies and things like that. So I knew that my upbringing was unique, you know, I knew I knew it was different. But at the same time, it's kind of just it's not until you get some perspective, some life experience until you really realize that, oh, wait, this was this was particularly weird.

Joe Rogan (2:43)

You know, I think one of the aspects is particularly weird about it is a lot of kids that grow up famous, they grow up on the set, and they grow up constantly around people who treat them very differently than everyone else. It's not just that you're famous, it's that you're famous and you're also the complete center of attention.

Like you're the reason why we're here. We're here to do this television show. We're here to do this movie. We're here to do this thing. You're the star.

And that I think for a kid, that's a very strange place to be.

Macaulay Culkin (3:10)

Yeah, and especially like I mean, I like when I was a kid, like even before I started working, I always liked being like the center of attention kind of thing. I was definitely, you know, I was just, I was very boisterous, you know, but, but in general, like I never really liked being fussed over, like I didn't like, you know, like, yeah, the hair, makeup, costume people like poking at you all the time and things like that. I actually wasn't a huge fan after a while of kind of like being that center of attention. You know, it does become a job after a while.