Joe Rogan - Macaulay Culkin on Growing Up Famous

Yeah, a little closer, a little closer. Yeah, I read about that. How are you, fellas? What's going on? Fantastic. How are you doing? Very nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. You're remarkably normal. Oh, thanks. I know, people are always struck at how normal I am. I'm like, wow, really? I think my reputation. You made it through the maze of being a famous child. That's a very unusual maze. 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 have similar experiences. Yeah, is there anybody that you ever contacted, like Jodie Foster or someone who's made it through and seems pretty put together? Not really. No, not really. I mean, it's kind of a weird cold call, you know? Because it's like, hey, Jodie Foster. But I think it's such a small clan of people. Like if a comic called me that I knew, you know, and they wanted to talk to me, I would talk to them because it's such a small clan of people. I mean, we do have our weekly therapy sessions. Yeah, yeah. You know, yeah. Yeah, me, Elijah Wood, Jodie Foster, you know, yeah, like we all get together and yeah, we weep. Actually, we do primal screaming. That's what we do. 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. One of my favorite theme songs, TV theme songs of all time. Silver Spoons. Oh, yeah. 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 became a man, he was already famous. And the same thing with you. You were already famous as you were developing and learning. 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. Like 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 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. 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. Yeah. And especially like, I mean, I like when I was a kid, like me, 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 the hair makeup costume people like poking at you all the time and things like that. It 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. Yeah. You know, yeah. Like early on, you kind of just do what you do. Like that's like, I was good at it and boom, like in the same way like that you do like anything that you're like, you like. It's where the child labor laws don't apply to acting. Yeah, they do. Do they? Yeah, I'm pretty well versed in child labor laws. Well, how's that work then? It goes from state to state. They can work you like let's say like in New York, they can work you 10 hours. Yeah, but stop right there. They can work you. Well, you can't get a job if you're eight. That's what you're kind of like, that's what their limit is. At the same time, you have to get three hours of schooling in plus an hour of lunch. So really, you're only, your available window is only six hours or something like that a day. And then like that also in like in that six hours, they're always like setting up the lights for the next shot and you know, the hurry up and wait kind of part of, you know, of things. That's why like the second home alone, it took like nearly five months. Just a film because they can only, I mean, virtually every scene and they can only use me X amount of hours per day kind of thing. But that isn't that the only job that you can work when you're eight years old? I don't know. I mean, you can't be a carpenter. I mean, I guess you can do modeling, you know, I mean, but like some kind of performing arts kind of thing, like there are dancers and so forth. Because I was a ballet dancer before I was an actor. Really? I did ballet for a number of years. I'm a classically trained ballerina right here. Wow. Is it a ballerina if you're a man? I say I'm a ballet dancer, but there is a weird ballerino that some of them use. And I'm like, I don't think I can call myself a ballerino. Like I just can't. It's too broly. Sounds like it's from Welcome Back Cotter. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A ballerino. I'm Billy Ballerino. So I did that for a number of years and there's a bunch of kids that do that and you get paid and you do the work. So there are other, I guess, trades. Yeah, it seems like it's only show business though. Yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. I think it's more in the performing arts kind of thing. You don't see a lot of kids working the coal mines anymore, like that kind of thing. Yeah, for good reason, right? But some people think that that- It's like my six year old dying of black lung. There's some horrible pictures from the early 1900s of people actually working in the coal mines when they're little tiny kids. Yep, yep. I mean, there are no newsies anymore. Did you have any say in whether or not you worked when you were young? Not really, no. After a while it became, like I said, a job and it was, I never chose the projects. They were my parents essentially chose them for me. So there was good news, McCauley. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they called me McCauley. You're going to buy us a new house. Yeah, there you go. I never read any of the scripts. I would just read the lines for the next day or whatever. I would get the gist of what the movie was about, but then I just kind of show up and hit my marks, find my light, and recite my lines. So surreal. It's kind of just like, again, it's what you do. It's like in the same way that kids go to school or something like that. You fall into a routine to a certain extent. Yeah. Well, that's the thing about the human mind, right? So flexible. You could adopt any sort of weird scenario. And especially when you're a kid, I mean, you can just bounce, look all the time. Yeah, kids adapt so easy. Exactly, exactly. And I always had a good memory and things like that. I was big and charismatic, and I had a good memory so I could remember my lines. That's pretty much what... If you're not going to give any advice to any people about, like, yeah, you should put your kid into this line of work. But at the same time, what producers really care about is whether or not you remember your lines. People never work with kids or animals kind of thing. And it's like, all they really care about is you remember your lines, really, because apparently that's a problem. For me, it never was. If I ever lost my place, I would just see the script in my head and just read it. I kind of had a photographic memory back then. Oh, it's faded now. Now it's gone. How old are you now? I'm 37. I'm about to be 38 in two weeks. Feels weird, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. My bowels are different.