Actor Macaulay Culkin

DATE March 24, 2006 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Noah Baumbach discusses his new film "The Squid and
the Whale"
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, TV critic for the New York Daily
News, sitting in for Terry Gross.

"The Squid and the Whale," the latest film by writer/director Noah Baumbach,
has just come out on DVD. He's our first guest today. Terry spoke with him
last fall when "The Squid and the Whale" opened in theaters. Prior to that
film, Noah Baumbach wrote and directed the movies "Kicking and Screaming" and
"Mr. Jealousy" and co-wrote the screenplay for "The Life Aquatic," directed
by Wes Anderson. His next film is another collaboration with Anderson on a
stop animation version of "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," based on the story by
Roald Dahl. "The Squid and the Whale" is based loosely on Noah Baumbach's
childhood experiences when his parents divorced. His father is the writer
Jonathan Baumbach; his mother, the film critic Georgia Brown.

"The Squid and the Whale" stars Jeff Daniels as Bernard, a pretentious
self-absorbed English professor and author who's starting to feel a bit
overshadowed by his wife's new writing career. It's the wife Joan, played by
Laura Linney, who has decided the marriage is over. Bernard is miserable
about this and so are the two children, 16-year-old Walt and 12-year-old
Frank. The film is set in the 1980s in the Park Slope neighborhood of
Brooklyn where Baumbach grew up. In this scene, the parents gather the kids
for a family meeting.

(Soundbite from "The Squid and the Whale")

Mr. JEFF DANIELS: (As Bernard) OK, your mom and I--OK, yeah. Mom and I are
going--we're going to separate.

Ms. LAURA LINNEY: (As Joan) You're not going to be leaving either of us.

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) We're going to have joint custody. Frank, it's
OK. I've got an elegant new house across the park.

Mr. OWEN KLINE: (As Frank) Across the park? Is that even Brooklyn?

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) It's only five stops on the subway. It's an
elegant block, the filet of the neighborhood. We'll have a Ping-pong table.

Mr. JESSE EISENBERG: (As Walt) I don't play Ping-pong.

Ms. LINNEY: (As Joan) And we'll both see you equally.

Mr. EISENBERG: (As Walt) How will that work?

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) We're splitting up the week, alternating days.

Mr. KLINE: (As Frank) Why?

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) Because I love you, and I want to see you as much
as your mother does.

Mr. EISENBERG: (As Walt) But there's seven days.

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) Right.

Mr. EISENBERG: (As Walt) So how will you split evenly with seven days?

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) Oh, I've got you Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday
and every other Thursday.

Mr. KLINE: (As Frank) Every other?

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) That's how we each have you equally.

Ms. LINNEY: (As Joan) That was your father's idea.

Mr. KLINE: (As Frank) Don't do this.

Mr. EISENBERG: (As Walt) How will we get to school?

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) There's a subway four blocks from the house, four
or five, no more than six blocks.

KLINE: (As Walt) And what about the cat?

Ms. LINNEY: (As Joan) (Censored by station)...cat.

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) We didn't discuss the cat.

Ms. LINNEY: (As Joan) Your father will pick him up on those days when you're
switching houses.

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) I'll have to drive here two additional times a
week?

Ms. LINNEY: (As Joan) You got a place on the other side of the park. If
you'd gotten a place near here, it wouldn't be a problem.

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) This neighborhood's gotten very expensive. Joan,
it's very painful for me to stay in this neighborhood. You know that. Don't
be difficult. I feel banished.

Ms. LINNEY: (As Joan) Oh, pickle.

Mr. EISENBERG: (As Walt) So, Dad, what will happen with the cat?

Mr. DANIELS: (As Bernard) We'll figure something out.

(End of soundbite)

TERRY GROSS reporting:

Noah Baumbach, welcome back to FRESH AIR. In your movie, the parents divorce,
and they want to do joint custody. And joint custody always seems like such a
kind of civil, reasonable thing to do instead of fighting over custody. But,
of course, the kids really don't like this idea at all because they're going
to be having to go, you know, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays to one house
and Monday, Wednesday and Friday to another. And so I guess it was easy for
you to see it from the kids' point of view because that's the point of view
you saw the divorce from when your parents separated. Did they do joint
custody with you?

Mr. NOAH BAUMBACH (Filmmaker): They did. And actually my actual joint
custody arrangement in the movie was the one we had. As you said, they were
very reasonable, rational people, and they had it all figured out. And I
think probably until I actually wrote it down, I didn't realize how bizarre it
was.

GROSS: So how did it work for you going back and forth?

Mr. BAUMBACH: Well, I was a teenager, and I was, you know, sort of also at a
point in my life where, you know, in some ways, having a separate life from
your parents is starting to become important to you. It's part of your own
sort of sense of self and identification. So to be sort of, you know, trapped
in this arrangement, where I didn't have the power to break a night, you know,
if it was more convenient for me to--I was nearer to my mother's and wanted to
go there, I still had to go to my dad's. And you know, it was so incredibly
rigid, so I hated it, you know.

I think I was often told at the time, you know, that I had--you know, was
actually more, you know, deeper, more painful feelings, that I was probably
sort of sublimating with more of this sense of annoyance, you know, in the
joint custody arrangement. But in, you know--and I think part of the thing I
realized when I wrote this script is that actually these little irritations
weren't so little. This was a big deal. It was a huge imposition, you know,
on the kids. And, you know, so, you know, it's something, in a way I then
became more attuned to as I wrote the script and then made the movie.

GROSS: You grew up in a house where, you know, your parents were writers;
they were intellectuals. The film is filled with the kind of problems a child
would face growing up in a home like that. For example, the difficulty of
developing your own opinions when your parents' opinions are so strong,
particularly about the arts. For example, in the movie, the father will say,
when talking F. Scott Fitzgerald, `Oh, "Tender Is the Night," that's minor
Fitzgerald.' And so if anybody asked the teenage son if he's read "Tender Is
the Night," he'll just shrug his shoulders dismissively and say, `Oh, that's
minor Fitzgerald.' And, of course, he's never read Fitzgerald, and he has no
real opinion of his own of Fitzgerald, but he knows what he's supposed to
think based on what his father thinks.

And it's obviously going to be very hard for him to develop a sense of
intellectual independence, and that's the kind of issue, I think, that's not
really brought up a whole lot in movies, you know, developing intellectual
independence when you're around strong intellectual parents. Can you talk a
little bit about trying to address that in the movie?

Mr. BAUMBACH: Well, I think it is interesting, and, you know, I found it in
my life, you know, my own life but also people I know who come from similar
backgrounds, this sort of idea of opinion as definition in a way, you know;
that you kind of define yourself by what you like, you know. And so if lots
of people like one thing, you know, it becomes harder to define yourself that
way because it's like, `Well, if everybody likes "Titanic," you know, I can't
be the guy who likes "Titanic,"' you know. So you need to then pick the thing
that fewer people like, you know, the thing that fewer people have seen in a
way. And so it becomes a way for you to be defined by this work of art, you
know, whether it's a book or a movie or, you know, music.

And, you know, I think you're right. On one hand, I think growing up among
intellectuals and people who are, you know, interested and sophisticated about
art can be terrific. I think it's great for kids to be introduced to all
these things. But I think there is that danger where you suddenly are
skipping so far ahead, you know. I mean, as a kid, I used to, like, dismiss,
you know, Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins and Jack Kerouac, you know, as sort of
adolescent, you know, when, you know, meanwhile, I was an adolescent.

GROSS: Yeah, right.

Mr. BAUMBACH: And so I was sort of jumping ahead to books that were more
sophisticated and, in a lot of cases, too sophisticated for me to even read.
So it kind of left me, in some ways, paralyzed, and that's something I really,
you know, went into with Walt in this movie, is that exact problem.

GROSS: Jeff Daniels as the father, I think, does a really terrific job. Did
you give him any advice about how to play this character?

Mr. BAUMBACH: Yeah. I had a great experience with Jeff. Jeff has these
kind of great sad blue eyes, and I sort of imagined, you know, if we gave him
a beard sort of surrounding those eyes, it could be kind of incredible. So I
told him to grow a beard, and, you know, I've been telling people I feel like
the beard he grew, in a way, symbolizes his commitment to this character
because when he showed up, his beard was so huge and his hair was so long it
was almost, you know, out of "Grizzly Man" or something. And we had to trim
it back even. But, you know, I have a lot of sympathy for that character, and
it's interesting because it's a character that really polarizes people. I
mean, a lot of people see the movie, and they're like, `Oh, the father's a bad
guy. What a bad father.' And then other people really, you know, care for him
and recognize his struggles and how hard it is for him.

And, I mean, I had a Q and A in Toronto, where I ended up sort of putting
together some strange sentence telling someone that unsympathetic people need
our sympathy more than sympathetic people. And I was not exactly sure what I
was saying, but I knew it meant something. But I talked to Jeff a lot about
all the various sort of walls and boundaries that Bernard puts up around
himself, I mean, all the the talking that, in a way, is smoke screen. You
know, it's the, you know, whatever, like animal spray to kind of keep you away
from them. I think Bernard is so vulnerable on some level, but he's created
such a thick barrier around himself that I think he's afraid that any chink in
it is going to just take him down entirely. And I think this is largely
unconscious, by the way. I don't think Bernard is aware of this.

But I think Bernard's ideas of success and, you know, failure are so out of
whack with any kind of real success, I mean, I've seen people write about
Bernard and refer to him as a failed novelist. And, you know, it's true that
in the movie he doesn't have an agent, and he, you know, clearly thinks it'd
have been better for him, but he's still doing OK. It's not like he's--you
know, in a way, I feel like when they write that, they're taking Bernard on
his own terms. And so I talked to Jeff a lot about that. I also think that
Bernard makes, and this is, again, unconscious, but he makes people feel sorry
for him. You know, I think part of the reason it's really hard to confront
him, particularly for his kids, is I think that there's always something there
that makes you want to protect him.

And I think Joan, in a way, had to become ruthless to get away from him, you
know, I mean, to break up with him. And that's what Walt is reacting to.
He's very angry at his mother, from his perspective, you know, being so mean
to his father and, you know, rejecting him. But I think in some ways Bernard
makes it impossible to sort of rationally separate from him or to even just
take a break. I think he so makes you feel like you need to be there for him,
and it's a very strange thing because it's, on one hand, I think he makes you
feel like you need to take care of him, and on the other hand he wants you to
idolize him.

BIANCULLI: Noah Baumbach speaking to Terry Gross last fall. More after a
break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2005 interview with screenwriter and
director Noah Baumbach. They're discussing his latest film, "The Squid and
the Whale." It's just been released on DVD.

GROSS: You know, we've been talking about the father in the story, but the
mother, as you've written her, is very interesting. You know, she is not as
self-involved as the father is and doesn't seem to have as big and complex an
ego. At the same time she's apparently very talented. She has a book that's
published during the course of the movie, and her career might actually be
overtaking her husband's. And she also, you know, she's having affairs, and
the boys find out about this. And so there's times when you were really with
her emotionally, watching this movie, and other times when you feel like, `Oh,
she shouldn't be doing this,' you know, and, you know, `It's not good for her
sons.' So did you find yourself on her side or ambivalent about her?

Mr. BAUMBACH: Yeah. Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, I think,
you know, on one hand, I did not want to judge either parent at any point.
But I do think her character reveals itself, you know, in a different way than
Bernard's does. I mean, Bernard, in some ways, is revealing himself or trying
to reveal himself or actually trying not to reveal himself at every moment.
But he's very present. And we, in some ways, learn a lot about what Joan has
done or, you know, has said off-camera as the movie goes and I think partly
because, you know, her intentions, you know, or her motivation in some ways,
is, you know, a mystery to these kids.

And, you know, I think, you know, what I like about the movie is that I think
at any point that you can start to feel like, `Oh, this guy'--or, `I'm behind
this person. I'm behind--oh, I get'--you know, you identify with people. I
mean, that's what it's about to some degree. `Oh, I identify with them.' And
then suddenly they do something where you're like, `Oh, God, you know, I
don't'--you know, that behavior was unexpected in some way, but, you know,
hopefully it's part of, you know, the whole package. And also, in some ways,
it's also more identifiable because we all act, you know, in complicated bad
and good ways all the time.

GROSS: Writers and critics, like your parents or the parents in the movie,
tend to really value honesty when it comes to their writing. And sometimes
that requires almost a brutal honesty, in which you might feel like you are
betraying somebody that you love. But to capture the reality of the scene,
you know, your genuine reaction to the movie or to the book, you have to be
honest, and that's part of your job. But writers who subscribe to that ethic
of honesty don't necessarily enjoy being written about honestly themselves.

Mr. BAUMBACH: No, that's true.

GROSS: So how did your writer parents react to the portrayal of parents in
your movie? Now, I mean, you are not writing about your parents; the movie is
fiction. But we will all assume that, to some extent, it's based on the
reality of your life. So what was it like for them to watch these portrayals,
these not-always-flattering portrayals?

Mr. BAUMBACH: Well, you know, I do think it's affectionate at the same time
that, you know, certainly it's critical. And both my parents are fiction
writers, and they've both written about their parents in fictional ways. So,
you know, I think that, you know, as best as you can in a situation like this,
I really think they see it as a movie. And I could tell like, you know, by
their faces afterward, I mean, they really, you know, enjoyed, you know, being
there. And I think they're also proud of me, you know, and excited for me,
you know. And I think now they could see it--you know, the first time they
saw it, I'm sure there was, like, this sort of--you know, like you're watching
a movie with your foot on the brakes. You're wondering like what--you know,
`What's going to happen here?'

But I think seeing it a second time, at least they--you know, they knew what
to expect, to some degree, and were able to kind of, you know, let go a little
more, you know. But I'm sure it's weird. But it's a funny thing because I do
believe that if I hadn't fictionalized the movie as effectively as I have, it
wouldn't feel as real as it does. And a lot of people have a very kind of
raw, you know, experience watching the movie, which I love. I want that to
be, you know, I want that to be what the experience is. But, you know, for
me, and I think subsequently for them now at this point, you know, the movie
is almost protective. It's not raw. It's another thing. It's a movie.

GROSS: You have written and directed your movies, but there's one movie that
you wrote that you didn't direct that was directed by Wes Anderson, and that's
"The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," which starred Bill Murray and Owen
Wilson. And Wes Anderson produced this new movie that you wrote and directed.
How did you end up in partnership with him?

Mr. BAUMBACH: Well, our sort of professional relationship came out of our
friendship, which had started in sort of the late '90s. I think we both
initially had started hearing about each other because our first two movies,
or his first movie and my first movie, "Bottle Rocket" being his and "Kicking
and Screaming" being mine, came out around the same time. It was around 1995,
and both underperformed brilliantly at the box office, but they often both had
very committed fans. Those who had seen it were very committed about them.
And so we both heard a lot about each other.

So when we met, we sort of, in some ways, felt, I think, some kind of kinship,
and we became really great friends. And it's a funny thing sometimes to be
asked about our professional relationship, like, `How does Wes influence you,
and what have you gotten from Wes?' And that's what's so enjoyable to me about
it, I mean, both his work as a producer on this movie and my work as the
co-writer on "The Life Aquatic." It feels so much like an extension of our
friendship, and so it's a nice thing.

GROSS: The actor who plays the 12-year-old son in your movie has to say a lot
of dirty language, bad words. And did his parents object at all to having to
say that stuff in the movie?

Mr. BAUMBACH: Well, it's funny because his parents are actually friends of
ours. His parents are the actors Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates, and...

GROSS: Oh.

Mr. BAUMBACH: ...my wife is Jennifer Jason Leigh, and...

GROSS: Oh.

Mr. BAUMBACH: ...she and Phoebe have known each other since "Fast Times," so
we, you know, often would have Sunday dinner. I mean, they're like family in
a way. And I, at the time, had been auditioning all these kids, and, you
know, and as you point out, it's a difficult role. And it's also a difficult
role to audition people for because you don't want to turn their parents off
of it too fast. And I was having a lot of trouble. I mean, it was a very,
you know, I mean, it's one of those parts that if you don't get it exactly
right, you know, it's trouble. And Jennifer kept saying to me, you know,
`Well, you need someone like Owen.' You know, Owen has just this genuine
openness, but he's so bright and he's, you know, there's something just so
very natural and soulful about him. And it was one of those things that one
evening at dinner, I just got the guts to ask. And they had already read the
script because they were friends and I'd shown it to them, and so they knew
what they were getting into.

And, you know, I think it's sort of not unlike, you know, you were asking me
about what my parents think, and I say they're writers. I mean, I think in
this case, they're actors. You know, they know all the fakery of it. And,
again, Owen is such a sane kind of amazing kid, and his relationship with his
parents is so, you know, close and wonderful that, you know, saying those bad
words and things, it wasn't like, you know, he was prepared for it. He knew
them. He knew he was acting. It wasn't like, you know, there was any danger
of him, you know, running around town saying those things.

GROSS: Well, I could see this really awkward situation develop where he'd say
that at the dinner table or something, and his parents would have to say, `You
can't talk that way at the dinner table. You can only talk that way in the
movies.'

Mr. BAUMBACH: Right, right. It's a very rarified conversation.

GROSS: Noah Baumbach, thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. BAUMBACH: Thank you. It was fun.

BIANCULLI: Noah Baumbach, speaking to Terry Gross last year. This latest
film, "The Squid and the Whale," has just been released on DVD. It stars Jeff
Daniels and Laura Linney.

I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Coming up, life after "Home Alone." We'll talk with actor Macaulay
Culkin. He became famous at age eight and as a millionaire by age 10. He's
just written a book called "Junior." Also film critic David Edelstein reviews
a new Belgian film called "L' Enfant."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Macaulay Culkin talks about starring in the movie
"Saved!" and his childhood
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli.

Former child actor Macaulay Culkin, star of the "Home Alone" movies series,
has spent the last few years reinventing himself on film. In the fast-paced
movie, "Party Monster," he starred as a flamboyant, ultimately homicidal New
York club kid. In "Saved!," he played a wheelchair-bound high school student.
And in his continuing exercise in personal redefinition, Macaulay Culkin has
just writen a book. It's called "Junior," and it's described by the publisher
as `part-fictional memoir, part-rant and part-post-modern gamesmanship.'
Macaulay Culkin's most recent movie, the comedy "Saved!," is set in a
Christian high school called American Eagle. It was produced by Michael
Stipe's company, Single Cell.

The story revolves around the girls in the school's Christian rock band. Jena
Malone plays a girl who tries to save her boyfriend's soul by helping him
prove he's not really gay. Unfortunately, in the process, she becomes
pregnant. Mandy Moore plays the school's most preachy Christian, and Macaulay
Culkin plays her skeptical brother. As a result of a childhood accident, he
needs a wheelchair to get around. He becomes close with the school rebel who
is also the school's only Jewish student, played by Eva Amurri. In this
scene, Culkin and Amurri are talking at an outdoor cafe just across the street
from the Planned Parenthood office.

(Soundbite from "Saved!")

Ms. EVA AMURRI: (As Cassandra) What's the matter? Scared to be seen in
public with a stripper?

Mr. MACAULAY CULKIN: (As Roland) No. Scared of being seen with a cripple?

Ms. AMURRI: (As Cassandra) I've been seen with worse.

Mr. CULKIN: (As Roland) Hilary Faye's gonna freak out when I'm not there
waiting for her.

Ms. AMURRI: (As Cassandra) Who cares?

Mr. CULKIN: (As Roland) It's just that I don't get out much on my own.

Ms. AMURRI: (As Cassandra) I'm not really a stripper, you know.

Mr. CULKIN: (As Roland) I'm not really a Christian. So how'd you end up at
American Eagle? I mean, you're Jewish, right?

Ms. AMURRI: (As Cassandra) Well, after I got expelled from my last school,
it was either here or home schooling. Figure I could handle these freaks
better than my parents.

Mr. CULKIN: (As Roland) Wow. Lucky me.

Ms. AMURRI: (As Cassandra) Are you playing footsies with me?

Mr. CULKIN: (As Roland) Wheelies.

Ms. AMURRI: (As Cassandra) Hey, isn't that...

Mr. CULKIN: (As Roland) Mary? What is she doing downtown?

Ms. AMURRI: (As Cassandra) There's only one reason Christian girls come down
to the Planned Parenthood.

Mr. CULKIN: (As Roland) She's planting a pipe bomb?

Ms. AMURRI: (As Cassandra) OK, two reasons.

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: When the film was released in 2004, Terry asked Macaulay Culkin
why he wanted to be part of the film "Saved!"

Mr. CULKIN: I mean, it was just a smart movie. It was so smart and funny,
and I kind of just loved how it approached issues and I loved just the
structure of it. I loved the fact that it kind of--you know, all these
characters start off as these kind of, you know, almost cliches or caricatures
almost of teen movies or of Christianity even. I love how they kind of break
down or are torn down throughout the course of the film and are kind of
exposed for what they really are. And I just love the subject matter. I
mean, I'm not a very, very religious person, but at the same time, I was one
of those people who was raised Catholic, which means I'm an ex-Catholic. Ha
ha ha. But, you know, I went to Catholic school, you know, math, English,
Jesus Christ; it's kind of part of the curriculum. And so, you know, it was
just something that, you know, I've always found interesting. So, yeah, I
just wanted to be a part of it.

TERRY GROSS reporting:

What did you relate to about the character that you play in "Saved!"

Mr. CULKIN: Well, I love--you know, he was very cynical, because he's, you
know, in a wheelchair in the movie, and his older sister--or actually younger
sister, Hilary Faye, played by Mandy Moore, is always kind of wheeling him
around like he's some sort of merit badge. Like, you know, `Look how good of
a Christian I am. I take care of my brother who's in a wheelchair.' And it
kind of exposes him to the manipulative aspects of religion, of Christianity,
and so he rejects it basically. And I think by the end, he kind of comes full
circle and he eventually kind of ends up finding how he's right with Jesus
basically and finding his religion.

GROSS: Well, I have to say, I think you've made such really interesting and
in a way daring choices in the movies that you've decided to make as an adult.

Mr. CULKIN: Oh, thank you.

GROSS: You know, you took, like, a hiatus of, I don't know, eight or nine
years away from acting.

Mr. CULKIN: Something like that, yeah.

GROSS: Then you did a play on the West End in London.

Mr. CULKIN: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: And then your re-emergence in movies was "Party Monster" in which you
played a gay drug-addicted club kid who'd become so adult, he murders his drug
dealer. Let me play a short clip from the movie, and this comes from early in
the film when you're doing a voice-over narration, telling the viewers about
the story of your life, and your narration intersects a little bit with your
mother's description of your childhood.

(Soundbite from "Party Monster")

Mr. CULKIN: (As Michael) Hi. I'm Michael. I grew up in the Midwest. Usual
story: felt different, really didn't fit in, but I wasn't going to turn the
other cheek, no siree. I started selling candy in school, jacked up the
prices several hundred percent.

Ms. DIANA SCARWID: (As Elke) This is my Michael. He was always making
money. He just--he had a knack for it. Yeah. My little candy man.

Mr. CULKIN: (As Michael) Let's see. What else? Oh, once when I was 10, my
Sunday school teacher took me back to his house. He taught me how to French
kiss, among other things.

Ms. SCARWID: (As Elke) He really took my boy under his wing, very nice man.

Mr. CULKIN: (As Michael) His mother caught us in the basement and she
screamed, `I told you not to bring them here!' And he said, `Don't. You'll
frighten him away!'

Ms. SCARWID: (As Elke) One night Michael gave me a goodnight kiss that a
little boy should not give his mother.

Mr. CULKIN: (As Michael) I thought everyone kissed like that.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Now you look and sound and so different in this movie than, say, in
your child movie era. I'm interested in that kind of voice that you got for
the film.

Mr. CULKIN: Oh, yeah. Well, you know, because we were playing real people.
We kind of really tried to stay true to who they were. I mean, there's kind
of certain rules that apply to playing a character like that, because you want
to try your best to talk like them. You want to try your best to move like
them, and things like that. And these people were very, very specific about
the way they talked and the way that they just kind of moved their arms and
things, and so we kind of had to play within those rules basically. But, you
know, me and Seth just went out there. And I remember, because when he first
signed on to it, because we kind of talked about doing this and we kind of had
a plan about how we're going to prepare and how we're going to just do all
these things.

GROSS: This is Seth Green, your co-star.

Mr. CULKIN: Seth Green, my co-star. And so, yeah, he calls me up on the
phone, he goes, `Hi, you know. Hi, Michael. It's James, you know. I was in
New York, but I'm sorry I missed you, and blah blah blah blah blah.' You know,
he kind of just leaves you this message on, like, a dead-on James St. James
impression. I couldn't believe it. Actually I listened to it on the phone
and replayed the tape, and I couldn't believe it. And I was like, `Gosh, I
gotta get on my game, too.'

So I started kind of messing around with the voice and basically playing
repeat-after-me games with the VCR and, you know, any kind of footage I could
get of him, and I went to a voice person who kind of just literally was kind
of almost phonetically write out some of the stuff. But, you know, `Just talk
like Michael,' you know. `Oh, James.' I called him up. I'm like, `James, I'm
sorry I missed you when you were in town, you crazy,' you know, and just,
like, sending all these weird, you know, like, voice messages to each other.
It was fun, you know. And we really just wanted, like I said, we wanted to
talk like them and move like them as much as possible but at the same time not
make caricatures of them, and at the same time, you wanted enough creative
freedom within the characters to maneuver and do kind of whatever you felt was
appropriate for storytelling. So it's a fine line we tread, but I think, you
know, we pulled it off all right.

One of the things I found really interesting about your portrayal of Michael
Alig in "Party Monster" is that in one respect, he's the opposite of you, and
here's what I mean. You become a star at the age of--what?--eight or
something, 10...

Mr. CULKIN: Mm-hmm. Yeah, basically.

GROSS: ...you know, in "Home Alone," and by the time you were 14, you wanted
out of that whole star-making machinery stuff. You wanted to stop acting, and
you wanted out of show business, at least for a while, whereas he, he comes to
New York and he wants to be a star. I mean, he is living to be famous. He is
living to be seen.

Mr. CULKIN: Yeah. No, he's spent his entire life running towards fame, and
I spent half my life running away from it.

GROSS: Well, as someone who was a star as a child and who wanted to leave
that whole thing, did you understand what being famous, what being a star
would mean to somebody like Michael Alig? Did you understand what it meant to
be desperate or why somebody would want it?

Mr. CULKIN: It's interesting, because, you know, I truly don't understand
fame. I kind of just accept it. You know, I mean, I've been doing this since
I was four years old, and it's just, you know 19 years now, and you know, for
a while there, you know, from when I was about eight years old on, I was
playing the game at a pretty high level overall. And so I don't know. It
wasn't like I was consciously saying to myself, `Oh, gosh, I want to be
famous.' You know, it just kind of like, I had a lot of energy, and I enjoyed
the attention that came with being on stage. And it wasn't about the all the
other attention, like, you know, photographers hiding in your bushes, you
know. I could definitely do without that and could've done even when I was
eight years old without that. It was that fame had nothing to do with it with
me, so it was kind of fun to get in there and kind of just, you know, why
would he want that? Where does this come from?

You know, it was coming from this kind of almost need to fit in almost, and he
kind of took it to this hyperreality basically and created his own world where
he was famous, you know, because in that world, you have to understand, back
in the club days, back in, like, you know, after Andy Warhol basically passed
on, the club scene was basically dead. Before, you'd go to these clubs and,
`Oh, look, there's Liza Minelli. Oh, and look over there. There's Cher.' And
that was kind of the way it was. And so but not they're all gone. All these
kind of club idols were gone.

And so Michael kind of swept in and created these celebrities basically. He
basically just said, `I'm famous because I say so, and I have absolutely no
substance to me whatsoever, but that doesn't matter because I'm famous.' And
it was just this weird concept that, you know, the celebrity without a cause
kind of thing, you know. It was just, `famous because I say so.' You have to
understand, all these people were coming from this world, this high school
world basically where you know, insiders and outsiders, and they were
definitely the outsiders. They were homosexuals, they didn't dress right,
they didn't look right. There was a lot of things wrong with them. And so
then now they come to New York City and they're the kings of the clubs. Now
all the people, all those like people who played high school football and all
those people who were really cool in high school were now standing outside of
their clubs, wanting to get into their world, and they would kind of turn the
tables on the entire world and said, `You know what? No, you're not in.
You're not allowed into our little world.' And it was interesting. It was
kind of more coming from that than almost a need to be, like, you know, famous
and on the cover of magazines. It was more kind of just turning the tables on
the entire world.

BIANCULLI: Macauley Culkin speaking to Terry Gross. More after a break.
This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2004 interview with actor and now author
Macauley Culkin. His first book, "Junior," was published earlier this month.

GROSS: What are some of the differences for you between acting as a child and
acting now as an adult. Yeah.

Mr. CULKIN: Well, it was interesting. I mean, when I was younger, it was
kind of just more about--I had a lot of energy, and like I said, I enjoyed
attention or at least the good kind of attention that came with being on
stage, and that was really all it came from. And a lot of the things I did
when I was younger were literally just kind of, you know, when you're a child
actor, the most important thing--the most important thing is you have to know
your lines. It's amazing. Like, that's all they really care about when
they're casting a kid, is know your lines.

And so my father, you know, for everything that he was, he was still a very
clever man, and so one of the things he did for the audition process was, you
know, they'd send me the script and they'd say, `Oh, do scene 22 and scene
12,' or whatever, and they're very, very short, simple scenes. So what he'd
do is he'd go through the entire script and find the two longest speeches and
two longest, hardest scenes and have me memorize, because I had a pretty good
memory and, you know, so I remembered the whole thing. And so when I got into
the room, me being a cute little nine-year-old, they'd say, `Hey, can you do
scene 12?' And I'd go, (gasps) `Wait, but I studied scene 30,' you know. And
they'd go, `Oh, no. It's OK, little kid. Just do what you studied.' And then
I'd go out there and I'd reel off this long thing, and the next thing I know,
I'd have the part, you know. And so like I said, it was more about having a
lot of energy and learning your lines basically, whereas now it's different,
you know. You definitely can't just do that, you know. And so, you know, I
mean, I try to bring more to my work. I mean, I'm definitely a more
experienced human being and so I just try to bring those kinds of things to
the table and just try to, you know...

GROSS: And you get to choose your roles now.

Mr. CULKIN: Yeah, exactly. You know, after a while, I mean, I wasn't
choosing anything. It was just kind of like, `Oh, by the way, don't make any
plans this summer because you're doing a movie,' and things like that. So now
I'm in a position where I'm making my own choices. I'm putting stuff out
there that I want out there, and so it's cool. And so I just try and do
different kind of things, and you know, I just try to, you know, do good work.
That's all.

GROSS: You know, it's so easy, I think, to become a praise junky when you're
a kid. You know, if people are praising you a lot.

Mr. CULKIN: Yeah, I really wasn't so much. You know, my parents were pretty
good overall. Like, they never told me how much money I was making or things
like that. All that stuff kind of was news to me, and when I turned 18, I
kind of--I found out how much money I'd made.

GROSS: Weren't you reading the newspapers? I mean, I knew how much money you
had made.

Mr. CULKIN: Yeah, but you know what? No one does. That's the whole thing.
People still don't. You should hear the kinds of numbers people throw out. I
mean, they're either way too high or way too low.

GROSS: Oh. Oh, OK.

Mr. CULKIN: I don't know. There's all kinds of numbers being thrown out
there. I don't release my financial records. It's not something that's all
that important. I mean, yes, it's important. It's--I'm definitely glad I
have the money. But at the same time, it's not like something--I don't
release my numbers to Forbes magazine or something like that. But, yeah, no,
I mean, it wasn't like I was doing it for even the gratification. I was just
having a blast. You know, I enjoyed the people on set. You know, I liked
working with Chris Columbus. I loved the stunt people. They were always my
favorite, you know? Like I had a good time on set. And so it really
wasn't...

GROSS: When did that start to change? When did the good times start to not
be as good?

Mr. CULKIN: Well, you know what? I always liked the people on set. I
always liked the hair and makeup people. I always liked the wardrobe. They
were always really cool people, and I always really got it. They understood
the position that I was in, really. And so it wasn't even that. It was kind
of like I needed a break. And I remember, I said this to my father and he
kind of just wasn't listening. And next thing I know, I'm on the next set and
then I sort of told, like, anyone who'd listen, but, you know, obviously I was
wrong because no one was listening, and it was kind of this crazy thing. And
so when my father was out of the picture and I was in a position to say, you
know, `I don't want to do this anymore,' I did. And so I went to whoever was
listening or whoever was out there and just said, `Listen, you can call it
retirement, you can call it a break, you can say I quit, it doesn't really
matter because it's yours now. It's not mine. You know, that Macaulay Culkin
public persona is yours, you can do whatever you want with it. I'm gonna go
to high school and I'm gonna do whatever else from there, but I'm probably
never gonna act again, and that's it. You know, I hope you made your money
because there's no more coming from me.'

GROSS: When you were young and getting paid, you know, millions and millions
of dollars for movie roles, did you have a sense of what was riding on you,
financially? Not just your family, but like the director's future, the movie
company's future, you know, and all the people working for them? I mean, the
movie had to be a success. Your name had to really...

Mr. CULKIN: Yeah, I know. No, there was this weird kind of thing. People
were kind of building this odd industry around me and it was kind of this
weird thing. And I mean, I don't know. I mean, I guess they tried their best
to shelter me from a lot of that stuff, but at the same time you can't really
hide from that, you know, just the overall pressures of it, but it wasn't
anything that, like, made me crack or, you know, shattered me emotionally or
something. Honestly, it was almost at a point where I almost didn't know any
better. You know, I mean, I understood that other nine-year-olds weren't
doing the same things I was, but at the same time, it wasn't like I knew what
Little League was like, you know, or what summer camp was like. I mean, this
is my life, and so I didn't really know anything else. So, you know, I mean
part of it was, like, a little too much and that was one of the things why I
got away, but it wasn't something I was consciously saying to myself. You
know, like, `Ooh, gosh, you know, I really hope we make that $50 million so
the studio will hire me for their next movie,' because at that point, I really
didn't care.

GROSS: You said that your father really pushed you. What are some of the
things you think he did wrong in terms of how hard he pushed you or what did
he push you to do?

Mr. CULKIN: It's funny. You know, it's one of these things where--I don't
know. I mean, people kind of have this weird thing about me and my father, at
least our relationship. They're always kind of like, `Oh, you know, isn't
that sad that, you know, you don't really see your father anymore or anything
like that. And it's like--you know, and that everything turned out the way
that it did.' But what people don't understand was that it was always like
this. That like, you know, he was not a good guy long before we were rich and
famous. It was kind of just a part of his personality. And from a very early
age, I pretty much knew that, you know, I was, you know--either he was going
to be gone or I was going to end up moving out of the house very early. It
was one or the other, and I knew that from a very early age, before fame,
before money, before anything. And so...

GROSS: What was it that he did that made you realize it?

Mr. CULKIN: He just--honestly, I--you know, I wish it was that easy. I wish
I could point out to one incident or one thing and say that was it. I mean,
he was just not a good person. I mean, you have to understand. I mean, later
on, I mean, it was like, you know, I was making who knows how much money and I
was sleeping on the couch in the living room. Like I didn't even have a bed.
I didn't have a room or a bed. I mean, you should have saw his room. I mean,
you should have saw the size of his bed, his television and things like that.
And it wasn't--you know, it wasn't about making me, you know--it was kind of
more just putting you in your place and making sure that you knew who was in
charge of the whole thing. And it's kind of like--and he played those games
with you and he was always playing those games with you.

And so, you know, even from a very early age, I knew what kind of person he
was and you know, I watched him very closely. I wanted to make sure how I
wasn't with my children and how I did not want to treat my wife and things
like that. I mean, I knew that from a very early age. I mean, I remember he
was the first person I ever cussed at, ever. I was like four years old and,
you know, he's--I don't know. I forgot what he was doing or what I was doing,
but, yeah, I told him to F off. I couldn't believe it, you know? Like, wow,
I didn't even believe it then. I was like, `Wow!' I was like three or four
years old and that came out of my mouth. It was just like--but that was our
relationship, that was the way it was.

GROSS: You know, there's so many child stars who just are emotional cripples
by the time they reach adulthood. You seem to have, like, emerged OK.

Mr. CULKIN: I guess so. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I understand that I'm
a part of, like, some weird fraternity in some weird kind of convention or,
you know, group of cliches or whatever and, you know, I understand that. But
at the same time, you know, I'm aware of it, but I don't fight it. Things are
not...

GROSS: Are you really OK?

Mr. CULKIN: Yes, I'm fine. Don't worry about me (pretends to sob). No, no,
man, I feel good. And a lot of that had to do with me taking some time off
and me getting away from everything, you know, and just--I think--I feel like
I'm a good--I'm a strong person because of it. I know what I want out of life
and I'm not kind of just doing this because I don't know any better. I mean,
I see a lot of--you know, not a lot but, you know, there's a good amount of
these child actors or former child actors who trying to make that transition
into adulthood, but never really took the time to live and never really took
time to exist. And so how do you expect someone to act like a human being
when they've never had the chance to be a human being?

GROSS: Well, we're out of time. I want to thank you so much for talking with
us.

Mr. CULKIN: Well, thank you for having me.

BIANCULLI: Macaulay Culkin speaking to Terry Gross in 2004. His book is
called "Junior, or Oscar De La Mancha, the Wembling Warrior, and the People I
Like the Least."

Coming up, David Edelstein reviews a new foreign film. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Film critic David Edelstein reviews Belgian movie
"L' Enfant" about a man who sells his son
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

"L' Enfant," or the child, was the winner of the Palm d'Or at last year's
Cannes Film Festival. The directors are Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc
Dardennes, whose work includes "Rosetta" and "The Sun." Our film critic, David
Edelstein, has a review.

Mr. DAVID EDELSTEIN: A handheld camera in the films of the Belgian brothers
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes stays at eye level. You don't get those
overhead panorama-establishing shots. You get a perspective that's in sync
with the emotion or lack of them in a lone protagonist. In the films
"Rosetta" and "The Sun," that protagonist is unreadable for a while and
unlikable for much longer. But it's only in the new "L' Enfant" that the main
character is actively loathsome. His name is Bruno, played by Jeremie Renier,
and he lives virtually homeless in an industrial Belgian city, a broke and
unemployed petty thief who routinely exploits young kids to do his dirty work.
His single accomplishment seems to have been fathering a boy with his
girlfriend, Sonia, played by Deborah Francois, an accomplishment he
definitively negates by impassively selling the newborn without the doting
mother's knowledge to a ring of illegal adoption brokers. Before this, we've
seen him through the eyes of Sonia, who loves Bruno and expects him to be
there for the baby. But when she finds out what he did, she goes into the
hospital in a borderline catatonic state. And soon she drops out of the
picture for a while, and we're stuck with a feckless loser, who lives in a fog
with no larger awareness, stirred only by sex, tacky clothes and booze. But
Bruno is blindsided by Sonia's inconsolable grief. He knows on some level
that what he did was beyond horrific. It was a primal act of betrayal. Maybe
he did it because he couldn't face the idea of fatherhood and its
responsibility. Maybe, he senses, he'll have to live with the consequences
forever.

The Dardennes don't write introspective monologues. Their dialogue is spare.
And they don't resort to obvious expressionist techniques, splashy colors or
music. In fact, their work is distinguished by the absence of those things,
sometimes to the point of sensory deprivation. But the senses you have left
are heightened. In a medium of surfaces, like cinema, they plunge you as
deeply into their characters' psyches as it's possible to go. As a larger
consciousness wells up, Bruno slowly comes into focus, and his face, which has
seemed so uninteresting and unreadable, draws you in. He wanders around,
trying to process what he's done. And as he discovers that the road to
redemption is more arduous than any he has traveled, you feel as if you're
watching the movement of a soul. His final act, which has nothing to do with
his own child, is psychologically and poetically right, and it's here that you
realize that the baby of the title is not just his and Sonia's. It's also the
boys that he exploits in his thefts. Most importantly, it's Bruno himself.

"L' Enfant" is the Dardennes most accessible film, and the one most likely to
find a larger audience in the United States. It's exhausting and
overwhelming. After all, when you introduce a helpless infant into a drama,
the stakes go rocketing. All the same, the movie strikes me as less morally
complex and original and unpredictable than their last film, "The Sun," which
is a deeply Christian parable about a carpenter who hires the paroled killer
of his only child as an apprentice. The moral stakes here are much more
clear-cut. Selling one's child, bad. Hiring kids to rob people, bad.
Learning the meaning of sacrifice, good. No, holy. That said, I can't
recommend "L' Enfant" enough because it's rare to see an eye level camera that
can turn so miraculously inward.

BIANCULLI: David Edelstein is film critic for New York Magazine.

(Credits)

BIANCULLI: Now it's time to mark your calenders. A week from Monday, we'll
feature Terry's interview with Ray Davies of The Kinks. He's just released
his first solo recording. Here's a track from it.

For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. RAY DAVIES: (Singing) "Mr. Jones, my next door neighbor. I haven't
seen you for a while. How's the family? How's the beautiful wife? I hope
your dreams were not forgotten. But you've become downtrodden.

Get your health together. Get your wealth together. Get yourself together,
Jones. You were my next door neighbor.

Mr. Brown is so ambitious. He ran off with his nest eggs blown. He broke
the bank to keep two women. You're overextended. Now it's all gone wrong.
Now you're right back where you started. Still you shouldn't be
brokenhearted.

Get your mind together. We can still climb together. Step on the time
together."

(End of soundbite)
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.