Here's something you might not know about Macaulay Culkin: he practically lives in his bathroom. Calling himself a 'bathroom nerd,' Culkin admits to spending 6-8 hours a day in the bathtub. Furnished with a TV and DVD player, his favorite room of the house only lacks a mini-frig and microwave oven to make it complete. He enjoys his bath, okay? He also enjoys talking about his work in "Saved!" and the rumors surrounding a possible book deal with Miramax.
INTERVIEW WITH MACAULAY CULKIN ('Roland'):
Were you one of the first actors to join the cast?
I was the first one. I agreed to do it. I knew Sandy [Stern] and Michael [Stipe], we met over an unrelated project when I was 17 or 18. It was one of those things where I wasn’t that interested in it but I wanted to meet them and they wanted to meet me, and so it kind of just sparked up a friendship. We hang out every once in a while. I like them, they are good people. We were always talking about working together and the next thing you know, I was in London doing a play and they sent me this script and it was perfect. It was smart, it was funny, and it was great. I loved the character that they wanted me to be.
I went back to LA and met with Brian Dannelly, the writer/director. He was great. I mean, he was so enthusiastic about the piece. He definitely [had] that first time director energy. He had this book of stuff. I just imagined him sitting Indian-style in his living room, cutting stuff out of magazines because he had pictures of me and Jena [Malone], and stuff like that. This was years before we did it, but he knew his cast. He had a temp poster of how he envisioned it. This was years ago. He was so excited. He cut out pictures of these landscapes and neighborhoods and kind of really tried to give you a feel of the movie. It was kind of cute but at the same time it really showed his enthusiasm for it. You’d be surprised how many times in this business a writer doesn’t understand their own work – like at all. They put it on the page because it sounded good or it looked good or they read it in a book somewhere that this is how you structure a script or something, and they just don’t get it. It’s surprising. He got it right off the bat and he knew exactly what kind of movie he wanted to make. This script could have been read 10 different ways. It could have been really, really campy or it could have gone toward the more serious side of it. He had the vision in his head and it was the same movie that I had in my head. So the next thing you know, we’re off to the races.
We [went] to Christian rock concerts and rallies and things like that. I remember I read it and it was one of those things where, “Oh my God, the new wave Christian movement. How cute. Ha-ha-ha-ha.” Then you go and see it and you realize it does really exist and it exists 10 times bigger than you ever imagined. Bigger than the world that we represent in this movie. It’s amazing. I went to a couple of smaller [rallies] but I went to one big one at Edison Field – a Christian Rally/Rock Concert – with 30,000 born again Christians who were all blonde. By the way, all born-again Christians are blonde. There were a couple of these Goth Christians with black hair, eyeliner, tattoos of crucifixes on the back of their hands – just craziness.
PAGE 2: Macaulay Culkin on Christian Rallies and Researching Roles
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Mandy Moore, Jena Malone, and Heather Matazzaro/Patrick Fugit
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