Chris Columbus learned a lot from directing Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, and shared how the experience impacted his casting of Harry Potter.
Columbus, who helmed both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, spoke to Demi Lovato in her new documentary Child Star, explaining that he himself “came from a working-class family” and witnessed the way some child actors became the sole financial support for their own families, per Entertainment Weekly.
“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,” he shared. “Particularly if you’re doing a franchise.”
Columbus said that within a year after the first Home Alone film was released, “Macaulay Culkin became a huge star, and that was unexpected.” But …