A "Little Devil Is Home" made 20th Century Pictures make $285 million in 1990 and made a ten-year-old boy, Macaulay Calkin, an overnight hit.
Since then, his salary has reached $8 million, which even many adult stars can't match.
He should have been a star,000,000,000-eyed, but at the age of 15, he chose to retire from the circle, and his handsome appearance was gone.
When he came back again, he could only play some unseen supporting roles.
From a high-profile child star to an unknown supporting role, what has happened to this actor? Does he still have a chance to turn over the salted fish?
In the late 1970s, a Broadway actor named Kit Christopher Kalkin met a 19-year-old country girl.
They fell in love at first sight and gave birth to several children without getting married, including the video's protagonist, Macaulay Kalkin.
He was immediately sent by Kit to study acting after birth.
Speaking about the original intention of this matter, Macaulay said that "my father pinned all his dreams of acting on their brothers and sisters, so learning to act was almost the only way for all the children in the family."
He also bears the heavy trust, and he has no teacher in this aspect of performance, and he is natural.
As a father, Kit certainly saw his son's talent.
As a result, Macaulay was thrown into the theaters from the age of four, learning how people on stage can use their own body language to interpret a character.
Coincidentally, their neighbor was an executive producer, and through the other person's introduction, Macaulay began to make cameo roles in some films. As his films became more and more numerous, so did his value. So he became the pillar of the family.
During this time, the parents quit their jobs to become his agents and reap more benefits from their sons.
In 1989 he rose to prominence in Hollywood, starring in the famous director John Hughes' film Uncle Buck, which became a turning point in Macaulay's career and entered Hollywood.
Through the performance of the little devil, John was inspired and personally wrote the script for "The Devil Is Home", but the director of the film was someone else. He was Chris Columbus, who later directed the Harry Potter series.
The play was written for Macaulay, but Chris didn't give a positive answer at first as to whether this very spirited little actor would be the protagonist of the film.
Chris believes that actors need to look at multiple choices, and that deciding on a candidate may lead to unforeseen consequences.
So, he began the casting process. After meeting more than 200 children, the best candidate in his heart was still undecided.
At this time, John once again took the opportunity to recommend Macaulay to Chris, and since there was no more suitable candidate, the director had to give the child star a chance.
Sure enough, don't try not to know, try to be frightened. John was pleasantly surprised by Macaulay's vivid acting ability, lamenting that the film was tailor-made for him.
Thus, the trouble-making boy named "Kevin" was completely "born" on the big screen under Macaulay's interpretation.
The film was also a huge success, grossing $285 million, making it one of the highest-grossing comedies of all time in the United States.
The boy who was forced by his father to learn to act also became a well-known child star for a while.
That year, he was also nominated for the Global Awards for Best Actor, and when foreign media selected the "Top 100 Greatest Child Stars", Macaulay's name was also on the list. He even ranked second, second only with Little Justin.
After he became famous, he also saw a huge business opportunity for his father.
He claimed to be his son's only agent, replacing the former in talking about scripts and acting fees with one director after another. But what Kitt didn't know was that it was his insatiable greed that indirectly ruined his son's brilliant star path.
In Hollywood at the time, there was a popular saying, "The father of the child star Macaulay was a watchdog with endless desires."
According to insiders, with the light of their son, the Kit family completely turned from a poor class to a rich man overnight.
While he used a shameless face in front of the producer, the lion opened his mouth, raised his son's acting fee to a sky-high price of $8 million, and used all the expenses earned by Macaulay to invest and enjoy.
This has led to Macaulay, who starred in "Little Devil 2", because of the sky-high cost of acting, gradually became an "outcast" in the circle;
On the other hand, fame and fortune also made Macaulay more and more impetuous, and he was still very young, and when he first joined the crew, he no longer had the appearance of "serious study" before, but looked like a big name attitude of "I am a big star". He not only destroyed the props everywhere, but also directly littered personal belongings in the film crew.
For the unreasonable behavior of this family, many professionals in the circle also pulled Macaulay into the blacklist.
For this father, who regards his son as a cash cow, there is no drama, then on the variety show.
Macaulay's repeated bombardment in advertising and variety shows has gradually developed a rebellious heart.
One afternoon, when he made it clear to his father that he didn't want to be a star again, he said wearily, "I feel tired and just want to rest."
How could Kit, whose heart was not enough for the snake to swallow the elephant, agree to his son's request?
So he yelled out, "Don't you want to be a star?" That's all you have to do, and you won't have days off!"
Macaulay had to continue to work like a machine, and this life continued until he was 15 years old.
In 1995, his parents went to court over a trivial matter and claimed to divorce each other. Custody of a son determines who can fully control his finances.
So, in court, the couple who loved each other in the past were like enemies for many years, accusing each other of their mistakes, so as to show the judge that they were the ones who loved the child the most.
In Macaulay's autobiography, neither of them loved him.
In the book, he writes, "My father has two images, a loving man who always seeks the best interests of the family; and a bastard who is cold-blooded and tears the whole family apart." In addition, there is a third side to the father. A monster that locks him up with money.
Macaulay addressed this aspect by mentioning an incident from his childhood. He wrote:
As a child, my father lined up all his best friends and then handed them brand new $20 bills one by one, telling them not to talk to him again. Surprisingly, the friends all agreed.
Therefore, from childhood to adulthood, he has always been lonely.
As for her mother, in Macaulay's eyes she was no different from her father.
In his autobiography, he claimed that "the woman, though she didn't know anything about the industry, insisted that she was another agent of mine and profited from it.".
It is sad that affection is like this.
After the court learned all the facts, it finally made a fair judgment. No one was given custody of Macaulay, and he was free to dispose of his money when he became an adult.
After Macaulay completely got rid of his parental control, he finally felt free at this moment.
Macaulay also made remarks about retiring from the circle at this time, tired of the year-round star schedule.
He returned to ordinary life and attended manhattan vocational children's school.
There are many child stars in this school, and the school has set up a lot of flexible courses for them, but perhaps he has never felt loved, so he who threatens to become an ordinary person can't tell the difference between good and bad.
And in this way, he not only did not study seriously in school, but also kept making friends of the same age and developed many bad habits.
The paparazzi took pictures of him holding a cigarette butt and facing the camera calmly, as if there was nothing wrong with his behavior.
At the same time, he meets the girl Rachel Minner. The other party was also born as a child star, and the same experience soon brought them together and began to live together.
Before long, the two underage children entered the palace of marriage like a family.
Neither of the underage couples had learned "how to love others" and naturally did not have a happy married life.
So, like their initial love affair, the marriage came and went quickly.
Soon, they divorced.
After Macaulay returned to singlehood, he also had several emotional experiences, but in the end they all ended in nothing.
Since you can't find the missing part of childhood in your relationship, you can find it in drugs, and Macaulay, who holds this concept, slowly embarks on the road of no return.
In 2004, the child star was arrested for carrying illicit drugs.
A year later, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in prison, suspended for a year, and paid a $940 fine.
In 2012, magazines reported that he spent $6,000 a year on the drugs.
In addition, his personality has become eccentric. Occasionally he went crazy suddenly, smearing filth on the walls of his room; occasionally he overeated and ate three days' worth in a day.
He appears in the media camera, either thin or blessed, and is always a withered image.
Until he was 39 years old, he seemed to wake up and open an IG account.
Although after a long time, there were only 60,000 fans, but Macaulay was not discouraged by this. Instead, he began to restart his acting path again, eating the dividends of the previous starring role in "Little Devil Is Home", playing supporting roles in third-rate film and television works from time to time, or talking about his previous acting life in variety shows and eating the old.
Now, over 40 years old, Macaulay has his lover and lovely child, perhaps a father, and he has finally begun to learn to be a responsible person.
So he joined the tenth season of American Horror Story and also made a cameo appearance in Supermodel 2.
Although his career is still not improving, he claims to be on the path of an actor.
From the star-studded star, to the Hollywood outcast, and then to the current comeback, perhaps this classmate will create brilliant again.