Macaulay Culkin’s early days in Hollywood were not for the faint of heart – nor does he think they’d be able to happen today.
The actor, who was under 10 when he filmed classics like “Uncle Buck” and “Home Alone,” recently opened up about a wild experience he had filming as a child, and he was adamant that some of the things he endured for the sake of the film “wouldn’t fly nowadays.”
During an appearance on the “On Film … with Kevin McCarthy” podcast, Culkin was asked about 1991’s “My Girl,” a movie in which his character, Thomas J. Sennett, died from an allergic reaction after suffering numerous bee stings. He admitted that he wasn’t affected by portraying the death, but that what stuck out to him more was working with the bees.
“The way they did that, they wouldn’t do that today,” he said. “They put this stuff on my fingertips that smelled like the queen bee. So they were attracted to my hands, so I wasn’t a threat … They actually released, like, thousands of bees on me. Like, imagine that.”
He continued, “Those were real freaking bees, man. That would not fly nowadays, boy howdy.”
Culkin explained that he was directed to wave his hands in front of his face, so that the bees would swarm there, which would look “good for the camera.”
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He also said that after the scene had been filmed, he was told to wash his hands and then dart into nearby woods, away from the bees.
“The bee handler gave me a piece of advice,” he recalled. “He says, ‘Human beings run faster than bees fly.’ I was like, ‘But I’m 10. How fast do you think I am?'”
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They did four takes, and he said he didn’t get stung once.
The actor spoke about another scene, one where his character and Vada, played by Anna Chlumsky, jump into a lake.
While they were filming, he said that he saw trappers on set, but later he learned that the trappers were catching venomous snakes, which were then used as bait for snapping turtles, which were used as bait for the alligators that roamed the lake.
“And I’m just like, ‘What lake are we jumping into? Jeez, have you ever heard of a swimming pool or something?’” Culkin joked. “Like, oh my gosh, they’re throwing bees at me, there’s alligators everywhere … Like I said, some of that stuff wouldn’t fly nowadays.”
