Despite a Hollywood career spanning 40 years, Macaulay Culkin has to remind fans of his “actual name.”
Appearing at an event in Long Beach, California, on Saturday to celebrate his starring role in the holiday classic “Home Alone,” the actor acknowledged he’d made good on an eyebrow-raising 2018 pledge.
“My name is Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin,” he told the crowd, according to People.
Though Culkin’s remark may be puzzling to some fans, it’s actually a nod to his November 2018 appearance on “The Tonight Show,” in which the actor announced plans to drop his former middle name, Carson, for a different option.
“I felt like, you know, I should probably spruce up my name a little bit,” Culkin told host Jimmy Fallon at the time. “We’ve narrowed it down to five options.”
Though some may have assumed Culkin was joking, he offered fans the chance to share their opinions via an online poll on his now-defunct lifestyle website. On Christmas Day of that year, he announced the poll’s results on X, formerly Twitter.
“You voted and the winner is clear. In 2019 my new legal name will be: Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin,” he wrote. “It has a nice ring to it (if you like my name).”
During his appearance in Long Beach on Saturday, Culkin revealed some of the other options, which had included “The McRib is Back” and “Kieran,” the latter of which is a nod to his brother, “Succession” actor Kieran Culkin.
“Macaulay Kieran Culkin. That would be great. I love my brother. Between me and him, we have exactly one Oscar,” he quipped, alluding to his sibling’s Academy Award-winning performance in “A Real Pain.”
He went on to note: “If somebody comes up to me at the airport and says, ‘Excuse me, are you Macaulay Culkin?’ I can say, ‘Well, Macaulay Culkin is my middle name.’”
Culkin has been in the midst of a publicity blitz in recent weeks to mark the 35th anniversary of “Home Alone,” which was released in the U.S. on Nov. 16, 1990. He also makes an appearance in “John Candy: I Like Me,” Amazon Prime Video’s new documentary about his late “Uncle Buck” co-star, John Candy.
At Saturday’s event, Culkin also shared that his sons Dakota, 4, and Carson, 3, have yet to figure out that Kevin McAllister, the young protagonist of “Home Alone,” is played by their father.
“They have no idea that I’m Kevin,” he said before noting that he hopes “to keep up that illusion as long as possible.”