Macaulay Culkin Turned Down "Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars" To Be On 'Big Bang Theory'
Even if you don't like the show, it's hard to deny that The Big Bang Theory has taken over television. If I hear one more person say "BAZINGA!" unironically, I might lose my mind.
The show's stars have basically set themselves up for life with their contracts, each making $1 million per episode. It seems hard to believe that someone would turn down the opportunity to be a part of such a massive television hit, but Macaulay Culkin did just that.
In the Home Alone actor's defense, though, he was offered the show before it even aired. That being said, he seemed to be pretty confident in his decision. During an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Culkin talked about CBS trying to land him for The Big Bang Theory.
They pursued me for The Big Bang Theory. And I said no. It was kind of like, the way the pitch was, ‘Alright, these two astrophysicist nerds and a pretty girl lives with them. Yoinks!’ That was the pitch. And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m cool, thanks.’ And then they came back at me again, and I said, ‘No, no, no. Again, flattered, but no.’ Then they came back at me again, and even my manager was like twisting my arm.
Culkin didn't say which role he was offered, but it sounds like it was one of the two leads. He would presumably have taken the role of Sheldon Cooper, which ultimately went to Jim Parsons, but he also could have been cast as Leornad Hofstadter, played by Johnny Galecki.
In the end, Culkin admits he turned down a lot of money by refusing to take the role, but it seems like the 37-year-old actor doesn't care.
“I’d have hundreds of millions of dollars right now if I did that gig,” Culkin said. “At the same time, I’d be bashing my head against the wall.”
On the podcast, Culkin also talked about starting a family with his girlfriend, former Disney star Brenda Song.
“I’m probably going to put some babies in her in a little bit. I mean, we’ve definitely been practicing," he joked. "She’s Asian, so I’m gonna have tiny little Asian babies. It’s going to be adorable."
Culkin has spoken in the past about Song treating him well, and how he wasn't used to it.
“I’m with a lady right now and she is like so good to me that they feel like blows," he said in March of 2018. "Like, she just does nice things and I feel like I’m almost like, at first I didn’t know how to be treated well in that kind of way. It was a strange, almost foreign kind of concept. That kind of thing, that was important to me and now I realized, ‘Oh, it is important to me as well.’”
Though he didn't specifically mention her, it sounds like the "foreign concept" of being treated nicely could have stemmed from his relationship with Mila Kunis. The couple dated from 2002 to 2011, and Kunis admitted she wasn't a nice person.
“I was an a**hole in my 20s, and I’ll be the first to admit it," she recently said. "And that’s something that took me a long time to come out and be like, ‘Yeah, you know what, I was a d—,’ and accept it and I own it now. And it’s f**ked up what I did. It’s f**ked up what I did and it’s f**ked up how I did it.”
When all is said and done, it seems like Culkin has definitely made the right choices in his life and is having fun! That's all you can ask for, right?