Big Kid

Working with such a youngster required Home Alone's producers to make certain adjustments. For example, most leading men don't bring their parents along on a shoot, but Culkin's mother, Pat, or father, Kit, accompanies him to all locations. Also, as part of their contractual agreements, the movie's child actors appeared before a judge, who looked into their working conditions and asked if they knew where their money was going (Culkin reportedly received a salary ''in the low six figures''), before the cameras rolled. The Board of Education in Illinois also requires that school-age actors must receive three hours of instruction per day and an hour for lunch. Since Culkin couldn't be on the set for more than 10 hours at a stretch, that left him only six hours for shooting. The restrictions, along with the film's intricate gags and special effects, made Home Alone ''a very difficult movie to mount,'' says producer Rosenfelt. ''The tough part,'' adds Columbus, who often directed with his baby daughter, Eleanor, in his arms, ''was scheduling our time around Mack. I'd usually start the day with him and then find something for Joe and Dan to do.''

Even so, the days could be long for Culkin. One afternoon near the end of shooting, dressed in army fatigues and boots, with a toy gun slung over his shoulder, Culkin was supposed to be taunting the robbers into chasing him up a flight of stairs. ''Up here, you morons!'' he shouted. But even at full throttle, the boy's voice could barely be heard. During the lengthy pauses between takes, he sprawled on the top step and his eyelids fluttered, then dropped. ''You can tell when he's tired,'' Columbus says. ''He just slows down.''

''Sometimes during the filming I felt pressure,'' admits Culkin, who has already seen the movie six times. ''I had to do so many things at one time and I was like, 'Okay, what do I have to do first?' And I had to keep on doing lines over and over because I would keep on forgetting.'' To help him along, Columbus introduced a learning incentive. ''During rehearsals, we had a deal,'' he recalls. ''Mack could play Nintendo if he'd memorized his lines. He'd show up and go through the entire script in about 15 minutes.''

Since Home Alone's opening, Culkin has adapted as easily to the demands of celebrity as he did to the challenges of acting. Sporting a hip new haircut and clad in faded jeans, he is relaxing in an enormous limousine that carries him, his dad, a publicist, and assorted siblings on a lengthy victory lap of press interviews and TV appearances in New York. ''I drive around in limos a lot with my family and stuff,'' he says. ''Sometimes we even have two.'' While the car creeps through holiday traffic, Macaulay's sister Quinn and brother Kieran pass his Nintendo Game Boy back and forth. ''Probably the worst part of doing interviews,'' Culkin notes, ''is that I can't play with my Nintendo.'' Sometimes he also finds the hoards of autograph seekers a little overwhelming. ''I need a ski mask so they can't see my face,'' he says.

Despite the pressures, Culkin keeps his priorities straight. Asked to name his 10 favorite things, he reels off a list that has nothing to do with the perks of stardom: ''Nintendo, TV, going to video arcades, sleeping, eating (fruit usually, I don't really have a sweet tooth), hanging out with my friend Solomon, skateboarding (downhill's my favorite), summer, watching wrestling (Ultimate Warrior is my favorite wrestler), and basketball (Michael Jordan is the best).''

After filming on Home Alone wrapped, Culkin did not waste any time idling: He put in an acting stint at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute (a Utah retreat where actors, writers, and directors try out new movie ideas), filmed an ad for Nynex and, along with Kieran, worked on Columbus' next movie, Only the Lonely, starring Candy. Now he's back in the relative quiet of fifth grade at his Catholic school on Manhattan's Upper East Side, where he will no doubt entertain his classmates with his acquired movie jargon. Culkin sits back and gives his rendition of the ''five favorite words'' — phrases actually — he picked up on the set: '''Hour lunch'; 'It's a wrap'; 'See you tomor — no, see you next Monday'; 'See you at the screening'; and, ummm, 'It was nice working with you.''' He should have plenty of opportunity to streamline the delivery.