Kevin McCallister is 35. Cue the scream!
Happy 35th birthday today to Macaulay Culkin, the adorable little towheaded star of Home Alone turned towheaded actor, rocker, author and artist.
Not bad for a young life's work so far, especially because the New York-based (eschewing the Hollywood scene, never a bad idea) Culkin appears to have overcome the more tragic pitfalls of former-child-stardom that tripped up so many of his contemporaries. And there were plenty of pits in which to fall.
"You know, I am a former child actor," Culkin told New York magazine upon the release of his novel Junior in 2005, reflecting on his 2004 bust for marijuana possession. "I'm supposed to be a lot more f--ked up than I am. I took a certain amount of pride that I wasn't that cliché, so it was, like, 'Oh, great, I gave a lot of people exactly what they wanted.'"
(Macaulay, we would never root against you.)
Ultimately, though, he weathered the drama and emerged relatively unscathed on the other side. But back to the matter at hand, this 35 business.
We suspected something was amiss when we noticed his little actor brothers Kieran and Rory also growing up, but it's still mind-blowing to think that Home Alone came out 25 years ago, let alone that it's star is now old enough to run for president.
Here's how it happened:
So here he is at 10, playing 8-year-old Kevin in the original Home Alone. He would reprise the role for the 1992 blockbuster Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Here's Macaulay at around 14, starring in Ri¢hie Ri¢h and wearing a suit like a boss.
Here's the actor at 20, during a photo call for the cast of a play he was doing in London, Madame Melville.
Here he played Mandy Moore's decidedly-not-devout brother in Saved!, still totally youthful-looking enough to play a high school student at 24.
He was 28 when he attended Michael Jackson's 2009 funeral with then-longtime girlfriend Mila Kunis.
Good grownup times at 33 with the rest of the Robot Chicken panel at New York Comic-Con in October 2013.
Ooh la la! Enjoying himself in Paris in November 2013 with All My Children actress Jordan Lane Price.
A few months shy of his 34th birthday he performed in London with his Velvet Underground tribute band The Pizza Underground.
And here he is in one of several cameos he's made on TV Land's The Jim Gaffigan Show this year, playing a barista version of himself.
Looking good, Macaulay Culkin! How dare you be 35 and reminding the rest of us that we're growing up, but still... Happy birthday.