Why Macaulay Culkin Turned Down The Big Bang Theory More Than Once

It seems impossible to imagine anyone but Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, and Kaley Cuoco on “The Big Bang Theory,” but the truth is that other actors were considered before showrunner Chuck Lorre and his team found the perfect people for the lead roles. Marisa Tomei read for Cuoco’s character Penny — who was also played by a different actress in the show’s original, unaired pilot — and Kevin Sussman originally auditioned for the lead role of Howard Wolowitz (which went to Helberg in the end) before getting his own supporting character. Apparently, “Home Alone” star Macaulay Culkin was also approached for a role … but he definitively said no.

During a 2018 interview with Joe Rogan, Culkin said that he hasn’t really considered any major sitcom roles throughout his career, though it depends on the overall quality. “I couldn’t see myself doing a sitcom or a television show kind of thing. A good one, I’d do. Like, ‘NewsRadio’ is a fantastic show,” the former child star said, referencing the show that put Rogan on the map. It was then that Culkin revealed that the team behind “The Big Bang Theory” really wanted him on the show.

“They pursued me for ‘The Big Bang Theory,'” Culkin told Rogan. “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. They were like, ‘We’ll get some real physicists to do the math,’ but 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.” 

Macaulay Culkin didn’t say who he would have potentially played on “The Big Bang Theory,” but perhaps he didn’t know because he was too busy saying “no” over and over again. Luckily, in Jessica Radloff’s oral history “The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series,” several people weighed in on their hopes and dreams regarding Culkin … and revealed that they wanted him to play Leonard.

“Macaulay Culkin was also someone we pursued for Leonard in the first pilot,” casting director Ken Miller told Radloff. His fellow casting director Nikki Valko said the order came straight from the top: “Chuck [Lorre] was a fan of Macaulay. It was so early on, even before Johnny [Galecki] came in. He was just someone that Chuck really liked in the very beginning.” (“There’s a special ethereal quality to that actor that I thought might be great,” Lorre said in the book.)

In the end, it wasn’t meant to be; as co-creator Bill Prady said to Radloff, “We had a terrific meeting with Macaulay… and then we heard that he had decided he wasn’t interested.” Luckily, Valko had a thought: what about Galecki, who was working on a Broadway play at the time? “From the minute Nikki read the script, she was like, ‘Johnny Galecki is Leonard,'” Miller revealed in the book … and the rest is history.

To be fair, Macaulay Culkin did say — during that same Joe Rogan interview — that he knows he missed out on a huge payday by turning “The Big Bang Theory” down all those years ago. “I’d have hundreds of millions of dollars right now if I did that gig,” Culkin said at the time. “But at the same time, I’d be bashing my head against the wall.”

That’s fair, and honestly, it seems like Culkin is doing just fine. Alongside his famous brothers — Kieran won an Emmy for his role as Roman Roy on “Succession” and Rory recently showed up in an episode of “Black Mirror” — the eldest Culkin managed to navigate the pitfalls of child stardom and carve out a solid career for himself as an adult. After the “Home Alone” movies and other hits like “My Girl” and “Richie Rich,” Culkin took an extended hiatus from acting to attend high school in New York before returning to the industry with an onstage role in “Madame Melville” in London’s West End. In 2021, Culkin took a role on Ryan Murphy’s anthology horror series “American Horror Story” in its tenth season “Double Feature,” playing a sex worker named Mickey who takes a substance that gives you talent (but turns you into a monster) in the series’ first half “Red Tide.” Ultimately, Culkin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December of 2023, so clearly, he did just fine without “The Big Bang Theory.”