Culkin struggles to get work

Former child star Macaulay Culkin says he has trouble getting work and barely speaks to his friend Michael Jackson.

The 25-year-old, who hit the big time in the Home Alone movies in the 1990s, told Time magazine he did not know where he fitted in in Hollywood any more, and had considered an alternative career in sports management.

“I don’t know what people want from me,” Culkin said.

“I’m the most out-of-work actor I know. In the last two years I’ve basically taken meetings for a living.”

He added: “As a four-year-old, I didn’t say I wanted to be an actor. Acting found me.

“I thought maybe I should try to find it again. We’ll see.”

Culkin, whose semiautobiographical, stream-of-consciousness novel Junior comes out this month, said he had spoken to Jackson on the phone once since the singer left the US after being cleared of child sex abuse charges.

“He’s doing OK,” the actor said.

“I mean, yeah, he’s a friend, but the kind of friend you talk to twice a year.”

Culkin said he hoped his book would not make people think he was “crazy” because he was not.

“I’ve led a very isolated existence since I was six years old,” he said.

“It’s kind of been me and my mind.”