The “Home Alone” star almost played hip-hop’s ultimate stalker.
“Stan” is a classic single. Eminem’s character study of a crazed stalker is as poignant now as the day it dropped, and it’s even become hip-hop shorthand for “intense fans.” A big part of why the song worked so well was the music video, which starred Devon Sawa as the titular character. Sawa, best known as the star of the Final Destination franchise, gives an utterly chilling yet sympathetic performance. It’s hard to imagine someone else doing a better job. That said, Macaulay Culkin was Eminem’s original choice.
Sawa shed light on his casting during a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, and blew our collective minds in the process. The actor revealed that he was the second choice to play Stan after Culkin turned it down. You read that right: Eminem wanted the star of Home Alone to play his obsessed fan. “Full disclosure: they went out to Macaulay Culkin first, I believe,” Sawa told the outlet. “I think that they wanted him, and he wasn’t available, or didn’t want to do it or whatever.”
Culkin was not technically an actor at the time, which may have contributed to his decision. The child star retired from Hollywood in 1995, and wouldn’t return to the big screen until Party Monster in 2003. The music video for “Stan,” meanwhile, came out in 2000.
Devon Sawa credited Dr. Dre with getting him the part. Apparently, the super producer saw Sawa in the first Final Destination and thought he would be a good fit. He turned out to be right. “There happened to be somebody in the casting office that knew somebody who was friends with me,” the actor recalled. He may have been the second choice, but Sawa considers “Stan” to be one of his career highlights. “It’s one of the proudest things I’ve been a part of,” he added. “I know it better now than I did that day. Because I’ve heard it millions of times since.”
Macaulay Culkin may have passed on “Stan,” but the actor actually has a pretty stellar music video resume. He appeared in the video for Michael Jackson’s iconic single “Black or White” in 1991, then returned for the Sonic Youth track “Sunday” in 1998. The actor popped up in the Pizza Underground’s “The Pizza Underground Demo” in 2014, which makes sense given that he was in the band. Culkin then played a crucified Kurt Cobain in the music video for Father John Misty’s 2017 song “Total Entertainment Forever.” He’s yet to make his hip-hop debut, but there’s still plenty of time.
