Culkin says John Candy looked out for him on Uncle Buck set

Macaulay Culkin says the late comedian John Candy watched out for him on the set of the 1989 comedy Uncle Buck, telling a new documentary that Candy was among the first adults to notice problems at home when Culkin was a child actor. The film, John Candy I Like Me, directed by Colin Hanks, had its world premiere Thursday, Sept. 4, as the opening film of the Toronto International Film Festival.

In on-camera remarks included in the documentary, Culkin recalled Candy showing a paternal concern while they worked together. Culkin said Candy "always had that really great instinct" and "was looking a little sideeyed" toward Culkin's family, asking in effect, "Is everything all right over there?" Culkin added that the attention stuck with him because such care was rare, saying, "I remember John caring when not a lot of people did."

Culkin has long spoken publicly about a fraught relationship with his father, Kit Culkin. In the documentary he describes his father as difficult and, in the film's language, "already a monster" before the stardom and money that followed Home Alone. Culkin was a child on the set of Uncle Buck, variously recalled as eight or nine at the time in different...