Brenda Song Learned to 'Not Take Anything Personally' as a Child Actor

Brenda Song and Macaulay Culkin are a couple that faced differing experiences as child stars. Where Culkin temporarily retired from the industry after his stardom in family comedies Home Alone and Richie Rich, Song leaned into the entertainment industry, having her mother, Mai Song, to support.

Song, who stars in upcoming drama The Last Showgirl, spoke at the Variety Studio at TIFF about the "vastly different" journeys that she and Culkin had as children. The couple are engaged and share two sons, two-year-old Dakota, and another who was born last March.

Joking that since she still loves acting that "something must be wrong with me," Song told Variety that she "learned not to take anything personally at a young age."

"Because the thing is, at the end of the day, this is just a job," she continued at around the 12:35 mark. "As with anyone at any job, everyone feels disposable. I think it's just harder to take on because sometimes it's like, 'No, you just don't look right. You're not tall enough.' And to not take that personally at a young age, I think is the difficult thing."

"Because you don't understand that, you don't understand this" she added. "It's a testament to my parents, who–this was just an after-school activity until I became an adult."

"And that certainly got me through and it really was just like me doing a play at school...It didn't become a career choice until my mom got breast cancer for the first time and I booked The Suite Life [of Zack and Cody] and also got into college, and I had to sort of chose which sort of direction I want to take, because it could no longer be an after school activity."

Along with being an advocate for her mom's recovery from breast cancer, Song turned down the opportunity to attend Harvard University. She instead chose to remain in Los Angeles while her mother got treatment and to further her career on Disney Channel as a teen.

"I sat down with my parents and they were like, 'You can go to college to figure out what you want to do,'" Song told Glamour in 2022. "'But if acting is what you want to do, you have an amazing opportunity to do it. But this is no longer an after-school activity. Mom can't take you, Dad has to work, so you have to drive yourself.'"

Song's also made sacrifices as a fiancée and mother, and Culkin acknowledged her during his Hollywood Walk of Fame acceptance last December.

"I'd like to thank Brenda. You're absolutely everything," he said. "You're the best person I've ever known. And after the birth of our two boys, you've become one of my three favorite people."