There's one question Kieran Culkin gets asked a lot about She's All That. Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with with making the Shermanator hoover a pizza with some really disgusting seasoning. Nor is it a request for him to do the "Sega!" line. In fact, it's something more random than that, and it has to do with his ears.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, when the subject of the 1999 teen rom-com She's All That came up, and Culkin revealed the question his friends constantly ask him...
It’s one of those movies that always seems to be on—and I only know that because friends are always telling me, and then they’ll ask, ‘Why did you have hearing aids?’ and I’ll be like, ‘I don’t fucking know!’
And that's that.
In the film about a dreamy guy (Freddie Prinze Jr.) who accepts a bet to turn the artsy Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook) into the prom queen, Kieran Culkin plays Simon, Laney's sweet but bullied little brother, who happens to wear hearing aids. His hearing issue never factors into the plot in any way, which is likely why Culkin gets asked that question. Are there some deleted scenes out there that explain or address his hearing? From Culkin's response, it doesn't sound like it.
Chalk it up to a bit of character information about Simon that wasn't crucial enough to warrant any kind of back-story or relevance to the plot. It remains one of the great mysteries of the 90s. See also: How are all these high school kids such good dancers...
Wish Usher had gone to my high school.
We'll also probably never know how Simon mastered the art of air-kissing...
That's just classic annoying-little-brother behavior right there. But there are some things probably better left unquestioned.
If, right now, you're wishing you could watch She's All That, you're in luck. It's available streaming on Netflix.
