“Each year, Home Alone continues to be one of the top Christmas movies watched by families around the country. Now the Daily Mail has behind-the-scenes gossip from stars of the beloved film.”, — write: www.dailymail.co.uk
Seasoned Home Alone fans can recite the ‘Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal’ speech, recall the exact order of every prank suffered by the Wet Bandits, and draw the layout of the McCallister’s family home from memory.
But less likely is their knowledge of what really went down behind the scenes on the Chris Columbus-directed film, which made a star of Macaulay Culkin who played the savvy, quick-witted Kevin McCallister.
Now, 35 years after it premiered, the Daily Mail can reveal the secrets of life on set, from injuries kept quiet to carnage when the cameras stopped rolling and reports of a ‘weird’ visitor.
Terrie Snell, who played bespectacled Aunt Leslie, recalled how she and costars Joe Pesci (Harry), Daniel Stern (Marv) and Gerry Bamman (Leslie’s husband, Uncle Frank) suffered injuries during one particularly difficult scene.
Columbus, who directed the first and second films, previously admitted to putting ‘our stuntmen through hell.’
‘Every time we did a stunt, we thought these guys were dead, so we couldn’t laugh,’ he told the American Film Institute. ‘No one was laughing, we thought they actually hurt themselves… in person, you were always terrified that you were going to kill these guys because they did it all for real, only with padding.’
Despite taking safety precautions, such as Pesci wearing a ceramic helmet to prevent his head from catching on fire and Stern wearing rubber feet to protect him when stepping on glass, Snell, 81, said there were some injuries that were not made public.
‘There were a couple of little mishaps,’ she told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.
‘There was an issue with one of the Bandits and there was an issue with Uncle Frank and there was an issue with Aunt Leslie. We all got ourselves a bit injured, but it’s not something we really want to publicize.’
It is perhaps no surprise that injuries happened considering the sheer size of the cast – made up predominantly of excitable children.
Shooting was so chaotic that the kids were handled by ‘wranglers’ and forced to do homework in between takes.
Hillary Wolf, who played one of Kevin’s sisters Megan McCallister, recalled how they juggled acting with tutoring and enjoying some downtime – featuring a surprise visit from Michael Jackson.
‘Most of your downtime is you’re doing your schooling with the tutors,’ she said, while noting that, coincidentally, the set took place at a school, New Trier in Illinois, and so they would ‘go outside and there were big fields and it was pretty chill.’
The interior of the famous Home Alone mansion was actually a set filmed at the closed high school. A few exterior scenes were shot at the five-bedroom house.
‘Everything else pretty much… being on the plane to Paris or wherever, that was on the set. And then in Florida, that was a set. So most of it was set work,’ Wolf added.
Wolf, 48, went on to describe her onscreen mom, Catherine O’Hara, who played Kate McCallister, as ‘freaking hysterical.’
‘She was so good with us,’ Wolf said. ‘She was cool as could be. And so it was really fun. It was a fun set – it was chill. It wasn’t like some other sets.’
Meanwhile, Snell, who went on to open her talent management agency TalentINK nearly 25 years ago, remembered Pesci, now 82, bringing his dog on set. Spoiled with an on-set kiddie pool, the dog ‘loved to dive for golf balls and [play in the] swimming pool.’
Wolf, who quit acting at 14 years old to pursue her goals of competing in the Olympics for Judo, recalled how Culkin, now 45, got brownie points for bringing Jackson to set one day – something she described as ‘weird.’
‘I remember being out front at the house and a van rolls up with no windows, and my mom is with me, and she’s like, “Oh look, there’s a Michael Jackson impersonator,”‘ she recalled.
‘Well, obviously Michael Jackson was friends, became friends with Macaulay Culkin. He was in the [Black or White] video with him. So literally, Michael Jackson rolled up on set one day.
‘It was weird, but he was super friendly. He literally just came out and hung with all of us… and he just hung out for a few hours and he only hung out with the kids.’
Wolf, who was 12 when she shot the first film, was close with Culkin and his younger brother, Kieran Culkin, who played Kevin’s brother Fuller.
Thanks to them, she received her first kiss.
‘I hung out a lot with Macaulay and Kieran, his little brother who was there, and I think they were staying at the [former] Drake Hotel, and he had a security guard and all that. And since I lived in town, I would hang out,’ she recalled.
‘And a funny story, actually, my first kiss was Macaulay’s older brother Shane. So that’s why I was kind of hanging around a little bit more because we liked each other. And so we did a lot of fun stuff with all that.’
The romance may have been short-lived, but the Home Alone pay checks certainly weren’t – cast members still make money from the festive films.
Wolf, who now spends her time volunteering for various dog rescue organizations in Colorado such as National Mill Dog Rescue and Hwy 50 Freedom Ride, told the Daily Mail that she ‘randomly gets a check in the mail’ a few times a year.
‘Every time I get a check, I’m just like, “This is hilarious.” I love it. But it’s been 35 years and holding steady,’ she said. ‘Basically, the Screen Actors Guild figures it all out for you, and they’re the ones who send the checks, they collect the money [from the production companies].
‘I still get residuals on quite a few things that I do, but obviously, because of Home Alone one and two’s success, that’s the bulk of what I get.
‘I don’t even have it directly deposited. I let them mail it because I just think it’s so fun to randomly get a check in the mail for something. It’s a nice “paying for your vacations for the year” money.’
Something else very much still going strong is the friendships that were made. The cast is in constant communication via a private Facebook group, which, alongside Wolf and Snell, includes most of the siblings and the cousins from the first two movies.
‘We have a private Facebook and we interchange almost, well, at least once a week for sure,’ Wolf said. ‘We talk to each other, but the family has kind of stayed together, even though we’re all scattered across the country.’
The cast also tries to meet up at Home Alone reunions. ‘It’s like mama hadn’t taken care of all her little chicks,’ Snell said of their last meet-up. ‘We all get together and have meals and reminisce over making the film.’
This year marked the first time she had been reunited with her onscreen husband. ‘We had met at a Comic-Con in April and it was like, “Uncle Frank, honey!” I haven’t seen him in 35 years,’ she said of their meeting before adding with a laugh, ‘What a great way to keep our marriage together.’