Home Alone star Daniel Stern has been sharing his memories of the film on Facebook.
Stern, who you might know best as burglar Marv from Home Alones 1 and 2 – has been revealing some great photos and stories from his time making the classic Christmas movie.
There’s a wealth of stuff on his Facebook page, including his favourite Home Alone scene, what got him into comedy, and his memories of co-star Joe Pesci.
Pesci played fellow hapless robber Harry in the film, and together they made us laugh out loud as they fell into cheeky Kevin McCallister’s traps.
Stern reminisces about how he and ‘my dear friend and partner in crime’ created their characters together. And there’s some lovely pictures to go with it, too.
Another wonderful post is about his parents and their reaction to seeing him in the film.
‘The opportunity to do all of the fall-down-with-a-pillow-in-my-shirt silliness in Home Alone touched a very primal part of who I am and have always been,’ Stern said.
‘Maybe that is one of the things the audience enjoys when they watch the film- watching a grown man having the chance to step back to the magical time when his three year old self was awakened to joy of making people laugh, especially the grown ups. And as usual, my parents saw right through me. So blessed to still have them both in my life.’
He also revealed his favourite scene from the second film, which made director Chris Columbus laugh so hard he couldn’t speak.
This one you need to read in full, because it really is brilliant.
Stern said: ‘The reason it is so dear to me is because when I shot that scene we hadn’t yet rehearsed so I didn’t really know what to expect. Our director, Chris Columbus, had given me the basic blocking – to walk into the basement, make my way to the sink, grab hold of the spigots and then act like I was being electrocuted. From the corner of the basement they would be running two cameras, a wide shot and a closer angle, at the same time.
‘Take one began and I went over and grabbed the spigots and started shaking violently. I wiggled and screamed and shook and did everything else I could think of to be electrocuted in the funniest ways I knew how. But the director didn’t say “cut”. I figured I wasn’t giving him what he wanted so I just kept going, getting sillier and sillier, my voice traveling octaves above my normal voice. And still no “cut”.
‘I was out of moves so I decided to abandon ship by shivering and shaking my way out of frame and onto the floor. I figured Chris would have to end the shot now. But still no “cut”!
‘Now on the floor, I writhed and squirmed and spasmed, hoping that I wasn’t completely humiliating myself, but figuring there is always the forgiving “take two”. With a final flourish of my ridiculous “death scene”, I finally lay still on the floor. And still no “cut” from Chris.
‘Exhausted and out of ideas of what to do next, I wondered for a second if the crew had all gone to lunch or something. I broke character and rolled on my side to see what the heck was going on. And that is when I saw Chris Columbus, my fearless leader, lying on the floor as well. He was underneath the camera, howling with laughter, unable to say “cut” because he was going through his own spasms.
‘To make Chris laugh that hard was one of the greatest accomplishments of my acting life and I will never forget the feeling of locking eyes with him, both of us rolling around on the floor, kids making each other laugh on the funnest playground ever invented.’
‘Scuse us, we’re off to dig out our Home Alone VHS.
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