Director Chris Columbus looks back at 'Home Alone' 30 years later
Director Chris Columbus looks back at the making of Home Alone 30 years later. Columbus opens up about working alongside John Hughes, meeting Macaulay Culkin for the first time, and how Chris Farley audutioned for a role that ultimately went to someone else.
Video Transcript
- I can't seem to find my toothbrush, so I'll pick one up when I go out today. Other than that, I'm in good shape. Ah!
KEVIN POLOWY: Happy 30th anniversary, very excited to talk to you about "Home Alone," such a classic in every sense. A movie that was such a big part of my childhood, like so many of your other films. What can you tell us about the first time "Home Alone" came into your life?
CHRIS COLUMBUS: I was living in Chicago. I'd just come off a film that did not do particularly well at the box office, or critically, in fact, it was dead. It died at the box office. So, I was staying with my wife's parents in Chicago, and John Hughes and I had the same agent. So, John called me, sent me a script for "Christmas Vacation". So I said I was going to do "Christmas Vacation," even shot second unit for "Christmas Vacation," and then I met Chevy Chase. And the long and short of it is, we did not hit it off.
He didn't treat me very well, and I was down on my luck, and I hadn't, you know, I had everything to lose. I needed that movie, but I had to call John and say, I can't work with this guy. And John understood, and I thought well, that's the kiss of death. John's never going to want to work with me again because I led him down this road. And two weeks later, he sends me the script for "Home Alone."
- I've made my family disappear.
CHRIS COLUMBUS: And I jumped on it. And I was thankful because even back then, I knew this was a very special movie. So, we dove into it and John and I ended up working together, and, you know, we started to make the movie in Chicago. Weirdly, John wrote the script in about 2 days. I mean, he wrote it over a weekend. The script was in great shape.
So, I brought little things to it here and there. Probably the most important thing I brought to the movie was the, you know, not only the visual style, the look of the movie, but also the-- I intensified the relationship between-- I wanted the film to be more emotional so I intensified the relationship between Kevin and Old Man Marley who lived across the street. So, at the very end of the movie, when Kevin walks up to the window and he sees Marley reunited with his granddaughter and son and they exchange a wave, that to me, was the moment that I added that wasn't in the script. To me, that really cements the picture emotionally.
I really think I brought casting to the movie. Except for Macaulay, who John had in mind the entire time. Even though I wanted to see 300 other actors because I felt it was my directorial responsibility, I ended up going with Macaulay because he was such a unique kid. Incredibly charismatic, he didn't look like he came out of the Hollywood cookie cutter world of film. You know, he didn't look like some kid you see on a TV show. This was a real kid. His ear was a little bent, you know, he had a funny, cute smile, and he was funny and charming. So, he was always onboard.
KEVIN POLOWY: Do you remember meeting Macaulay for the first time and, sort of like, you know, where his head was at, about to lead, this lead, this film at such a young age?
CHRIS COLUMBUS: I think Macaulay was like most of the kids that age I've worked with whose parents, sort of, you know, nudge them into the industry a little bit. They want to be there. Sometimes I don't want to be there. I'd seen Mac in "Uncle Buck," and I thought he was hilarious. It was a short scene with John Candy.
- Who are you?
- I'm your Uncle Buck.
CHRIS COLUMBUS: I met him and his father at my New York apartment at the time when I was living in New York. And I, you know, we just sat at the table, and we read a couple of scenes. And he was just extraordinarily charming, and I thought this kid is a movie star. He's a real movie star.
KEVIN POLOWY: And of course, there's another Culkin brother in there as well. I can't forget Kieran, who steals a moment or two as the-- the Pepsi-loving Fuller, the-- the look he gives Mac at that moment. It makes sense that he became such a great actor because he-- he had it. Were the Culkins like, hey if you like Mac, check out our other son as well. Is that a package deal?
CHRIS COLUMBUS: I don't think it was a package deal, but I think Kieran came to a rehearsal we were having at the time. And, he just had that-- we had the look that he had in the movie. And then when we put the glasses on him, he became Fuller. It was an acting family. I think, the father was an actor. The father, if I remember correctly, his sister was Bonnie Bedelia. There were a lot of good actors in that family. And Kieran has turned into quite the actor, you know.
KEVIN POLOWY: Absolutely. What was the dynamic like between Mac and then Joe and Daniel on set? I mean, did they do anything to sort of antagonize each other behind the scenes?
CHRIS COLUMBUS: They actually spent very little time together. So, we only had Mac for a few hours at night and a few hours during the day. So, in the scenes where they are together, Danny and Joe would help Mac out a little bit, you know, sometimes with his lines if I were doing a three-shot. Then, when it was time for them to leave the set, I would have to be off camera performing with Macaulay because he was very new to the industry, and it's no secret that I would just get him, I would, basically, which is what you don't do with actors like Joe Pesci, is give them a line read. So, with Macaulay, I would give him line reading after line reading until we had about 25 versions of that line.
So that was my process with him. Then, when he went home at night, and I thought, I'd have to be on camera for Joe and Danny. And I'd have to get on my knees and pretend that I was Macaulay, and I didn't have to give them line readings, but that's how the process worked. They were rarely together.
KEVIN POLOWY: What were the most challenging scenes for you guys to capture? I gotta imagine that the stunts have to be up there.
CHRIS COLUMBUS: The stunt men-- there were no wires. We didn't use wires. We didn't use visual effects. So the stuntmen were out there really kicking their own asses. And basically, we would shoot a stunt. Someone falling down the stairs. Someone getting hit with a paint can landing on a hardwood floor. I'd yell cut, total silence. Everybody in the crew thought, he's dead, because he wasn't moving.
And I'll go up to the actor. It's happened time and time again on every stunt, you guys, you OK? And Troy would get up and, say, yeah, I'm fine. Wanna do it again? And then we would go back to the monitor, watch the scene, and everyone would laugh hysterically. So, essentially, it wasn't funny when we were shooting, when it live, when you saw it in person. It was only when you knew that everyone was safe and sound that you could breathe a sigh of relief.
KEVIN POLOWY: Who did Macaulay's stunts?
CHRIS COLUMBUS: A little person, a guy named Larry. So, who, who is Macaulay's size and was a tough guy, and did, would do all of his stunts. I think, if you freeze frame, bits of the movie, you can see that it's Larry.
KEVIN POLOWY: I know what I'm doing tonight. I read that Chris Farley auditioned for Santa Claus. Is this true? Do you remember this?
CHRIS COLUMBUS: Yeah, it was an 8 o'clock, 7:30 on a Saturday morning. Chris, who I knew from New York, I've always thought he was a hilarious guy and a real sweetheart of a guy, came in, decided he was just going to hang out in Chicago, and hit every bar in Chicago before he came to the audition. So, poor Chris was not particularly prepared for that audition, and would, he would have been great in the role.
KEVIN POLOWY: Was it a matter of him blowing the audition or more of the matter going I don't know if-- we can work with this guy if this is how it's going to show up.
CHRIS COLUMBUS: Well, he didn't blow the audition. Let's just say he had a few drinks.
KEVIN POLOWY: One of my all time favorite fun facts about "Home Alone" especially because it seems like people are still discovering this to this day. Like, every once in a while you see a tweet of amazement pop up. "Angels with Filthy Souls", the black and white gangster movie that famously makes a couple appearances, is not a real movie. Not everyone knows that. Do you, do you find that people like are continually surprised to hear this?
- Keep the change, you filthy animal.
- Mom!
CHRIS COLUMBUS: I just heard that last week Seth Rogen and Chris Evans thought it was a real movie. I don't know when they found out it wasn't. But, the thing about "Home Alone" is that it was the last movie to use this process called carbon arc light. Carbon arc lighting is what they used in technicolor films in the 30s and 40s and 50s to give a warm, rich, vibrant colors. Also used in black and white to give those really intense blacks and whites.
They're basically lights where you take a piece of charcoal this big, put it in the light, and you light it, and that's what fuels the light. And it creates a look that you haven't seen in 30 years. We were the last movie to use them, and in a sense that's why "Home Alone" has that richness of color and warmth. And that's also why "Angels with Filthy Souls" looks like it was shot in, you know, 1945.
- What else did you do while we were away?
- Just hung around.
