While reminiscing about the 30th anniversary of Home Alone 2, Joe Pesci recalled the painful experience of filming some of the stunts.
While the Home alone franchise has spawned its fair share of sequels, and a recent Disney+ reboot, the original two films remain the best of the lot. This year, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York celebrates her 30th birthday, and Joe Pesci recently reminisced about playing Harry in the movie. While talking to Varietythe Good day star recalled that while filming the iconic scene where Harry’s hat is set on fire, he suffered burns to his head. He said:
“Besides the expected punches, bruises and general pain you would associate with that particular kind of physical humor, I suffered severe burns on the top of my head during the scene where Harry’s hat is set on fire. I was lucky enough to have professional stuntmen do the really heavy stunts.”
Pesci went on to talk about working with Macaulay Culkin, who he noted was a true professional even at such a young age. He also noted that he purposely avoided being around Culkin when he wasn’t filming so he could keep some kind of threat alive between them. He continued:
“I remember Macaulay as a very sweet boy and, even at his age, very professional. I deliberately limited my interactions with him to maintain the dynamic between his character, Kevin, and my character, Harry. [I did not] wants to appear on screen that we were somehow friendly. I wanted to maintain the integrity of the adversarial relationship.”
Joe Pesci surprisingly appeared in a Google Assistant ad responding to his role as home alone
One of Joe Pesci’s last major roles was in 1998 Deadly weapon 4, and then the actor seemed to retire. He appeared in just a handful of films over the next two decades, but returned in a big way in 2019 as part of the cast of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. That movie saw him reunite with Good day star Robert De Niro and another movie icon, Al Pacino.
In the same year, Pesci surprisingly appeared in a Google ad in which he sat down and watched Home alone with friends. In the short video, which also included clips from Culkin’s previous Google Assistant commercial, Pesci celebrates “nailing it” as one of the Wet Bandits in the film.
As for Pesci’s role in the Home alone franchise goes, that ad will most likely be the only time we see it anywhere near the Harry character. As he concluded, it would be hard to replicate the success of the original films and times have moved on. He said:
“While you never say never, I think it would be difficult to replicate not only the success, but the overall innocence of the originals. It’s a different time now; attitudes and priorities have changed in 30 years.”