Home Alone has earned its place as a beloved holiday classic, and Macaulay Culkin has been touring the country to celebrate the film. Dubbed A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin, the actor hosts Home Alone screenings followed by a Q&A. During a recent screening in Illinois, Culkin said his Home Alone co-star Joe Pesci got a little too into character while they were rehearsing a scene and actually bit him.
“He was trying to scare me,” Culkin explained. “He was like, ‘I want to be menacing to this kid.’” The actor said Pesci took it a little too far while threatening to bite off the fingers of Culkin’s character and really bit down. “I have a scar,” Culkin said, adding that Pesci had a look of pure panic. “I saw his face — and I’ve never, ever seen Joe Pesci actually scared,” Culkin said. “Because he’s like, ‘I just bit a kid!’“
While Culkin may have been scarred during the production of the first Home Alone movie, Pesci got his own scars during Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. “The Home Alone movies were a more physical type of comedy, therefore, a little more demanding,” said Pesci several years ago. “In addition to the expected bumps, bruises, and general pains that you would associate with that particular type of physical humor, I did sustain serious burns to the top of my head during the scene where Harry’s hat is set on fire.“
The relationship between Culkin and Pesci may consist of scarred fingers and burnt noggins, but Culkin’s relationship with his on-screen mother is anything but. To this day, nearly thirty-five years after the release of the film, Culkin still calls Catherine O’Hara “mom,” and she “opens up her arms — she goes, ‘Son.’“
In fact, O’Hara showed up for Culkin’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony last year and gave him a touching tribute. “I know you worked really hard, I know you did, but you made acting look like the most natural thing in the world to do…Macaulay, congratulations,” O’Hara said. “You so deserve your star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And thank you for including me, your fake mom who left you home alone not once but twice, to share in this happy occasion. I’m so proud of you.“