Joe Pesci suffered real burns and bruises making Home Alone 2

There is no greater joy during the holiday season than seeing tough guy Joe Pesci get tricked, walloped and burned by a ten-year-old boy. But some of those scars ended up being permanent.

On the occasion of the movie’s 30th anniversary, Joe Pesci–who played bumbling, hotheaded Wet Bandit Harry in the first two Home Alone movies–reflected on his time filming the 1992 sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, from his injuries to working with Macaulay Culkin.

“The Home Alone movies were a more physical type of comedy, therefore, a little more demanding,” said Pesci. “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.”

Joe Pesci also recalled that he spent very little–if any–time with Culkin. “I intentionally limited my interactions with him to preserve the dynamic between his character, Kevin, and my character Harry…I wanted to maintain the integrity of the adversarial relationship.” Sure, there’s that, but there’s also the fact that Pesci had his Home Alone schedule altered so he could play golf–without Kevin McCallister.

Both Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York are holiday classics. In a JoBlo.com poll, the first ranked as readers’ third favorite (after National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Die Hard–so, some could argue that it placed second…).

After a short-lived retirement between 1998’s Lethal Weapon 4 and 2006’s The Good Shepherd, Joe Pesci has turned up in only a selection of movies, most notably The Irishman, earning his third Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He is set to co-star in the upcoming Peacock series Bupkis.

What is your favorite scene from Home Alone and its sequel? Let us know in the comments below!