I mean, what was I going to say? It was such a loaded situation. It was so embarrassing to be fired on the spot with no warning and for no offense, and having the bald wig and clown makeup on felt like the perfect, humiliating costume to receive the news in. I couldn’t even go back in the trailer. I grabbed my stuff and got in my car, where I pulled off the bald cap, wiped off my face, and drove home.
The first thing I did was call the folks at The Wonder Years and tell them I had been let go and wanted to come back and direct the episode I had left. The first AD and producers were mensches and said of course, because they knew how much it hurt to have the movie fall apart and how important it was for me to get back to work rather than stew in my own juices. I went back to work the next day and dove into prep again. In some ways, it was a relief. I had been about to ditch Laure and force her to pack up the whole house, move the family to the new house in Moss Beach, and start the kids in a new school all by herself. Now we could all start that new life together.
Two days later, I was at home when my agent called and said that Rick had changed his mind and was dropping out of the film again. They wanted me back. I was stunned, exhausted, and thoroughly confused. My agent said we might be able to get more money, but that was not the issue.
“The issue is I am back directing, which I love, and I can’t be so flaky and leave again. It was wrong to leave Laure with all the responsibility and logistics of the huge move, especially since the whole thing was my idea to start with. And besides, I have my stupid pride. It was so embarrassing the way the firing happened that I don’t really feel like going back. I have many other commitments and I am exhausted, and therefore please tell them that I pass, that I am not going to just pack up everything at the drop of a hat and leave my responsibilities.” I hung up with my agent and felt the real weight of how tired this rollercoaster had made me. I went into the bedroom and fell asleep. To this day, I remember it as one of the deepest and most energizing naps I have ever had.
When I woke up, I realized what a stupid decision I had made! My pride had made me shortsighted, just like it did when I left Home Alone. What an opportunity I was throwing away—an incredible part, the best actors, a ton of money, experiences I would never have any other way—and my wife was willing to shoulder unfathomable burdens to see that the family was taken care of while I pursued these dreams. I came out of the bedroom to messages on my answering machine from Billy, the director, the producers, and my agent, all begging me to reconsider. I was already planning to beg them to take me back, so it was nice to be begged as well. I called everyone back, told them what a great nap I had, that I was an idiot, and that I couldn’t wait to get started. I once again backed out of my directing job at The Wonder Years, which was embarrassing, but the First AD couldn’t have been happier. The next day I packed up my stuff and had a very nice panic attack and cry, with Laure and the kids comforting me and telling me that everything would be fine. I took a small plane to Durango, Colorado. Upon arrival, the teamster driver didn’t take me to the hotel or the production office, but instead drove me into the beautiful mountains outside the town. I was met by Jack Lilley, a few other wranglers, and TJ, saddled up and ready to go. The sun was setting as Jack led us on a trail ride into God’s country, TJ surefooted and steady on the tight mountain trails, and me holding on to the saddle horn for dear life.
RIDE ’EM, COWBOY!
It was a great way to start the film, shot out of a cannon into an unknown situation, needing to do things I had no idea how to do and wanting to not only survive but succeed. After all, that is exactly what City Slickers is about, and my character, Phil, is probably the least prepared of all the friends. The first scenes we shot took place in the middle of the movie, in the thick of the shitstorm, having completely lost control of the cows, who escape into the woods, and which we must somehow capture and drive back to the main herd. I was on TJ’s back, riding chaotically through a forest of trees, herding a hundred cows while a rain machine blasted a torrential downpour. Billy had an amazing horse named Beechnut who he could get to do all sorts of tricks—walking backwards, sideways, cross-stepping stuff. (They bonded so much that he kept Beechnut after the movie was over.) Bruno was also quite comfortable in the saddle. Mickey Gilbert was the stunt coordinator on the film. He had become a Hollywood legend when he doubled Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, jumping off the waterfall in the iconic scene of that movie. I had worked with Mickey on four films already—Honky Tonk Freeway, Blue Thunder, Milagro Beanfield War, and Coupe de Ville—and I loved and admired him. He knew I liked to play and have fun doing stunts, and I knew I could trust him with my life and he would never put me in danger by asking me to do something he didn’t think I could do. On the wide shots, and shots where we had to gallop, Troy Gilbert, one of Mickey’s sons, doubled for me, but I was doing a lot of the riding myself. They all knew I had no idea how to ride, but Troy would rehearse TJ for each particular shot so by the time I got on his back, I just had to hold on and let TJ do his thing.
Ron Underwood was the perfect director for the film. He had a great eye for real-feeling action that made room for the characters and the comedy to shine through. He is a kind and reasonable man, and maybe most importantly, collaborative. This was Billy’s vision from the beginning. He developed the script, wrote it with Lowell and Babaloo, executive produced the movie, starred in it, and was intimately involved in all aspects of the film, including hiring Ron. So Ron was very respectful of Billy’s input, but not to the point of being a pushover. He had a firm hand on the set and was very organized, leading the crew with great humor through mud and rain and cow shit to get every scene shot and every moment covered with no stress. Billy and he would talk after each take, maybe watch video playback, and make sure everyone was happy before we moved on to the next shot. We got through those first tough days with no problems—until the dailies came back.
It was a tradition at the time to screen dailies almost every night after the shoot. The cast and crew were invited to watch the footage so that everyone could see what had been shot and the director and crew could make adjustments. They served food and beer, and it was a great way to unwind together and enjoy new friends outside of work. So about three days into the shoot, we all gathered in the production office for the first day of dailies. Two astounding things happened.
The first is that it turns out that on film, I was a better horseback rider than either Billy or Bruno. And when I say better, I mean worse. My horseback riding was so bad that I was getting huge laughs. Billy and Bruno were riding like the semi-professionals that they had become—low in the saddle, reins loose in the hands, and commanding their horses. But I looked like a real city slicker, hanging on to the horn, sliding around the saddle, unbalanced, and bouncing up and down, investing my real ineptitude and fear into my character’s comic lines and actions. I looked ridiculously out of my element, and TJ had made me feel safe enough to find the comedy and the character. Billy was sitting up front, and when the reel ended, he had an epiphany. “Fucking Stern is getting all the laughs. We are supposed to not know how to ride, just like him. Bruno and I need to ride a lot worse because we look like we know what we’re doing.” The next day of shooting, the two of them tried to ride as badly as I did, but they couldn’t even come close. They bounced around and tried to look unbalanced, but they had gotten too good. It took them a few days of shooting to finally be able to be as convincingly bad at riding as I was. Next time you watch the film, see if you can spot it.
The second thing that happened at those first dailies was not as trivial. Bruno was playing a city slicker who was a wanna-be tough guy, complete with a Burt Reynolds-style mustache, and thought it would be good for his character to have a big wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek. But while we were watching the dailies, it became apparent that he had so much tobacco in his mouth that it was difficult to understand his lines. Also, that much tobacco produces an enormous amount of tobacco juice and that juice needs spitting. He couldn’t complete any of his lines without interrupting himself with a cowboy spit-take, and it was distracting. When the lights came up, Billy and Ron pulled Bruno aside to talk to him about how he should cut way back on the chew, or maybe not use it at all, because it was really messing with the comedic rhythms of the scenes. Bruno got very defensive, saying they didn’t know what they were talking about, and that it was his character to create, not theirs. But they wanted to address it early, after we had all just seen what a distraction it was. Bruno really got his back up, voices were raised, and he ended up storming out of the room. And that was it. He decided that he and Billy were no longer friends, breaking a twenty-yearold best-friendship on the spot. As far as I know, he did not speak to Billy ever again. Not during the entire filming of the movie or in all the years afterward. It crushed Billy. I don’t think it affected the film at all, because they are both such professionals, but it was a wound on the psyche of the set and so unnecessary.
The upside for me was that it drew me and Billy close. We started going to dinner together after work. I could see how hurt and confused he was about this small comment taking down their entire friendship. We would have a lot of laughs and talk about the movie, but the conversation always went back to Bruno. He struggled between feeling guilty for having said anything, and feeling angry that Bruno would take it this far, especially after Billy wrote the role for him and went to bat to get him the part. I wanted to be the go-between, but I really didn’t know either of them very well yet. Bruno was nice to me, but I could see he didn’t want to fix his problem with Billy, so I stayed out of it, focusing instead on the marvelous part I was playing and the phenomenally talented people I was playing with. Billy crushed his part in every scene, Bruno was great and funny, the rest of the gang of city slickers were all perfect for their parts, and the scenes flowed so easily because the script was so well written. When Jack Palance came on the set, everyone had to up their game just a little bit more. His character dies halfway through the movie, so he was only on set for a few weeks, but it was so fun to act with a real live Western Movie Star, especially playing the sad and meek character I was portraying.
Every day was a new challenge and another great scene. Phil was a great role. He goes through an enormous change, with very emotional moments always punctuated by world-class jokes. My wife leaves me, I have a breakdown, I save Billy’s character from drowning, fight the bad guy, and get the girl in the end. The locations were where they had shot many old westerns and were stunning and peaceful. TJ was an awesome horse and I ended up doing things I never would have dreamed I could do. When Billy’s character gets swept down the river, I chased him on horseback along the riverbank, jumped off the horse, ran out into the river on a slippery log, and reached out and grabbed him heroically just before he went over a waterfall. In another scene, I rode TJ as we slid down a long muddy embankment, then crossed a rushing river with all the cows swimming around us in the deep and fast water. It was thrilling to do this scene, especially knowing there were safety people everywhere and trusting TJ completely. The horseback riding culminates with the three of us galloping across the open plains while singing the theme from Bonanza. These were amazing, eight-year-old Danny’s fantasy moments coming to life, moments I still cherish to this day.
Meanwhile, while I was having the adventure of a lifetime, Laure was in a living hell. All by herself, she had packed up our house, moved the three kids to Moss Beach, enrolled them in their new schools, unpacked all our stuff, and everything else that goes into a life-changing move to a brand-new town. I finally got three days off together, and I flew back to see everyone and our new house. When I arrived at the house, before I even got to give everyone a hug and a kiss, a very low-flying airplane buzzed right over my head. What the fuck? Now the kids were jumping on me, and Laure and I were hugging and kissing hello, and another plane came buzzing right overhead. What the double fuck? When I said to Laure, “Wow, does that happen often?” she looked very upset, and we decided to ignore it for the time being. There were so many planes buzzing our house that weekend that we had to ignore it, because the problem was so big that it would have overwhelmed the weekend. But the turd in the punchbowl was definitely there. We had only seen the house twice, both days so magical and beautifully misty. But that mist meant those were not good days to fly, so there were no planes taking off from the AIRPORT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL THAT GAVE FLYING LESSONS ALL DAY LONG, WITH ITS TAKEOFF PATTERN RIGHT OVER OUR HOUSE, THAT NO ONE TOLD US ABOUT!!! The dream of moving the family to a quiet place in a small town was immediately shattered, and I was crushed. Every plane overhead was a reminder that I was an idiot to have bought this house so impulsively, that I was a terrible husband for leaving Laure to deal with it, and that when City Slickers was over, I would either have to try to sell this piece-of-shit house and move the family again, or I would have to have my ears removed and a possible lobotomy. We did decide that we were definitely not selling the house on Highridge Drive, because we might be moving back into it. I was so discombobulated that I could hardly focus on reconnecting with the kids and Laure. When it was time to go back to work, I was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but truthfully, it was also a relief.
It was right about this time that my little movie, Home Alone, hit the theaters. Until this point in my career, I had never given one thought to the Box Office Numbers. Never. The only thing I ever paid attention to was critical response and if it was running in the theaters. Breaking Away and Diner were critics’ darlings and they played for a couple of months in a few theaters in each city. Milagro Beanfield War was loved by the critics but stopped playing in the theaters pretty quickly. Blue Thunder had a good run and others had been ignored. But there was a whole other Hollywood game going on that I knew nothing about called, “Who Is Number One at the Box Office This Week?” I have since learned that this is the only Hollywood game that matters, because it means that your movie is making the most money of everyone’s movies. That’s the reason the studios make movies: to make money. Billy of course knew how important it was when he came into the makeup trailer one day with his Hollywood Reporter trade paper and told me that Home Alone had opened at Number One. I had no idea of the significance, but it was certainly good news. The next week we were Number One again, and Billy was impressed that such a little movie could stay at Number One for two weeks in a row. This went on every week for the rest of filming, because Home Alone went on to be the longest running Number One movie in history, staying in that slot for twelve straight weeks. Each week, Billy was more and more incredulous, trying to make me understand that this was a very big deal, but I had no idea of any way to take advantage of it as an opportunity for advancement. I was just proud of the movie, and the thought of audiences laughing at all of the silly stuff I had done made me smile. All I knew was that I was working on a great film and hoping I could get another good job after this one ended, and maybe Home Alone would help.
We finished the shooting in LA, where I had some great scenes to do. There was a comically humiliating scene of my wife and I losing our shit and getting divorced in a big party scene, ending with me spending the night in a child’s bed at Billy’s house, sharing the room with his son, played by a sweet and funny kid named Jake Gyllenhaal in his first movie ever. (I like to think I made a huge impression on him and kind of taught him everything he knows about acting in that one little scene. You’re welcome, Jake.) But the craziest scene we did was recreating the traditional Running of the Bulls in Pamplona on the back lot of Universal Studios, the opening scene of the movie. We had been talking to Ron Underwood for weeks about how he was planning on shooting this sequence. He had been such a stickler for realistic action with everything else so far, so we were a bit concerned about how he would give it that same realistic feeling without us having to actually run down the street with real bulls chasing us. He assured us it would be done safely. They were building a series of low fences along the authentic-looking Pamplona street. The bulls would be running on one side of the fence, and we would be running on the other, but with the right camera angles and lenses, it would look like we were running right with them. The day we got to the set for that scene, the first thing we noticed was that there were no fences.
“Where are the fences?” we asked Ron.
“Oh, yeah. We tried some camera tests with them, but it didn’t work, so we took them down.”
“Oh, well what is the new plan?”
“The new plan is that you guys are really going to run with the bulls. But we are going to have a couple of stunt guys running right behind you so that if any of the bulls go crazy, they can try to stop them before they get to you.”
“The stunt guys are going to stop the bulls? How will they do that?”
“You know, like rodeo clowns. They distract them or something. Now, let’s get out there and give it a try.”
I can see why they saved this scene to shoot last, because it was one of the most dangerous and crazy things I have ever done. When they said, “Action,” Billy, Bruno, and I took off running with all of the extras and stuntmen. Then the wranglers released about fifty or a hundred wild bulls, who chased us down the street! When the shot ended, we ducked into a doorway or found someplace “safe” to hide until the bulls ran past us. Then the cowboys would herd the bulls back to the starting place so we could do it again. After several takes, the bulls were onto the game and stopped running so hard. You would think that would make it safer, but no. Instead, the wranglers started firing off shotguns to spook the bulls and get them to run even harder. Absolutely crazy. On one take, Billy got tripped up and fell down on the sidewalk. I was able to scoop him up and drag us both into a doorway. We were both kind of shaken up, and it was the only time I felt they were pushing us into unsafe territory. But having survived it, I am so glad it happened that way. I mean, I actually got to run with the bulls in Pamplona!
The movie wrapped, and I finally got to go home to Moss Beach. It would be good to have time to get to know my new house, my new town, and finally get to focus on my beautiful wife and magnificent children. And those fucking planes.
SEQUEL TIME
Moss Beach was beautiful. We committed to staying there at least through the school year, and we actually loved it. The planes still made me crazy, and I felt stupid for having not done enough homework on the property before we bought it, but we made the most of it. I signed up to coach Henry’s Little League team. The school seemed nice, and the teachers were good. There was a sweet little tavern just down the hill and Laure and I would go there for drinks on occasion. The neighbors were good people, and it was what we had hoped for living in a small town. Except for one thing—Home Alone. The movie was a worldwide sensation, and I had suddenly become more famous than I ever could have imagined. In the eyes of our neighbors, and especially the kids in school, Marv had moved to Moss Beach. It was a layer of weirdness that made us all feel a little out of place. I could hide as much as I wanted to, but my kids had to deal with it every day. Being the new kids without any old friends, they suddenly had to navigate these uncharted waters, trying to figure out who actually wanted to be their friend and who was just trying to get invited over so they could meet Marv. I still feel bad that they had to go through that confusion. It was weird enough being an adult and dealing with it.
Home Alone was so big that my agent got a call saying they were going to make a sequel to the movie, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and would I be interested in being in it. My answer was simple and to the point—Hell, yes!!! A sequel, are you kidding me? I had never even thought about being in something that would be worthy of a sequel, but this would be fun. And lucrative! Sequel money! It was announced in the Hollywood Reporter that Macaulay Culkin had signed up for the film and was being paid five million dollars and 5 percent of the gross box office. Not bad for a ten-year-old kid. I started fantasizing about what my salary might be, doing the calculus to try to figure out my relative worth. I knew Mac was the star of the show, but Joe and I seemed securely in second place. So I told my agent to just get me whatever Pesci was getting and that would be fair, and he said he would get back to me.
The movie wouldn’t start until the fall, so I tried to take my foot off the gas pedal, career-wise, and keep it simple for a while. I would drive up the coast into San Francisco once a week to record The Wonder Years and fly down to LA to direct a couple of episodes too, crashing at our Highridge Drive house. I was getting good at directing, freer with the camera, the actors and producers trusting me. And I had enough credentials to start making the leap into directing a movie. I interviewed for a couple of films, but my agents didn’t seem to have much of an interest in my directing career because I could make a lot more money as an actor.
But the negotiations for Home Alone 2 were going nowhere. It took months for them to even make me an offer, and when they did, it was for six hundred thousand dollars, double my original salary, but not quite the pot of gold I was hoping for. I asked if that was the same as Joe was getting, and they said it was not. They didn’t know what Joe was getting, but the studio wouldn’t tie my salary to his. It was every man for himself. I asked if I could see the script, and they told me it wasn’t ready yet. I thought it was crazy to ask me to sign up for a film that I hadn’t even read the script for. But I also felt that old feeling—“You almost fucked it up the first time, backing out of Home Alone because of a small amount of money and time. And you also almost walked away from City Slickers because of your pride. So don’t be greedy and fuck this up too! That is more money than you have ever made in your life!” But I did need to see the script to know what they were asking me to do, so I used that to delay closing the deal, which just added to the stress. I was on edge anyway, because by now, Laure and I had come to the decision that we had to get out of that house. Every time a plane flew over my head, my PTSD kicked in, which in turn made Laure feel horrible and helpless to help me.
So when the school year ended, we sold the Moss Beach house to a commercial pilot, who loved the sounds of airplanes taking off and landing. Go figure. We all moved back into the Highridge Drive house, but it still had all the same issues that made us leave in the first place. We spent that summer escaping up to Malibu to visit Cheech and to hang out at Westward Beach—a beautiful, wide, empty beach where the kids would play until the sun went down and we would eat peanut butter and lettuce sandwiches. And one day it dawned on us, “Why don’t we live out here? Instead of commuting out here to be at the beach, why don’t we live at the beach, and I will commute into the city?” We found a house to rent and moved in just before the school year started. Malibu was everything Moss Beach was supposed to be—a small town, a surf town, nature all around, great neighbors. The school was small but smart, and I could drive into town whenever I needed to. And I wasn’t the only famous person in the town. There weren’t that many celebrities out there at the time, but Johnny Carson, Lou Gossett Jr., and Barbra Streisand certainly outshone me by a mile, which was weirdly comforting and let me function like a normal person again. We would live in Malibu for the next twenty-five years.
I finally got the Home Alone 2 script, and it was so good! John Hughes is a genius. He had written another brilliant comedy and given my character a ton of funny and silly stuff to do. In the first movie, Harry and Marv start off feeling threatening, especially Harry, but by the end, you know what idiots they really are. In the sequel, John wrote them as live-action cartoons from page one. So that meant even more physical comedy challenges. I knew I had to do this movie, no matter what, but I also wanted to get a fair deal. Knowing Mac’s salary was five million plus percentages made my offer look pretty unfair, especially because the sequel would showcase my character just as much as anyone’s. I knew they couldn’t do the movie without me, but I was also insecure, since I almost blew it the first time. I didn’t want to be too greedy when I loved the movie and the part so much, which was why I was an actor to begin with. The studio upped their offer to eight hundred thousand dollars, but I also found out that Joe was getting somewhere between two and three million plus gross percentage of the profits. My agent told me this was the best he could do, that I should take the offer, and we would get a better payday somewhere in the future. So I did what any rational person would do. I fired my agent. It was a prideful thing to do, but I also knew that if this was the best he could do, then he wasn’t very good at his job.
The movie was supposed to start shooting in the winter, so I stayed home, took the kids to their new schools, and tried to deal with the game of chicken the producers were playing. With no agent, I now had to negotiate my own deal. I accepted that Mac was the star attraction. And I accepted that Pesci was a bigger star than me, so he could probably get more money than me. My position was that I wanted one point five million and 2 percent of the same kind of percentage that Joe and Mac were getting, whatever that was. They would not budge, and I would not budge. (I guess they hadn’t heard about my epic battle with the Washington Shakespeare Festival, where I held out for the hundred dollars I was owed.) The film was shooting in New York, and I wouldn’t go until I had a contract. By this point, it was days away from shooting and they were painting themselves into a corner. There was no way they could rewrite the whole script without me, and I wasn’t getting on a plane until it was squared away. I finally got a call from the head of the studio, my old friend Joe Roth. I explained my position and why I felt justified, especially compared to what my fellow actors were getting and the contribution I made to the success of the first one—and the one we were about to do. He was empathetic and said he would personally explain the situation to business affairs people. He said it would take time to resolve it and asked me to start shooting, even though I didn’t have a contract. I trusted Joe completely and agreed to go. Confident it would get resolved somehow, I finally felt the thrill of knowing that I was about to start filming a ridiculously funny film, with a great part, tons of old friends to work with, and making a boatload of money at the same time.
I got to New York and reunited with Chris Columbus, Joe Pesci, and John Hughes. My dearest old friend John Heard was back playing the dad and our insane stunt men, Leon Delaney and Troy Brown, were back too. I hadn’t worked in New York since we moved away, and it was exhilarating to shoot a big movie there. My dad had a meeting in New York and came to the set, one of the only times any of my family have been on one of my movie sets. I was dressed as Marv, with an iron-shaped scar on my head, hiding behind a tree or whatever stupid thing I was doing that particular day, and my dad was there to try to find solutions to homelessness and social justice. But I have a picture of us on that day, and I do see a hint of pride beaming through. He knew this was something extraordinary and was tickled to see his kid being good at what he does.
One of my favorite New York scenes was the one where the bird lady throws bird seed on us and we get attacked by a flock of pigeons. The pigeon wrangler told us the plan—Joe and I would lie down, he would throw food on us, and the flock of pigeons would land and cover us up. And he wasn’t kidding. There were so many fucking pigeons! It felt weird lying under them, having them walk around on us and peck food off us. Joe decided he wasn’t going to do it, so Troy laid down with me instead. I had the idea that when we were attacked, I would rise up out of the pigeons and recreate the scream I used in the first Home Alone when the tarantula crawled on my face. We got in position, the wrangler covered us in bird food, and an enormous flock of pigeons practically drowned us. My eyes were squeezed tight because I didn’t want to get shit or piss in my eyes, or get my eyes scratched out by pigeon claws as I waited for the director to yell “Action.” It seemed to take a very long time for him to give the command, but he finally did. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to emit my trademark howl, only to have my tongue meet the raw belly of a live pigeon! It was a taste and a sensation I will never be able to forget—salty, slimy, warm, goose-fleshed, alive—and instead of a scream, I could only leap to my feet and try to spit that shit out of my mouth, and mind, as fast as I could. We did take after take, 50 percent of which included having more live pigeons in my mouth, but we got the scene the way we wanted it, so I guess it was worth the recurring nightmares I experience.
One of the bit players in the movie was Donald Trump. He was a crass and ridiculous New York character at that point, and he had just taken another bite out of the Big Apple when he bought the famed Plaza Hotel which, at the time, was the opposite of crass and ridiculous. Donald ended up doing a cameo, but his real contribution was letting us film there, lending the luster of the Plaza to the movie. The day he was filming, he asked to meet me. He was a “huge” fan of mine and the producers wanted me to chat him up, so I did. He was not a great conversationalist and kind of a nothing personality, but the meeting paid off brilliantly. The Oak Room is the bar inside the Plaza Hotel. One night Leon, Troy, and I were hanging out there drinking, when who should walk through the bar but Donald and Ivana, his wife at the time, waving to the guests and wanting to have his picture taken. (I now recognize that behavior when he crashes people’s weddings at Mar-a-Lago.) Donald spotted us and proclaimed so everyone could hear that he would be picking up the tab at our table. We all raised a glass to him in thanks and he left the bar, feeling like the host-with-the-most. We drank until there was no more booze left in that bar. We stayed until four in the morning, closing time in New York, and bought round after round of drinks for the entire bar. To this day, Leon and I dispute how much the final tab was, but it was at least seven thousand dollars. We still feel really good about that.
The bulk of the movie was shot in Chicago. I had a breathtaking two-bedroom suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, so Laure and the kids could come visit. I was recording The Wonder Years every week at a great recording studio, and I felt incredibly lucky to be doing those wonderful scripts and picking up that paycheck at the same time. Downtown Chicago has great music, and I went to the Blue Note jazz club as many nights as I could, blown away by the level of talent and creativity. (Side note—speaking of Home Alone and jazz music, you need to listen to Joe Pesci’s music. Joe is an extraordinary jazz singer, and it is not an overstatement to say that his talent is on par with the greats like Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Ella Fitzgerald. He records under the name Joe Doggs, and his voice will blow your mind! He sings in a high tenor and his interpretations of classics like “All or Nothing at All” and “Love for Sale” are so full of insight and love that you will never look at Joe Pesci the same again.) It was great to hang out with my old friends from the first movie—Pesci and Heard and Leon and Troy—and make new friends on this one, notably Mr. John Hughes himself.
John hadn’t been around too much on the first Home Alone. As I would learn, John was a bit of a recluse who devoted himself to his writing. He lived on a stunningly beautiful three-hundredacre farm outside Chicago, with his family and his office and natural beauty, so I can understand why. But for whatever reason, once we got to Chicago, John visited the set on a regular basis. He was deferential and supportive of Chris Columbus as the director, and he was mostly just there to have some laughs and see his creation come to life. He had written so many funny things for my character to do and I wanted nothing more than to make John and Chris laugh in every scene. One of the greatest moments of my acting life was when we shot the scene where Marv comes into the basement, goes over to the sink, which the kid has rigged with electricity, and proceeds to electrocute himself. The first shot of the sequence was a wide master shot, with the camera and crew backed up against the wall so the whole basement and all the action could be seen. I asked Chris if he had any direction or notes before we shot the first take, and he said that I should just try one and see what happens. I had some idea what I was going to do but, having never been electrocuted like this before, it was going to be a new experience, and I was kind of curious as to what I was going to do myself. When Chris called, “Action,” I came into the room, went over to the sink, grabbed the spigots, and just went for it, instinctively channeling the Saturday morning cartoons I loved as a kid, or maybe the Chaplin movies or Jerry Lewis movies that made me laugh so hard. I started shaking and yelling and acting as electrocuted as I could, for as long as I could. I was very into the physicality of the moment, but the moment wouldn’t seem to end. I don’t know a lot about acting, but I do know that it starts when the director says “Action,” and it ends when the director says “Cut.” The electrocution went on a very long time and there was still no call to cut the scene. Having taken more electricity than is healthy for one man, I finally let go of the spigots and reacted to the aftermath of that trauma, dancing around like electricity was still coursing through my system. I thought maybe this would be a fun ending and Chris might be satisfied with the first take and call “Cut!” But there was not a peep. By this point, I was starting to run out of gas, so I incorporated my exhaustion into the scene, the electricity wearing off both for the actor and the character. I dropped to my knees and then to the floor, final spasms jerking my body until I became still, a heap of ash. I had nothing more I could do, and still I didn’t hear “Cut.” What the fuck? As I lay on the floor, I finally broke character and refocused my eyes to reality. I saw the crew and equipment at the end of the room and right next to the camera, rolling on the floor in laughter, I saw Chris Columbus. It turned out he was laughing so hard that he couldn’t say “Cut.” That is still one of the greatest compliments I have ever received as an actor. Such a confidence booster, and a validation that I was on the right track.
Knowing that I was free to be as much of a classic-style physical comedian as I was capable of being opened the door to the silliest side of me and let me pay tribute to all of the physical comedians I had always loved dearly. There is the scene when I pull an entire wall of paint cans onto myself, covering myself in paint and making the floor very slippery. I had a blast doing as much slippery silliness as I could, trying to look as out of control as possible. But if you notice, I do take one beat in the middle of it to do a rather graceful little cha-cha move, trying to feel as much like Dick Van Dyke as I could channel. Doing the scene of getting hit in the face with bricks is about as classic a cartoon moment as one could ever hope to get. What kid wouldn’t want the chance to hop inside a cartoon and do the silly stuff I got to do? I took full advantage of the opportunity, with such realistic-looking props and sets. I remember Chris standing just off camera, laughing his ass off and throwing foam bricks at my head, with me doing a stupider and stupider reaction with each new brick. I think the crew might have taken turns throwing them at me too because it was such a fantasy from all of our cartoon childhoods.
Because the physical comedy in this film was even more exaggerated than in the first film, the danger of the stunts that Leon and Troy had to do was even greater. There is a scene where Marv comes into the house, falls through a hole in the floor, and lands face down and spread eagle on the concrete basement floor. My part of that sequence was to step into the close-up shot and then fall out of frame. Leon’s job was to do the fall itself, and then I popped back in, post-fall, for the reaction shots. It was quite scary to watch Leon do this stunt. He really did fall from the first floor to the basement floor, face-down and spread eagle. The only concession was that instead of an actual concrete floor, he landed on a bunch of cardboard boxes they had covered with a tarp to look like a concrete floor. I was worried and asked Leon if there wasn’t anything better to fall into than cardboard boxes, perhaps foam or an airbag. He said that this is what the generals had decided and he was just a soldier. And he fucking did it! Wile E. Coyote could not have done a better face-plant than Leon did!
Troy had to do a stunt where Harry falls flat on his back onto the top of a car. Again, terrifying to watch. They had a real car and had “scored” it, meaning they had made cuts in the roof structure so that it was barely staying together and would break away when Troy landed on it. Troy was lifted by a crane, lying flat on his back, ten or fifteen feet above the roof of the car, and when Chris yelled “Action,” dropped onto the car. Evidently the roof was not “scored” quite as much as it should have been and therefore did not give way completely upon impact. It looked right out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon—until the shot cut and Troy didn’t move. He was knocked unconscious, but he was a rodeo rider and shook it off pretty quickly. I got a little banged up (strangely, the worst was climbing out of the basement on a tower of tables, TV sets, and other junk, all of which had very sharp edges. My legs were black and blue for a month!), but Leon and Troy took the physicality to a genius level that contributed to the success of those movies as much as anything.
