Topics: Home Alone, TV And Film, Politics, US News, Donald Trump, Celebrity, Macaulay Culkin
The director of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York has revealed why he 'can't' cut the now-famous Donald Trump cameo despite wanting to in a very candid admission.
Now, fans of the hit 1992 family-comedy will know all about the now-US president's brief role in the film, in a scene which sees him playing himself as Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) asked him for directions in the Big Apple's famed Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time.
And now, over three decades since the flick first hit our screens, the director, Chris Columbus, has revealed that the cameo was a massive 'albatross' for him as he now 'wishes it was gone.'
Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle in an article published Monday (14 April), Columbus explained: "I can’t cut it."
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Sarcastically making reference to the 78-year-old Republican's mass deportations plans, the director, who was born and raised in the United States but has Italian ancestry, quipped: "If I cut it, I’ll probably be sent out of the country. I’ll be considered sort of not fit to live in the United States, so I’ll have to go back to Italy or something."
Now, according to Columbus, Trump only agreed to let him film at the Plaza if he could cinch himself some screen time as he told Business Insider back in 2020 in an article commemorating the film’s 30th anniversary: "We paid the fee, but he also said, 'The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie'. So we agreed to put him in the movie."
Trump was clearly not happy with Columbus' claim, taking to Truth Social in 2023 to hit back at the director who said Trump was 'begging' him to make an appearance in the Home Alone sequel.
"I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it," Trump wrote at the time. "They were very nice, but above all, persistent. I agreed, and the rest is history! That little cameo took off like a rocket, and the movie was a big success, and still is, especially around Christmas time."
He continued: "People call me whenever it is aired. Now, however, 30 years later, Columbus (what was his real name?) put out a statement that I bullied myself into the movie. "Nothing could be further from the truth. That cameo helped make the movie a success… Just another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself!"
Two years on from that whole debacle, and Columbus opened up about why he wanted to cut the cameo so bad.
"We screened the film in Chicago, and when that moment came onscreen the audience went crazy," he recalled. "They cheered and they cheered and they thought it was hilarious. I think I know a lot about comedy, but I don’t, obviously, because I never thought that was going to be considered hilarious."
The director went on to say that 'years later', the cameo has become a 'curse', as he confessed: "It’s become this thing that I wish it was not there. What’s going through this guy’s mind?
"He said I was lying. I’m not lying. He said I begged him to be in the movie, but there’s no world I would ever beg a non-actor to be in a movie. But we were desperate to get the Plaza Hotel."
Columbus resolved: "But it’s there. It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone."
