Home Alone cast member reveals ‘terrible’ line she struggled to say to Macaulay Culkin

On By Littum

Alone at home Actress Catherine O’Hara has revealed she struggled to deliver one of the Christmas film’s lines to Macaulay Culkin

The actress, who has reunited with the former child star, appeared in the 1990 holiday film, playing Kate McCallister, the mother of Culkin’s Kevin.

In the John Hughes-written film, which was directed by Chris Columbus, Kevin is left at home when his family goes on vacation for Christmas. At one point near the beginning, Kevin falls out with his family the night before they leave for Paris.

When his mother sends him up to the attic to sleep as punishment, she says she won’t see him “for the rest of the night,” to which Kevin replies, “I won’t see you again for the rest of my life, nor will I see any other.”

Here his mother says: “I hope you don’t mean that – you’d feel pretty sad if you woke up tomorrow and didn’t have a family.”

According to O’Hara, however, she struggled deeply with the line that followed.

The Schitt’s Creek star revealed this detail while giving a speech about Culkin at a ceremony unveiling his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 2023.

“The scene where I had to drag him upstairs to sleep in the attic because he’d been misbehaving, he’s talking about the family and I’m like, ‘Well, you’d be pretty upset if you woke up tomorrow early and you had no family,’ and he says, ‘No, I wouldn’t.’ And I had to say: ‘Say that again – maybe it will happen.’

O’Hara continued: “I can’t tell you how much it killed me – I couldn’t wrap my head around saying something so horrible to this beautiful child.” She then said: “Of course I was not yet a mother at the time and I had no idea what would come out of my own mouth with my own two sons.”

In her heartfelt speech, O’Hara reflected on the success of Home Alone and attributed this to Culkin’s performance. He was 10 at the time.

Catherine O'Hara reunited with 'Home Alone' star Macaulay Culkin
Catherine O’Hara reunited with ‘Home Alone’ star Macaulay Culkin (Black)

She went on to praise Culkin for “surviving” great fame at such a young age. “This beautiful 10-year-old little boy was called a superstar, a money maker, one of the hottest leading young men in Hollywood by the world. How does anyone survive that?” she asked, adding: “I think you must possess a certain quality, a gift which dear John Hughes evidently recognized in you Macaulay, your sense of humour.

“It’s a sign of intelligence in a child and a key to surviving life at any age. From what I can see, you’ve brought that sense of cute yet twisted yet totally relatable humor to everything you’ve chose to do since Alone at home.“

She told the crowd gathered at the ceremony, which took place on the streets of Los Angeles: “Alone at home was, is and always will be a beloved global sensation. The reason families all over the world can’t let a year go by without watching and loving Alone at home together is because of Macaulay Culkin. Yes, he had an excellent script and a wonderful director.

“But it’s Macaulay’s perfect performance as Kevin McCallister that gave us the little boy on an extraordinary adventure.”

She told the visibly emotional former child star: “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. It was really like we had assaulted this real little boy named Kevin to make a movie and he just went along for the fun of it.”