Daniel Stern reflects on Joe Pesci biting Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone

Daniel Stern reflects on Joe Pesci biting Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone

Daniel Stern admits it wasn’t just the villains who were feared in Home Alone!

The 67-year-old actor reflected on playing the mischievous but thoughtless criminal Marv in the hit Christmas classic while speaking to him Entertainment tonight. One of his most memorable moments on set was when Joe Pesci – who played Marv’s outlaw adversary Harry – bit Macaulay Culkin, who played the child protagonist Kevin McCallister.

As the other half of the Wet Bandits, Harry was both rash and wise to their clumsy ways.

In one scene, Harry threatens to bite Kevin’s fingers off – but when Pesci went a little too far and actually bit the then 10-year-old, Culkin was left with a scar on his hand.

Pesci and Stern behind Macaulay Culkin, as Harry, Marv and Kevin, respectively.

Century Fox Film Corp


“Joe is wonderful and I love him – he’s a dear friend,” Stern gushed, adding, “But he’s a scary guy!”

“He carried everything with him,” he continued. “We tried to be really scary from the start in the first movie, and then you realize we’re idiots.”

Stern told ET that her goal for the film, which premiered in 1990, was to build up the “fear factor” to set up the drama. Then it gradually breaks down as Kevin performs his various pranks – like placing a tarantula directly on Marv’s face.

Stern’s assumption that they would use a “great prop spider” for filming was wrong.

“The wrangler told me, ‘He’s not going to bite you, you’re going to be fine,'” he said, adding, “So I let him crawl on my face for about five minutes so we both got used to it.” “others.”

The tarantula was literally in charge, Stern said — if it crawled too far to one side of his face, the camera crew simply had to wait for it to get back into position.

The tarantula was used in the iconic scene where Marv throws the spider at Harry, who is lying on the ground next to him. Marv had one goal – to kill the spider – and it was perfectly fine to attack his accomplice to achieve it.

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“I got to hit Joe Pesci with a crowbar, so that was fun too,” Stern said of the moment his character charged at the spider.

Home alone was and continues to be a “child empowerment film,” Stern said, which is why its popularity continues 34 years after its release.

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