Home Alone star Daniel Stern has opened up about working with Macaulay Culkin on the franchise, explaining how he led a “very different life than my kids”.
The actor famously played the role of thief Marv Murchins who, alongside Joe Pesci’s Harry Lyme, was constantly outwitted by child Kevin McCallister (Culkin) in the first two films.
Writing in his new memoir Home And Alone, Stern explained how then-child actor Culkin “had a lot of adult pressure” and “didn’t know how to play tag or throw the ball around”.
“Macaulay was staying in a different hotel, but we picked him up and took him to the park with us to play,” he wrote (via Entertainment Weekly).
“He was a sweet kid but had lived a very different life than my kids. He didn’t know how to play tag or throw the ball around. He was more of an indoor kid and had a lot of adult pressure on him from show business and parents and such.”
He went on to write: “We realized he had formed a friendship with Michael Jackson because when we picked him up, his hotel room was stacked, literally from wall to wall and ceiling to floor, with toys. Every conceivable toy, as if someone went through Toys ‘R’ Us, took one of each, and dropped them in his room.
“All a gift from Michael Jackson. It made all of us feel really bad for Mac. My kids had experienced a taste of the distortions that fame can bring, but seeing what Mac’s life was like put things in a different perspective.”
Culkin previously testified at Jackson’s child molestation trial in 2003, calling allegations against the singer “absolutely ridiculous”. He reiterated in 2020 that Jackson “never did anything to me”.
In other news, Stern recently revealed that he racked up a $7,000 (£5,505) bill on Donald Trump‘s tab while filming Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, which came as the former US president made a cameo in the film.