“All the great ones leave their mark,” Daniel Stern’s Marv tells Joe Pesci’s Harry in “Home Alone,” yet it seems like Pesci is actually the one who left a mark in real life.
During a screening of the classic 1990 Christmas comedy earlier this month in Rosemont, Illinois, star Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin McCallister, revealed that Pesci, who, along with Stern, played a pair of bungling burglars, actually bit him while they rehearsed a scene in which Harry threatened to bite off Kevin’s fingers.
“He was trying to scare me,” Culkin said about working together, according to The New York Times.
“He was like, I want to be menacing to this kid,” he added.
Pesci allegedly bit down on Culkin, who is now 44.
“I have a scar,” Culkin said.
“I saw his face — and I’ve never, ever seen Joe Pesci actually scared,” Culkin added. “Because he’s like, I just bit a kid!”
The New York Times reports Pesci declined to comment through his rep on the matter.
“Home Alone,” which turned Culkin into a star, continues to be his signature role and biggest claim to fame. When he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023, his mom from the movie, played by Catherine O’Hara, was on hand to deliver a speech.
“I know you worked really hard. I know you did,” she said. “But you made acting look like the most natural thing in the world to do. It really was as if we had ambushed the home of this real little boy named Kevin to make a movie and he just went along with it for the fun of it. It’s the dearest thing.”
Culkin has embraced “Home Alone,” even embarking on a tour where he screens the film, shares his memories of making the movie and answers fan questions.
Culkin also appeared in 1992’s “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” as did Pesci and Stern. They all bowed out for the rest of the series, which has featured a total of six films.