Home Alone Star Reveals Scary Encounter With Real Spider on Set

Home Alone star Daniel Stern has revealed his scary encounter with a real spider on the film’s set. Stern memorably played one-half of the Wet Bandits with Joe Pesci in Home Alone.

The 1990 holiday classic’s climactic scenes memorably involves 8-year-old Kevin McCallister using home-made booby traps to foil the Wet Bandits breaking into his home. At one point, Stern’s character Marv shrieks in horror when a tarantula walks across his face while he’s recovering from being burned by a clothing iron. Speaking to Entertainment TonightStern revealed that he was completely taken by surprise when it came time to film the spider encounter. “I was kind of in a groove at that point of doing crazy things, so when I showed up on the set to do the spider thing, I thought … ‘Let’s see what happens. I’m sure they’re gonna have a great prop spider.’ And they didn’t [have a prop],'” he remembered. “They had a real spider that the wrangler told me, ‘He’s not gonna bite you. You’ll be fine.'”

“The wrangler told me, ‘He’s not gonna bite you. You’ll be fine.'”

Daniel Stern Filmed Classic Home Alone Scene With Real Tarantula

Stern remembers that he didn’t hesitate much about letting an actual tarantula scamper across his face during multiple takes. “I went, you know, ‘Okay, do it,'” he said. “So they put the spider on me and I let him crawl around on my face for about five minutesjust so we both got used to each other. And then we just rolled the camera.”

While Stern wasn’t hurt during his spider encounter, his co-star Macaulay Culkin wasn’t quite as lucky. Stern previously spoke to Entertainment Tonight about co-star Joe Pesci getting carried away and biting one of Culkin’s fingers while rehearsing a scene where the Wet Bandits confront Kevin McCallister. “[Joe is] wonderful, I love him, he’s a dear friend, but he’s a scary dude, and he was carrying it all. Because he was — we were trying in the first movie to actually be scary to start with, and then you realize we’re idiots. But there was a fear factor that set up the drama of the thing.”

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Stern remembered that Pesci immediately broke character when he realized he’d accidentally hurt his young co-star. “He bit it — like, ‘Oh crap, I didn’t really mean to,’” Stern remembered. “Joe was like, ‘Oh, sorry I did that.’ But [that’s the] only time you might see Pesci break [character].” The 1990 holiday classic features a long stretch of Stern and Pesci’s Wet Bandits being tortured by Kevin McCallister’s home-made traps, so Culkin may have had the last laugh following the minor injury.

Culkin recently confirmed during a Q&A with fans that Pesci lost control momentarily because he was trying to “scare” the child actor. “He was like, ‘I want to be menacing to this kid… [and now] I have a scar,” Culkin added. “I saw [Pesci’s] face — and I’ve never, ever seen Joe Pesci actually scared. Because he’s like, ‘I just bit a kid!'” He’d previously told Conan O’Brien that Pesci’s bite did break the skin on his finger, leaving the young actor “really mad” at his co-star. “I was like, ‘I don’t care how many Oscars you have or whatever, like, don’t. Biting a nine-year-old, what the heck’s wrong with you?’” he remembered.

Home Alone Remains a Holiday Classic

The Home Alone films have continued with various sequels and spin-offs over the years, but Culkin has always refused to reprise his role as Kevin since Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. There were initial talks for Culkin to film a third Home Alone installment back-to-back with Lost in New York, though it didn’t come to pass. Culkin took a long break from acting following the release of 1994’s Richie Richbut would later return to screens as an adult with roles in Party Monster and American Horror Story.

Home Alone can be streamed now on Disney+.

Source: Entertainment Tonight

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Home Alone

An eight-year-old troublemaker, mistakenly left home alone, must defend his home against a pair of burglars on Christmas eve.

Director

Chris Columbus

Release Date

November 16, 1990

Cast

Macaulay Culkin
, Joe Pesci
, Daniel Stern
, John Heard
, Roberts Blossom
, Catherine O’Hara

Writers

John Hughes

Runtime

103 minutes

Sequel(s)

Home Alone 3
, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
, Home Alone 4

Production Company

Budget

18 million

Studio(s)

20th Century

Distributor(s)

20th Century

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