Daniel Stern has recalled the time he and members of the Home Alone 2 film crew racked up a $7,000 bill on Donald Trump’s tab.
The former US president and then-real estate mogul made a cameo in the 1992 sequel, which follows eight-year-old Kevin McCallister’s (Macaulay Culkin) adventures after he accidentally boards a flight to New York instead of Miami, where his family is staying over Christmas.
Kevin decides to stay at the Plaza Hotel, which was owned by Trump at the time. It’s there he encounters the businessman and asks him for directions.
Stern, best known for his role as hapless criminal Marv in Home Alone and the sequel, told ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Tuesday (28 May): “I had met [Trump] that day on the shoot and that night, me and the stunt guys and some crew guys were at the hotel bar and Mr Trump walked through.
“He pointed and was very appreciative and said ‘Drinks are on me’ and so we bought drinks for the entire bar, for the entire night. We hit him pretty good on the bill.
“Liam, my stunt guy, we figured it was about 7,000 bucks, which is a drop in the bucket to the man and he felt good about it, we felt good about it so that was a win-win.”
In a recent interview with Business Insider, Home Alone 2 director Chris Columbus explained that he decided to keep in the scene with Trump because the audience at the first screening of the movie “cheered” when they saw Trump show up.
Columbus explained that Trump came to be involved in the movie when the crew approached the Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time, to ask for filming permission. However, Trump refused to let the crew film there unless they gave him a small role in the film.
This wasn’t the first time Trump had used his ownership of the Plaza Hotel to get a small film cameo. He had filmed a small appearance in the 1992 film Scent of a Woman but the scene didn’t make the final cut.
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Matt Damon, who starred in Scent of a Woman alongside Al Pacino, told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 that the crew had to “waste a little time” filming with Trump so that they could get the permit.
“[Director] Martin Brest had to write something in Scent of a Woman – and the whole crew was in on it,” Damon said.
“You have to waste an hour of your day with a bulls*** shot: Donald Trump walks in and Al Pacino’s like, ‘Hello, Mr Trump!’ – you had to call him by name – and then he exits. You waste a little time so that you can get the permit, and then you can cut the scene out. But I guess in Home Alone 2 they left it in.”
Stern has since appeared in shows such as Manhattan and For All Mankind but remains most recognizable for his role as one-half of the Wet Bandits, alongside Joe Pesci, in the classic Christmas comedies.
Despite the fact the films are festive staples, Stern, who has written an autobiography called Home And Alone, said he has only ever seen the film once.
He said: “It was funny because when I wrote the book, and I was writing about the tarantula scene, I wrote out how I remembered it, what happened and what was funny and then my daughter read the book for me and said ‘that’s not what happens in the movie’ and I went ‘oh’ and I had to go back and watch the scene again to see how it actually went.
“Since the movie came out, I go through my life with people saying ‘we love you, we watch you, you’re a big part of my holiday’ and it’s so overwhelming sometimes. I don’t know why it’s happened but it’s a blessing of a lifetime.”
Trump is currently embroiled in a criminal trial in which he is charged with 34 counts of fraud, in relation to the payment of hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The case makes him the first former US president to be tried for a crime.
He remains the likely Republican candidate in the US presidential election, which takes place on 5 November four months after the United Kingdom’s 4 July general election.
Additional reporting by the Press Association
