Joe Pesci Actually Burned His Head Shooting Home Alone 2: Lost In New York
20th Century Fox. Shutterstock Images.SOURCE - In an email interview with PEOPLE to celebrate the film's 30th anniversary, Pesci, 79, says that retaining the original cast and crew from 1990's Home Alone for the second installment gave the entire production "the same, if not more, energy and enthusiasm as the original."
"In addition to the expected bumps, bruises, and general pains that you would associate with that particular type of physical humor, I did sustain serious burns to the top of my head during the scene where Harry's hat is set on fire," the Goodfellas actor says, noting that he did the stuntwork required for that particular scene himself.
This might by the first time I heard of any real difference between the Christmas classic Home Alone and it's photocopied sequel Home Alone 2: Lost In New York. Well, other than this weird Donald Trump scene where he seems bewildered after a kid asked a pretty normal question:
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Pesci doing these Home Alone movies already seemed a little weird to me but I think it was more of a strange timing thing. He did shoot Goodfellas before the first Home Alone but Goodfellas didn't come out until he was done filming Home Alone. Would he have still taken Home Alone if it was made a year later and he already had an Oscar? I doubt it only because he wasn't the star but he still did comedies after winning the Oscar like the great My Cousin Vinny and the awful The Super.
I don't blame him for taking Home Alone 2. Macauley Culkin got paid $4.5 million for doing the sequel so I am sure Joe Pesci got a nice payday as well. I don't think it was a good movie but you got to cash in on that Oscar especially if you don't become a star until you are in your late 40's.
Pesci worked pretty regularly in the 1990's and then just stopped. He's only appeared in three total movies since 1998 and one of those was a quick cameo in The Good Shepherd as a favor to the director (and Pesci's friend) Robert De Niro. It's a shame that Pesci didn't work more. He can still act too! I loved The Irishman and I thought he did a great job in it. He didn't even want to do that movie but Martin Scorsese wore him down by asking him "over 50 times".
He says in that People interview that I linked to at the top that he would consider acting in another Home Alone but it would be tough to make today because it's "a different time now". I don't agree with that necessarily. Slapstick comedy never really goes out of style. The Three Stooges are still funny today. But what I took from that is that he wasn't ruling out acting in something again. He is 79 years old but I really hope to see him on the screen again. Hopefully, he doesn't burn the hell out of his scalp in his next role.