Looking back, Chris Columbus “wishes” he could remove President Donald Trump’s infamous cameo in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
The director revealed in a Monday interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that Trump’s brief appearance in the film has “become this curse,” one he wishes he could reverse. In fact, Columbus admitted he nearly cut the scene from the second Home Alone installment but settled on keeping it in after a screening crowd reacted positively to the moment.
“We screened the film in Chicago, and when that moment came onscreen, the audience went crazy,” Columbus said. “They cheered and they cheered and they thought it was hilarious. I think I know a lot about comedy, but I don’t, obviously, because I never thought that was going to be considered hilarious.”
The Goonies director previously told Business Insider in 2020 that he and his team allowed Trump to appear in the film after he told them “The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.” The president later rebutted the claims on Truth Social in 2023, where he alleged that Columbus was “begging” him to appear in the movie.
Now, three decades after the film’s release, Columbus said the cameo has “become an albatross for me,” but they were “desperate” to film at the Plaza Hotel at the time.
“It’s become this thing that I wish it was not there. What’s going through this guy’s mind? He said I was lying. I’m not lying,” he said. “He said I begged him to be in the movie, but there’s no world I would ever beg a non-actor to be in a movie.”
Columbus, too, joked that if he were to “cut” the scene from the film he’d “probably be sent out of the country,” though he still “wishes it were gone.”
“I can’t cut it,” he said. “If I cut it, I’ll be considered sort of not fit to live in the United States, so I’ll have to go back to Italy or something.
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