Catherine O’Hara has revealed the surprising reason she missed a Home Alone co-star’s wedding.
The Emmy Award-winning Schitt’s Creek actor, 70, starred in the hit family films Home Alone in 1990 and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 1992.
She played Macaulay Culkin’s character Kevin McCallister’s mother, Kate, who accidentally leaves him at home while the family go on holiday.
The movie became a cult classic, and a mainstay for the Christmas season, with the first film becoming the third highest grossing film of all time by the time it had finished its stint in cinemas.
But despite the success of the movie, and her good relationships with cast members including John Candy, O’Hara says she missed Candy’s wedding because she was engaged in her favourite pastime: sleeping.
The late actor starred as Gus Polinski, the “Pola King of the Midwest” in the original movie. Although he played a small role in the film, his character became much-loved by fans for taking Mrs McCallister along with his band – the Kenosha Kickers, known for their songs “Polka Polka Polka” and “Polka Twist” – to be reunited with her son.
O’Hara was asked by Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus whether she had any regrets in life on the Wiser Than Me podcast, to which she responded she regretted the amount of time she spent sleeping.
“Maybe I missed some things,” she said. “I missed John Candy’s wedding. I was asleep.”
Spaceballs star Candy married his partner Rosemary Margaret Hobor in 1979, until the actor died of a heart attack in 1994, aged 43.
In an interview with People, O’Hara admitted she had “such a crush” on him, despite him being in a relationship.
But she acknowledged that the feeling wasn’t mutual. “I wouldn’t claim he was interested in me that way,” the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star said. “But he was always really lovely to me in Second City Theater.”
“It’s so nice to be able to not have to make up any bull, because people loved him,” she said of Candy.
“And when people ask, ‘What was he like?’ they want to hear what they think he’d be like. And it’s so lovely to be able to validate their guesses about what he would be like in person.”
