The director ofHome Alone 2: Lost in New York has shared the reason why he decided to keep Donald Trump’s cameo in the final cut of the iconic Christmas film.
Released in 1992, Home Alone 2 follows eight-year-old suburban boy Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) who has accidentally boarded a flight that lands in New York – not Miami, where his entire family are staying for the festive holiday. McAllister, having seen an advert for the Plaza Hotel located by Central Park on his parent’s TV, decides to stay there using his father’s credit card that he conveniently has in his bag.
When McAllister visits the hotel and blags his way in by pretending his father is staying in the room with him, he encounters former US president Donald Trump in the lobby and asks him for directions.
In a new 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 for 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.
“Like most locations in New York City, you just pay a fee and you are allowed to shoot in that location. We approached The Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time, because we wanted to shoot in the lobby. We couldn’t rebuild The Plaza on a soundstage,” Columbus explained.
“Trump said OK. We paid the fee, but he also said, ‘The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.’”
Kevin McCallister meets Donald Trump in the Plaza Hotel lobby— (20th Century Fox)
Columbus recalled being surprised at the audience’s response to Trump’s cameo describing it as the “oddest thing”.
"When we screened it for the first time the oddest thing happened: People cheered when Trump showed up on-screen. So I said to my editor, ‘Leave him in the movie. It’s a moment for the audience.’”
However, Columbus claimed that Trump “bullied his way into the movie” by using his connection to the Plaza Hotel to get airtime.
Filmmaker Chris Columbus photographed in 2022— (Getty Images for Hamptons Intern)
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.
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.”
Chris O’Donnell, who starred in Scent of a Woman alongside Pacino, previously revealed Trump and his then-wife Marla Maples had cameos that were cut from the film.
The actor described how original pages for scenes shot at the Plaza Hotel were updated to include a shot that showed Trump and Maples leaving a limousine.
“It was explained to us that in order for us to film at The Plaza, we had a little walk on part for Donald and Marla,” O’Donnell told Conan O’Brien in 2017.
When asked what part Trump played, the actor told O’Brien: “It was nothing, it got cut from the movie.”
