‘I Just Wish It Was Gone’: ‘Home Alone 2’ Director Calls Trump’s Infamous Cameo a ‘Curse’

“Home Alone 2” director Chris Columbus has some regrets over President Trump’s infamous cameo in his 1992 hit film. Mr. Columbus aired his grievances during a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, bemoaning Mr. Trump’s appearance as an “albatross” and a “curse” and lamenting “I just wish it was gone.” The film, which came out some 30 years ago, follows the protagonist, Kevin, played by Macaulay Culkin, as he navigates New York City on his own after he is separated from his family at the airport. At one point Kevin wanders into the Plaza Hotel where he bumps into Mr. Trump — known then as a real estate tycoon — who offers the youngster directions. The cameo, however brief, appears to haunt Mr. Columbus, who frets that he would be “sent out of the country” if he tried to cut the scene. “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,” he told the Chronicle. Mr. Columbus was born and raised in America but has Italian ancestry. Mr. Columbus’s latest comments come a few years after he claimed that Mr. Trump insisted on the cameo as a condition for filming inside the Plaza, which he owned at the time. “So we agreed to put him in the movie, and when we screened it for the first time the oddest thing happened: people cheered when Trump showed up on-screen,” Mr Columbus told Business Insider in 2020. “So I said to my editor, ‘Leave him in the movie. It’s a moment for the audience.’ But he did bully his way into the movie.”Mr. Trump vociferously denied the director’s allegations, insisting in a post on Truth Social that he was “very busy and didn’t want to do it” but was pressured into the feature by the very “persistent” production team. He further proclaimed that his cameo helped make the movie “a big success” and accused Mr. Columbus of being “just another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself.” Mr. Columbus did not respond to Mr. Trump’s accusation at the time and went on to launch a successful career in film, directing the first two Harry Potter films and producing a 2024 remake of the vampire classic “Nosferatu.” During his sit-down with the Chronicle, however, Mr. Columbus finally offered his two cents on the spat. “What’s going through this guy’s mind? He said I was lying. I’m not lying. 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,” the director said. “But we were desperate to get the Plaza Hotel.”

‘I Just Wish It Was Gone’: ‘Home Alone 2’ Director Calls Trump’s Infamous Cameo a ‘Curse’

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