It’s been more than 30 years since Home Alone first hit screens - but Catherine O’Hara still remembers the line that haunted her during filming.
The 70-year-old star played Kate McCallister, mom to the mischievous Kevin, in the 1990 holiday classic.
But despite the movie’s light-hearted tone and massive success, O’Hara recently admitted there was one particular line she found “horrific” - and it nearly broke her during the shoot.
While the scene in question involved just a few lines of dialogue between O’Hara and a young Macaulay Culkin, it struck such a nerve that she struggled to deliver it at all.
The line that made Catherine O’Hara’s heart sink
Speaking during Macaulay Culkin’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, O’Hara opened up about one of the most emotionally charged moments in Home Alone.
The pair, who played mother and son in the film, reunited in Los Angeles where she paid tribute to Culkin’s performance and revealed what it was like working with him when he was just 10 years old.
She recalled the infamous attic scene - when Kevin is punished the night before his family flies to Paris and sent upstairs after a tense exchange.
“I was supposed to say, 'Then say it again - maybe it’ll happen,’” O’Hara told the crowd. “I can’t tell you how much that killed me – I could not wrap my head around saying something so horrific to this beautiful child.”
Reflecting on that moment as someone who would later become a parent herself, she added: “Of course, I was not yet a mother at the time and I had no idea the kind of things would come out of my own mouth with my own two sons.”
Why Macaulay Culkin’s performance still resonates
During her heartfelt tribute, O’Hara praised Culkin not just for his performance as Kevin McCallister, but for how he handled the intense spotlight that followed.
“This beautiful 10-year-old little boy was called a superstar, a moneymaker, one of the hottest leading young men in Hollywood by the world over,” she said.
“How does anyone survive that? I believe you’d have to possess a certain quality, a gift, that dear John Hughes obviously recognized in you Macaulay, your sense of humor.
“It’s a sign of intelligence in a child and a key to surviving life at any age,” she continued. “From what I see, you have brought that sense of sweet yet twisted, yet totally relatable, sense of humor to everything you have chosen to do since Home Alone.”
Catherine O'Hara and Macaulay Culkin. Credit: Amy Sussman / Getty
O’Hara says Home Alone is a global hit thanks to Culkin
Looking back on the legacy of the film, O’Hara credited Culkin’s acting for making Home Alone such a lasting hit.
She told the crowd: “Home Alone was, is, and always will be a beloved global sensation.
“It is Macaulay’s perfect performance as Kevin McCallister that gave us that little every boy on an extraordinary adventure,” she said.
“I know you worked really hard, I know you did, but you made acting look like the most natural thing in the world to do.
“It was really as if we’d ambushed this real little boy named Kevin to make a movie and he just went along with it for the fun of it,” she concluded.