‘Home Alone 2’: How Donald Trump Bullied His Way Into the Iconic Movie
It’s hard to think about Christmas movies without eventually landing on Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The sequel to the extraordinary successful Home Alone, the film follows young Kevin McCallister navigating the mean streets of New York alone during Christmastime. The full cast from the first film reprised their roles making the sequel just as good, if not better, than its predecessor. The film is still well-loved decades after its release, but one tiny cameo is still causing controversy from fans.
Fans of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York will recall that Donald Trump actually makes an appearance in the film. Though the former reality TV star is by no means a real part of the cast, he does have a memorable cameo. When Kevin first checks into The Plaza Hotel, he asks Trump for directions to which Trump responds “down the hall and to the left.” While many fans enjoyed the cameo at the time, in recent times it has outraged many people.
Macaulay Culkin agrees to digitally replace Donald Trump in ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York’
In fact, many fans of the film are currently petitioning to get Trump removed from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Since Trump is by no means essential to the plot, they are calling for him to be edited out. Some member of the cast have also throw their support behind this idea. Recently, Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin, publicly shared that he would be happy to replace Trump in the scene.
But how did Trump manage to find himself in the movie to begin with? In an interview with Insider, Chris Columbus (who directed Home Alone 2: Lost in New York) explained the bizarre cameo. The Harry Potter director revealed that, at the time of filming, Trump owned The Plaza Hotel and thus they go through him in order to secure the location.
The former reality TV star owned The Plaza Hotel at the time of filming
“Like most locations in New York City, you just pay a fee and you are allowed to shoot in that location,” Columbus shared, reminiscing on filming Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. “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.”
Trump agreed to let the director shoot parts of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York at The Plaza Hotel after paying the fee. However, he also added another caveat for Columbus as well. According to Columbus, Trump only agreed to the shoot if he could have a role in the movie as well. “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.'”
How Trump bullied his way into the cast of the movie
Seeing no away around Trump’s caveat, Columbus found a tiny way to include him in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. However, the director was more than happy to scrap the scene after it was shot. But, at the time, viewers seemed to have a positive reaction to the former reality TV show’s brief appearance so Columbus chose to leave him in the film.
“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,’ the Home Alone 2: Lost in New York director shared. “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.”
Will Trump be removed from ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York’
It’s certainly interesting the hear about how Trump managed to bulldoze his way into the cast of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. While audiences may have reacted favorably to his appearance when the film released in 1992, clearly some people have changed their tune in this day and age. Only time will tell if Trump is actually removed from the movie completely, but personally, we love this very meta idea of a young Culkin asking an older version of himself for directions.
