Chris Columbus regrets including a seven-second cameo by Donald Trump in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” Thirty-three years (and two Trump administrations) after the 1992 movie was released, director Columbus is explaining why he would hope for a recut… without political ramifications.
Columbus told the San Francisco Chronicle that he might be deported to Italy by the Trump administration if he removes the scene starring the current president. The sequence in question has Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister asking Trump for directions to the Plaza Hotel lobby. “Down the hall and to the left,” Trump says in the brief onscreen appearance.
However, that scene has haunted Columbus for years. “It’s become this curse. It’s become this thing that I wish it was not there,” Columbus said. “It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone.”
He added that he “can’t cut it,” though, saying, “If I cut it, I’ll probably be sent out of the country. 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.”
And while Trump has contested whether or not he was courted for the cameo, Columbus is setting the record straight: “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. But we were desperate to get the Plaza Hotel.”
Columbus previously told Business Insider in 2023 that Trump allowed them to film in The Plaza Hotel in exchange for an appearance in the movie. “Like most locations in New York City, you just pay a fee and you are allowed to shoot in that location,” Columbus said. “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 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.’ 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 onscreen. 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.”
Trump later retaliated, saying on social media, “Nothing could be further from the truth. That cameo helped make the movie a success. But if they felt bullied, or didn’t want me, why did they put me in, and keep me there for over 30 years?”
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