Home Alone is an undeniable Christmas classic, but it’s also a pretty light, fun movie. Of course, just because it plays like a comedy doesn’t mean that Joe Pesci, who played one half of the Wet Bandits who terrorize Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin while he’s home alone, didn’t take his job very seriously.
Daniel Stern played Marv, the other half of those Wet Bandits, and in a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, he recalled one scene in particular where Pesci actually bit Culkin’s figure as his character Harry was trying to be intimidating.
“I totally forgot about that,” Stern said. “Joe is… he’s wonderful, I love him, he’s a dear friend, but he’s a scary dude, and he was carrying it all. ‘Cause he was — we were trying in the first movie to actually be scary to start with, and then you realize we’re idiots. But there was a fear factor that set up the drama of the thing.”
While Pesci, who had already won an Oscar when he took on the role, apologized almost immediately for overcommitting to the scene.”Yeah, I think he did bite it as he was biting his finger, and then he bit it — like, ‘Oh crap, I didn’t really mean to,’” Stern explained. “Joe was like, ‘Ahh, sorry I did that.’ But only time you might see Pesci break.”
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Culkin was the first to revisit this incident, saying in a Q&A at the Rosemont Theater that he still bears a scar from the incident.
“I have a scar,” Culkin said. “I saw his face — and I’ve never, ever seen Joe Pesci actually scared… because he’s like, ‘I just bit a kid!’”