According to Mental Floss, the ornaments on the floor were made of candy to help prevent any serious injuries, and actor Daniel Stern (who played Marv) wore rubber feet just in case.
The Nails on the Basement Steps Were Made of Rubber
The props department made that shot possible by making a fake nail out of a type of spring-loaded rubber. As Marv steps on the nail, it bends into the sole of his foot rather than causing the painful injury that is shown on screen.
The stunts were real in 1990's “Home Alone” — and one was even named in honor of the movie. Though Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, and Daniel Stern weren't responsible for all of the falls and hits their characters took throughout the film, their stunt doubles did them for real.
Yep, that was real. At one point, Kevin places a tarantula on Marv's face. And it was indeed a real spider (Daniel Stern agreed to let it happen—but he'd only allow for one take).
Also appearing in the Netflix episode, director Chris revealed that once he got Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern together for their camera test, "It was magical." As it turns out, the pair had already formed a close bond after starring together in an earlier film.
"People who meet me are always curious if the tarantula was real, if my scream was real, and if I was scared, crazy or both," Stern told Complex. "The answer to all three of those questions is 'Yes. '"
John Candy improvised most of his scenes in "Home Alone."
Columbus told Insider's Jason Guerrasio in 2020 that the legendary comedic actor John Candy came on set ready to improvise. "He was on the movie for only one day, but it resulted in so much great improvisation. None of that stuff was in the script," he said.
After the pair escaped prison, Marv decided that they become the Sticky Bandits after wrapping his hand in double-sided sticky tape to steal money from a donation bucket. Harry was dismissive of this name and behavior. Marv and Harry later parted ways, with Marv instead working with his wife Vera and mother Molly.
In an interview with People, Pesci revealed that he purposefully ignored Culkin on set in order to “preserve the dynamic between [the characters].” Although Pesci admitted that he remembered Culkin "as being a really sweet kid and, even at his age, very professional," he felt that limiting their interactions was ...
"In addition to the expected bumps, bruises, and general pains that you would associate with that particular type of physical humor, I did sustain serious burns to the top of my head during the scene where Harry's hat is set on fire," he said.
While stunt doubles were used for many scenes, Pesci said that some of the ones he did commit to were quite painful – namely, his head being set on fire.
According to Mental Floss, the ornaments on the floor were made of candy to help prevent any serious injuries, and actor Daniel Stern (who played Marv) wore rubber feet just in case.
How many times would the bad guys have died in Home Alone?
So between the two of them, 23 deaths. That's counting both movies. The good people at Screen Junkies did a humerous, but accurate video on that sometime back. They enlisted a doctor to find out what the injuries would be.
Harry dodged them all as they landed on Marv's forehead. Sometime later, Marv threw a brick at Kevin in retaliation, but missed. In reality, even only one of the bricks thrown from the height shown in the film would have crushed Marv's face and instantly killed him.
The TikToker cut to a clip from the Home Alone episode of Netflix's The Movies That Made Us, revealing original footage of the behind-the-scenes work in the film. “There was no snow on the ground,” a voiceover says in the documentary, “so what they did was they had rolls of white material” for the ground.
The film was a big success, and Candy moved on from this victory to make the film Cool Runnings (1993) about the first Jamaican bobsled team. Candy was well known for his size, six feet two and weighing around 300 pounds.
John Mulaney was asked to audition for the role of Kevin after being scouted in a children's sketch comedy group, but his parents refused the opportunity. Columbus finally met with Culkin and agreed he was the right choice. After Robert De Niro and Jon Lovitz turned down the role of Harry, Joe Pesci accepted it.
Macaulay was paid $100,000 (around £50k GBP back in 1990) for his role as Kevin in Home Alone. By the time the second film came to fruition, he received a hefty pay rise of around $4.5 million (£3.5 million).
The tarantula on Marv's face was actually real. Actor Daniel Stern recalled how the crew initially told him they had a rubber tarantula that they could use, but they also had a real one that “was real nice and showed it walking across the trainer's arm”.
Did the burglars in Home Alone do their own stunts?
It's certainly a lot to go through for your craft, but Pesci lived to tell the tale, and to explain that he was thankfully 'fortunate enough to have professional stuntmen do the real heavy stunts'.
In 2006 Culkin wrote an autobiography, Junior. In 2013, he co-founded the New York comedy rock band the Pizza Underground, of which he was the vocalist; they dissolved in 2016. He is currently the publisher and CEO of Bunny Ears, a satirical pop culture website and podcast.
Culkin became a full-fledged cultural phenomenon after the explosive commercial success of his fifth film, 1990's “Home Alone,” which he made when he was just 10 years old. The film grossed $476 million worldwide, due in direct part to his mischievous-yet-vulnerable performance as Kevin McAllister.
