Catherine O'Hara Hated Her Lines In An Iconic Home Alone Scene With Macaulay Culkin

Whether you know her as Moira Rose from the award-winning "Schitt's Creek" or from her work on Christopher Guest's films like "Best in Show" and "Waiting for Guffman," Catherine O'Hara has had a number of memorable roles during her career. One of her most recognizable parts was as Kate McCallister, the forgetful mother of Kevin McCallister, in the first two "Home Alone" movies in the 1990s. As much fun as the movies are, there was one line that O'Hara revealed she absolutely hated having to say to her on-screen son, played by Macaulay Culkin.

When Macaulay Culkin got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on December 1, 2023, O'Hara was there to deliver a speech. She reminisced about making "Home Alone" with Culkin. She revealed that "the scene where I had to drag him upstairs to sleep in the attic because he'd misbehaved, he's mouthing off about the family, and I say, 'Well, you'd be pretty sad if you woke up tomorrow morning and you had no family,' and he says, 'No, I wouldn't,'" That's where the hard-to-say line came in. "I was supposed to say, 'Then say it again — maybe it'll happen,'" O'Hara explained, and it was the harshness of that sentiment that shd hated hated.

Catherine O'Hara couldn't fathom having to say something so casually cruel to Macaulay Culkin's character in "Home Alone" — to tell him he might wake up to find he didn't have a family anymore. "I can't tell you how much that killed me," O'Hara said in her speech for Culkin's Hollywood Walk of Fame star. "I could not wrap my head around saying something so horrific to this beautiful child."

Of course, it was just a scene, and it wasn't a real threat that the real O'Hara was delivering to the real Culkin, but that level of emotion goes a long way toward showing how close they were on set and how much O'Hara cared for Culkin, who was just 10 years old at the time.

She went on to joke that at the time, she wasn't yet a mother and so didn't yet understand the kinds of things that a mother might be led to say to her kids. Then, she went on to compliment the man that Culkin had become. Culkin teared up at the end of her speech, and the on-screen mother and son shared a sweet hug. Even though the two had worked together long ago, they've clearly formed a special bond.

Over the years since "Home Alone" came out, Catherine O'Hara and others from the movie haven't stayed in touch. It doesn't sound like it was because of bad feelings; it was just what happens over time as people grow up and stay busy. However, that doesn't mean they didn't still care about each other. On "Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen" in 2015, O'Hara said that she'd run into Macaulay Culkin at an event a couple of years before that, and upon seeing her, Culkin said, "'Mommy,' and I said, 'Baby!'" We would have loved to have seen that mini-reunion! She went on to tell Cohen how well Culkin was doing, and in doing so, she seemed a bit like, well, a proud mom.

Watching "Home Alone" together has become a holiday tradition for many families; it's not so often that a movie becomes such an ongoing part of the cultural zeitgeist. It had such an impact that even decades after it came out, the company Chase decided to use it and O'Hara as Kate McCallister for their 2021 holiday ad campaign. It featured O'Hara yelling, "KEVVIIIIINNN!" — the same way she did in the movies. It seems like it was much easier to deliver that line than the one about Culkin's character waking up without a family.