Why was John Candy only paid $414 for ‘Home Alone’?
Whether you enjoy going back to the monochrome classics like It’s A Wonderful Life, bridging the Halloween-Christmas gulf with Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, or living out childhood fantasies in Home Alone, there’s nothing quite like a festive blockbuster to get you in the mood for the merry season.
In 1990, Chris Columbus set the bar high for the decade with his immortal Christmas classic, Home Alone. Child star Macaulay Culkin appears as the loveable Kevin McCallister, who is accidentally left to fend for himself at the McCallister homestead in suburban Chicago over Christmas. Showing intelligence beyond his years, Kevin looks to outwit two incredibly gullible burglars who try to steal valuables from the house.
Home Alone was an overnight classic, grossing $476.7million worldwide at the box office from a budget of $18 million. This feat made Home Alone the highest-grossing live-action comedy until The Hangover Part II arrived in 2011. If you think the movie brought riches to all involved, however, you’d be much mistaken.
The Canadian comedy acting legend John Candy appeared in the movie as the peripheral character Gus Polinski, a friendly polka musician who helps Kevin’s mother, Kate. Despite Candy’s status at the time, having starred in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Spaceballs, The Great Outdoors and Uncle Buck of late, he was only paid $414.
Candy was only available for one day to shoot his scenes, which allegedly took 23 hours to complete. The paycheque wasn’t bad for an honest day’s work, but when you’re a multi-millionaire star, one would have thought sleep was preferable.
Why did Candy agree to $414?
As it turns out, the famously warm-hearted actor agreed to the role as a favour to his friend, the movie’s writer and producer John Hughes. Appreciative of the favour and confidence in Candy’s talent, he allowed the late legend to go off-script and improvise his scenes.
In a past interview, the movie’s director, Columbus, discussed the crucial power of improvisation in Home Alone. “I mean, John Candy in the movie is a perfect example,” he said. “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. The funeral parlour story – that was all improvised at 4:30 in the morning. We could barely keep a straight face on set just listening to John.”
“There was certainly a little resentment on John’s part,” he added. “It was a deal between him and John Hughes at the time. I never met John Candy before he came on the movie. I don’t know if John ever got any kind of compensation from Fox. We did a movie together after that, Only the Lonely, and there were a couple times on set when he would make a cutting remark about Fox and what he was paid.”
Watch one of John Candy’s scenes from Home Alone below.
