Home Alone Director Recalls Convincing Joe Pesci To Do The Scene Where His Hat’s On Fire (And His Daughter Was Involved)

There are movie gags that feel so perfectly tuned, it’s easy to assume everyone involved immediately understood the assignment. Joe Pesci’s flaming hat scene in Home Alone is one of those unforgettable moments. But like most things in filmmaking, that split-second bit of chaos came with a whole lot of hesitation behind the scenes, especially from the person who actually had to light his head on fire. Home Alone director Chris Columbus shared how they convinced the Harry performer to do the scene, and, believe it or not, his daughter was involved.

As part of Home Alone’s 35th anniversary celebration, director Columbus and star Macaulay Culkin recently sat down for a conversation at the Academy Museum, where they revisited the movie’s production, its legacy, and a few stunts that were way more intense than they looked. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Columbus explained that the flaming cap gag nearly didn’t happen at all because the My Cousin Vinny actor wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. The filmmaker recalled:

Honestly, that’s a pretty reasonable reaction. Home Alone may play like a live-action cartoon, but Pesci wasn’t wrong to be skeptical. The stunts in the movie were so realistic that Columbus admitted every time the stunt team rehearsed one, it stopped being funny altogether. Watching it play out in real time, he said, they genuinely worried people were getting seriously hurt.

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According to Columbus, producer Mark Radcliffe stepped in with a solution to address Pesci’s trepidation, which feels both wildly inappropriate and yet weirdly perfect for the tone of Home Alone. Instead of arguing, they demonstrated. Columbus continued:

Yes. The Goodfellas star watched his own daughter calmly wear the fireproof hat while it burned safely under controlled conditions, and that did the trick… sort of. Because even with stunt pros on hand (and Pesci has acknowledged he was lucky to have stuntmen handling the truly gnarly stuff), that hat scene still got him. In a later reflection on the experience, the Casino alum said he sustained “serious burns” during the moment Harry’s hat goes up — on top of the usual bumps and bruises that come with getting bullied by an eight-year-old with a toolbox and a grudge.

And it’s not like Pesci has sour grapes about the franchise. If anything, he’s always seemed to have a realistic affection for it; proud of what it became, aware of what it cost, and not particularly convinced you can just whip up that same lightning-in-a-snowglobe again. When asked about the idea of doing another Home Alone, he’s basically taken the “never say never, but also… come on” stance, pointing out that it would be tough to recreate the success — and especially the innocence — of the originals decades later, because the world (and the audience) just isn’t in the same place anymore.

That hasn’t exactly stopped the studios from trying, though. Since Home Alone 2, there have been four additional films, including Disney's critically panned reboot, Home Sweet Home Alone, which features none of the original Home Alone cast, each attempting to capture the same magic. As The Irishman star has suggested, none of them quite pulled it off, proving that there was something truly magical in those two films that is nearly impossible to recreate, which is why they still have such a legacy more than three decades later.

In hindsight, it’s hard to imagine Home Alone without Harry’s flaming hat. But knowing how close it came to being scrapped makes the moment even better. You can revisit the stunt and all the other makeshift booby traps by streaming the Home Alone franchise with a Disney+ subscription.