Just as Sex and the City fans pondered how Carrie Bradshaw could afford a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment all to herself on a freelance writer’s salary, so too have Home Alone audiences wondered how Kate and Peter McCallister could afford such a massive suburban house in Chicago. Now we know.
Director Chris Columbus revealed what the parents of Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin did for work in a new interview with Best In Business 2024. “Back then, [screenwriter] John [Hughes] and I had a conversation about it, and we decided on what the jobs were,” Columbus said.
Kate, played by Schitt’s Creek and Beetlejuice star Catherine O’Hara, “was a very successful fashion designer,” he revealed. The film features a prominent clue. In one of his many tricks to thwart home invaders Larry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), Kevin places mannequins in the windows to give the impression of a party.
Related: Home Alone director Chris Columbus quit Christmas Vacation after bizarre meetings with Chevy Chase: ‘I couldn’t work with the guy’
As for Peter, played by the late John Heard (Big, White Chicks), “The father could have, based on John Hughes’ own experience, worked in advertising, but I don’t remember what the father did,” Columbus said. The filmmaker did, however, definitively said the McCallister patriarch was not involved in organized crime, despite some fan theories going around online.
20th Century Fox
Catherine O’Hara and Macaulay Culkin in ‘Home Alone’
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It’s been 34 years since Home Alone first released in 1990, and the film keeps popping up year after year after becoming a permanent piece of holiday movie watching. Earlier this month, some of the actors who played various siblings and cousins of Kevin’s reunited for a meet and greet at an event in New Jersey.
Culkin also showed up separately in a Santa Claus suit, though it was in a strange Kim Kardashian lo-fi music video. We’re still scratching our heads over it.
Related: Daniel Stern recalls Joe Pesci actually biting Macaulay Culkin’s finger in Home Alone: ‘He’s a scary dude’
Meanwhile, the real-life house has new owners. The home, situated in Winnetka, Ill., went on the market for $5.25 million and was sold in time for Christmas. “We’re thrilled with the way this home captured everyone’s attention and hearts due to its well-deserved place in cinematic history and the timeless holiday memories it evokes,” listing agents Dawn McKenna and Katie Moor of Coldwell Banker Realty said in a statement at the time.
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