As the years roll on, it becomes impossible to watch certain films and TV shows through
the lens their directors intended. Sometimes that's because a cameo or a role that seemed
like a fun gag at the time takes on a completely different tone. O.J. Simpson's appearances
in The Naked Gun franchise spring to mind, as does Seth Macfarlane's work on Star Trek:
Enterprise during the years Family Guy was off the air. Sometimes these appearances make
you go, "Huh?" while other times you might say, "Hey, look who it is!" And nobody induces
both of those responses more than Donald Trump.
His surprising cameo appearance in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York stands out today as basically
the only thing anyone remembers clearly about the film. Here's a brief recap: Kevin McCallister,
who ends up in New York and on his own for a second time, runs into the celebrity businessman
in the halls of the Plaza Hotel.
"Excuse me, where's the lobby?"
"Down the hall to the left."
"Thanks."
In a recent interview with Insider, Home Alone 2 director Chris Columbus described the delicate
process of getting Trump onto the silver screen. The secret, it seems, lay in wanting to borrow
his stuff.
Columbus mentioned that to shoot in most New York City locations, you pay a fee and you're
allowed to film there. For Home Alone 2, the production approached the Plaza Hotel, which
Trump owned at the time, for permission to shoot some scenes in the lobby.
Columbus further elaborated...
"Trump said OK. We paid the fee, but he also said, 'The only way you can use the Plaza
is if I'm in the movie.' So we agreed to put him in the movie, and when we screened it
for the first time the oddest thing happened: People cheered when Trump showed up on-screen.
So I said to my editor, 'Leave him in the movie. It's a moment for the audience.' But
he did bully his way into the movie."
In 2017, Matt Damon relayed a similar account of Trump's cameo clause to The Hollywood Reporter.
According to Damon...
"The deal was that if you wanted to shoot in one of his buildings, you had to write
him in a part. [Director] Martin Brest had to write something in Scent of a Woman — and
the whole crew was in on it. You have to waste an hour of your day [...] Donald Trump walks
in and Al Pacino's like, 'Hello, Mr. Trump!' — you had to call him by name — and then
he exits. You waste a little time so that you can get the permit, and then you can cut
the scene out. But I guess in Home Alone 2 they left it in."
The Plaza Hotel has a storied history of pop culture appearances, having served as a setting
for F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in 1925 and as the main backdrop to the Eloise
children's books. Trump, who has since moved on to other career avenues, purchased the
Plaza in March of 1988 for $390 million, or around $860 million when adjusted for inflation.
By the time Home Alone 2 was released in November of 1992, the hotel had accumulated more than
half a billion dollars of debt. The New York Times reports that Trump's lenders took the
majority share of the business in, quote, "exchange for giving more favorable terms,"
as part of a prepackaged bankruptcy agreement.
While Home Alone 2 was probably Trump's most successful cameo, it was far from his only
one. In 1989, he portrayed himself in the critically maligned Bo Derek romantic-crime
comedy Ghosts Can't Do It, earning a coveted Golden Raspberry award for Worst Supporting
Actor. Fans of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia will be excited and also disappointed to learn
that he appeared in NightMan.
"I miss you Nightman, so baaaaad."
Unfortunately, that's not the NightMan we're talking about here. We're referencing a superhero
television show from the mid-'90s. In one episode, an escaped convict morphs into Trump
so he can withdraw money from a bank.
And, of course, we can't forget about this one…
"It's the Donald! Oh, my god!"
However, no Trump cameo has garnered quite as much attention as the seven seconds of
screen time he accumulated in Home Alone 2. In 2019, his appearance in the film was thrust
back into the spotlight after the Canadian Broadcasting Company aired a version of the
film that had cut Trump's scene for time, leading to a social media fury from their
neighbors to the south.
Meanwhile, did you know that Scarlett Johansson was in Home Alone 3? For some reason, nobody
ever talks about that.
"What?"
"His face doesn't look that bad."
"His body is covered."
"Would that include his buttock region?"
"Shut up!"
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