Home Alone star Catherine O'Hara revealed one 'horrific' line she struggled to say in scene with Macaulay Culkin

Catherine O'Hara gushed about her Home Alone co-star Macaulay Culkin while giving a speech as he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame back in 2023.

O'Hara played Culkin's onscreen mom in the beloved festive favorite which was released in December 1990. Culkin was just 10-years-old at the time of filming, while O'Hara was 36.

While the movie was released over 30 years ago, O'Hara and Culkin always stayed in each other's lives — and Culkin was one of the first celebrities to speak out about the legendary actress following the news of her death on January 30, 2026.

Sharing tear-jerking photos of them facing one another on the set of Home Alone and a more recent photo of them together in 2023, Culkin wrote: "Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you, but I had so much more to say."

Catherine O'Hara and Macaulay Culkin played mother and son in Home Alone (20th Century Studios)

His moving tribute continued: "I love you. I'll see you later."

The newer photo he shared of him with O'Hara was during the ceremony that was held for him when he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 2023.

O'Hara was on hand to give a speech on the special day, and she recalled filming a particular scene in Home Alone with Culkin.

She said: "The scene where I had to drag him upstairs to sleep in the attic because he'd misbehaved, and he says – you know, he's mouthing off about the family – and I say, 'Well, you'd be pretty sad if you woke up tomorrow morning and you didn’t have a family'.

"And he said, 'no I wouldn't,' and I was supposed to say, 'Then say it again, maybe it'll happen'."

O'Hara went on to say that the line 'killed [her]' because she could 'not wrap [her] head around saying something so horrific to this beautiful child'.

O'Hara gave a speech at Culkin's Walk of Fame ceremony (Anna Webber/Variety via Getty Images)

She went on to joke: "I was not yet a mother at the time and I had no idea of the kind of things that would come out of my mouth with my own two sons."

O'Hara is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, and their boys, Matthew (born in 1994), and Luke (born in 1997).

Joining Culkin in sharing a moving tribute to the Schitt's Creek star was Eugene Levy.

"Words seem inadequate to express the loss I feel today," Levy said in a statement shared with USA Today on January 31.

"I had the honor of knowing and working with the great Catherine O'Hara for over fifty years."

The pair starred together in Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration, as well as the extremely popular sitcom Schitt's Creek.