Catherine O’Hara still can’t believe her Home alone son, Macaulay Culkin, grew up.
“He is 43 years old. That’s older than I was when I played his mother!” the 69-year-old actress tells PEOPLE. “I think I was 32.” (Filming took place in early 1990, the year O’Hara turned 34.)
“He has a beautiful wife and two beautiful children. He seems very happy and I’m very happy for him,” O’Hara continues of Culkin, who is engaged to actress Brenda Song, 35. She and Culkin have two young sons.
O’Hara saw her 1990 Christmas classic co-star and his family Dec. 1 at Culkin’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, where she gave a speech.
“Home alone was, is and always will be a beloved global sensation… the reason families around the world can’t let a year go by without watching and loving Home alone it’s together because of Macaulay Culkin,” she said.
Macaulay Culkin breaks down in tears as he celebrates fiancee Brenda Song during ‘My Champion’ Walk of Fame speech
“You deserve your star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And thank you for including me, your fake mom who left you home alone not once but twice, to share in this happy occasion. I’m so proud of you,” she concluded jokingly Home alone and its sequel from 1992. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
O’Hara says that when she was writing the speech, she didn’t know Culkin would be next to her.
“I didn’t know he would be standing next to me while I spoke,” she says. “So it was a lot more personal than I thought it would be. I really wanted to honor him because he worked so hard as a kid. You don’t appreciate it. It is difficult to appreciate that the child is really working. But he really made it look natural.”
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Catherine O’Hara and Macaulay Culkin in ‘Home Alone’.
20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock
O’Hara says she didn’t foresee the film becoming a cultural phenomenon, but she had a blast making the film.
“I have to worry about the whole thing. I don’t want to play a great role in a bad project. You want to be part of something good and so you go. Then the people you will work with and the experience, everyday experience. And in that case, it was nice. All those kids playing our kids were just wonderful,” she says.
“[Director] Chris Columbus, a wonderful man. He is a family man himself. I think he already had five children at that time. AND [screenwriter] John Hughes. John Hughes wasn’t there much, but he obviously wrote such a beautiful script. It’s a perfect movie, isn’t it?”
O’Hara is now starring in an action comedy Argyll with Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell and John Cena. It’s in theaters on Friday, February 2.
Find out more about Catherine O’Hara in the new issue of PEOPLE magazine.
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Source: HIS Education