In 1990’s Home Alone, bumbling house burglars Harry Lime (Joe Pesci) and Marv Merchants (Daniel Stern) were bested by 8-year-old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) after a series of funny but incredibly dangerous pranks. One of them involves ice, water, a flight of stairs and the slapstick duo falling about. While Culkin took the satirical route in remembering the film (see his hilarious rant here), Stern was far more sentimental.
In a short Facebook post, he shared the inspiration behind his dimwitted character and revealed that he and Pesci were friends even before making the classic flick. “Harry and Marv were always intended to be a classic comic duo,” he wrote. “John Hughes wrote it that way and Chris Columbus directed it that way.”
The actor continued: “Joe and I bought into that into that idea from the very beginning. We had already done one other movie together called I’m Dancing As Fast As I Can so we were already friends, so when we got together for the first rehearsal we were already talking about what our comic duo was going to be.”
He went on to say that inspiration for the characters included cartoon classics Wile E. Coyote and Bugs Bunny, as well as comedic duo Laurel and Hardy. “You'll notice Joe even invented his own cartoon language that he spews when he gets really frustrated,” he added. “The evolution of the characters and chemistry came from the love that we all had for the classic comic duos and from the brilliance of my dear friend and partner in crime, Joe Pesci.”
These days, Pesci is pretty low-key and remains hidden from the public eye. Stern, on the other hand, has remained active and was recently seen on the TV series Manhattan. According to Stern, they remain pretty close. He even shared this rare pic:
