Macaulay Culkin has taken to Instagram to pay tribute to Catherine O’Hara, the beloved comedic actress who played his mother in the Home Alone films, who died Friday at age 71.
“Mama. I thought we had time,” Culkin wrote. “I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you but I had so much more to say.”
Culkin concluded his message by writing, “I love you. I’ll see you later.”
O’Hara appeared as Kate McCallister, mother of Culkin’s Kevin, in both Chris Columbus’ iconic 1990 Christmas movie Home Alone as well as its 1992 sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The original is the film that put Culkin on the map as an iconic child star.
O’Hara made poignant remarks, speaking to her relationship with and pride in Culkin, in an appearance at his Hollywood Walk of Fame induction ceremony in 2023.
“Home Alone was, is, and always will be a beloved global sensation. The reason families all over the world can’t let a year go by without watching and loving Home Alone together is because of Macaulay Culkin,” she said. “Yes, he had a most excellent script and a wonderful director, but it is Macaulay’s perfect performance as Kevin McCallister that gave us that little everyboy on an extraordinary adventure. I know you worked really hard, I know you did, but you made acting look like the most natural thing in the world to do. It really was as if we had ambushed the home of this real little boy named Kevin and he just went along with it for the fun of it.”
Calling Culkin “the dearest thing,” she said of his ascendancy post-Home Alone, “This beautiful 10-year-old little boy was called a superstar, a moneymaker, one of the hottest leading young men in Hollywood by the world over. How does anyone survive that? I believe you’d have to possess a certain quality — a gift that dear John Hughes obviously recognized in you, Macaulay — your sense of humor.”
Congratulating Culkin later on in her speech, she said, “You so deserve your star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And thank you for including me, your fake mom that left you home alone not once but twice, to share in this happy occasion. I’m so proud of you.”
Also on Friday, Home Alone‘s Columbus reacted to the news.
“Today we lost Catherine O’Hara. I’m stunned and heartbroken, along with the rest of the world,” he said. “I was an obsessive fan of Catherine’s brilliant comedic work on SCTV and was thrilled when she agreed to play Kevin’s Mom in Home Alone. What most people don’t realize is that Catherine carries the weight of 50% of that film. The movie simply would not work without her extraordinary performance. Catherine grounds the picture with a profound emotional depth. I will miss her greatly. Yet there is a small sense of comfort, realizing that two of the finest human beings I’ve ever known, Catherine and John Candy, are together again, brilliantly improvising, making each other laugh.”
View Culkin’s post in O’Hara’s memory below.
