Before Chris Farley made his film debut in 1992’s Wayne’s World, he had an opportunity to appear in another beloved early ‘90s comedy: Home Alone. As director Chris Columbus has brought up several times in the past, an up-and-coming Farley came in to audition for the role of the Santa Claus impersonator that Kevin asks to relay a message to the real Santa for him. You know, this guy:
“Farley was just starting out at the time,” Columbus told The Hollywood Reporter in 2024. In an earlier interview with The Independent, Columbus went into further detail, saying, “We had an 8 a.m. audition with him on a Saturday morning, and I’ll never forget it. Chris and I knew each other from New York because we went to the same church on Sundays. I’d see him, and we’d talk, and he was the sweetest guy in the world.”
Although he thought highly of Farley, Columbus revealed that the then-unknown comedian “came in and decided he was just going to hang out in Chicago and hit every bar in Chicago before he came to the audition. So poor Chris was not particularly prepared for that audition.” In the Hollywood Reporter piece, the director went on to explain, “We had to say, ‘Well, not this time.’ And then over the years, I got to know Farley really well, and we always talked about that.”
While speaking to The Independent, Columbus also said, “I don’t think [Farley] had gone to sleep that night, so the audition did not go particularly well. I regret it. I think he would’ve been great in the film, but I do love the guy who played Santa Claus [Ken Hudson Campbell]. He was very funny.”
Campbell recounted his 2015 audition with Chicago magazine, saying Farley was already there when he arrived. “Apparently, he was out all night and had just been dropped off after a night of shenanigans, shall we say. Farley was kinda making catcalls to the girls who worked in the office. I was thinking, ‘Oh, boy!’” the actor remembered. “Chris went first. It didn’t go very well. He walked in and walked right out. I felt I went in and hit what I wanted to hit. A few weeks later, I got the call.”
Farley ended up working with Macaulay Culkin in a few sketches when the Uncle Buck star hosted Saturday Night Live in 1991. They even did a brief Home Alone parody at the beginning of the show, interestingly enough:
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