He was not feeling the joy of holidays.
Director Chris Columbus, known for the films “Home Alone,” Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Harry Potter,” revealed that he was also supposed to direct 1989’s “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” — but because of the film’s star. Chevy Chase refused to do so.
“I got signed…and then I met Chevy Chase. Even considering my situation at the time, where I desperately needed to make a film, I realized I couldn’t work with that guy,” Columbus explained. Vanity Fair In a recent interview.
The film was ultimately directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik did it.
The comedy follows Clark Griswold (Chase), a Chicago man with a wife and children who wants to have a nice family Christmas, but events soon descend into chaos. Johnny Galecki, Juliette Lewis and Beverly D’Angelo co-starred.
Columbus revealed that he had two meetings with the former “SNL” actor before telling the film’s writer and co-producer, John Hughes, “‘It’s really hard for me, but I can’t do this movie with Chevy Chase. Can do.”
Columbus explained that during their first meeting, he sat with Chase, “just the two of us.”
“He had to know that I was directing the film. I talked about how I saw the movie, how I wanted to make the movie,” Columbus said.
“He didn’t say anything. I kept talking for about half an hour. He didn’t say a word. And then he stops and says – and this makes no sense to any human being on the planet, but I’m telling you I probably never told this story. ‘Wait a second,’ he says. ‘You’re the director?’
When Columbus revealed he was directing the film, he recalled that Chase, “said the most surreal, bizarre thing to me. I haven’t been able to make any sense of it yet. He said, ‘Oh, I thought you were a drummer.’ I said, ‘Uh, okay.’ Let’s start talking about the film again. After about 30 seconds, he said, ‘I have to go.’
During his second meeting with the comedian, he said he met over dinner with Hughes, who wrote and co-produced it.
During that dinner, “I was basically non-existent,” Columbus said, while Chevy and Hughes talked to each other about everything but the movie.
“We spent two hours together, and I left dinner and I thought, ‘I can’t make a movie with this guy,'” Columbus told the outlet.
The “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” director said, “First of all, he’s not engaged. He’s treating me like sh-t. I don’t need that. I wouldn’t want to work with him again.”
“I thought, ‘This is how we’re going to work together? I’m going to go on set and he’s not listening,'” Columbus said.
Chase, now 81, reportedly had a difficult time working on the NBC sitcom “Community,” which ran from 2009-2014.
Chase reportedly starred in four seasons of ‘Community’ before being fired from the show in 2013 using racist slurs Towards Donald Glover during filming. it was also followed heated confrontation With the show’s creator, Dan Harmon.
during an interview with Washington Post Later that year, Chase did not deny using the expletive.
“I could have said it,” Chase told the outlet, before noting that it may have been misinterpreted. He then said that he had been a fan of Glover throughout the time they worked together on “Community” and denied that he was a fan.
A “community” film is in the works, and in April, co-star Joel McHale told the Post“I don’t think so [Chase is] allowed to [be in it],
