Chris Columbus Reiterates That He Quit ‘Christmas Vacation’ Because Chevy Chase Is the Absolute Worst
Merry Christmas, Chris Columbus. Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your ass. Happy Hannukah.
Today marks the end of the annual tradition when, through his yearly nostalgia tour, Q&A screenings and chicken shop grand openings, Chevy Chase spends the Christmas season mining what’s left of the goodwill in the name Clark Griswold to make a quick buck off of Middle America and bask in the glory of the days before everyone knew why he got fired from Community. Thirty-five years after the release of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the John Hughes-written comedy film about a suburban dad who snaps and kidnaps his miserly boss over a canceled Christmas bonus is Chase’s last remaining steady gig, but his seasonal work on the nostalgia film talkback circuit comes to a close on this day each year.
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Every December 26th, we begin to put away the tinsel, pack up the ornaments and remember that Christmas Vacation would have been helmed by one of the all-time great comedy directors, had Chevy Chase not been, well, Chevy Chase. In a new interview for Vanity Fair, Columbus expounded on the personal and professional differences between him and Chase that led to him famously quitting Christmas Vacation just a few weeks into production, revealing that Chase didn’t even know that Columbus was supposed to be his director when he began his usual on-set bullshit.
“I was signed on, and then I met Chevy Chase. Even given my situation at the time, where I desperately needed to make a film, I realized I couldn’t work with the guy. I was one of the many who couldn’t work with him,” the Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire director explained during the press tour for the Columbus-produced, not-so-Christmas-y Nosferatu. “I called John (Hughes), and I said, ‘This is really hard for me, but I can’t do this movie with Chevy Chase.’ We were in the midst of shooting second unit.”
Columbus has long been open about the fact that, despite his financial and professional desperation at the time of the Christmas Vacation production, he couldn’t continue work with a star such as Chase who would treat his own director “like dirt.” But, in Chase’s defense, he may not have even known that Columbus was ever the director of Christmas Vacation.
“My first meeting with him, I sat down with him. It was just the two of us,” Columbus said of his introduction to Chase, incredulously commenting, “He had to know I was directing the movie. I talked about how I saw the movie, how I wanted to make the movie. He didn’t say anything. I went through about a half hour of talking. He didn’t say a word. And then he stops and he says — and this makes no sense to any human being on the planet. … I probably have never told this story. Forty minutes into the meeting, he says, ‘Wait a second. You’re the director?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m directing the film.’”
Chase’s reaction to learning that Columbus was, indeed, the director of Christmas Vacation and his own direct superior on the production still haunts Columbus all these decades later. “He said to me the most surreal, bizarre thing. I still haven’t been able to make any sense out of it. He said, ‘Oh, I thought you were a drummer.’ I said, ‘Uhh, okay. Let’s start talking about the film again,’” Columbus recalled. “After about 30 seconds, he said, ‘I got to go.’”
Nonetheless, Columbus tried to persevere and establish a rapport with his film’s star. Columbus says that he went out to dinner with Chase and Christmas Vacation screenwriter Hughes, but “I was basically nonexistent” when Chase started chatting up Hughes. “We spent two hours together, and I left the dinner and I thought, ‘There’s no way I can make a movie with this guy,’” Hughes said of the failed dinner double date. “First of all, he’s not engaged. He’s treating me like shit. I don’t need this. I’d rather not work again. I’d rather write. Who says anything like that to anybody? It makes no sense.”
Columbus understands how unusual the saga sounds to anyone who isn’t familiar with behind-the-scenes stories about Chase, admitting, “To tell that story almost makes no sense, but it actually happened. I thought, ‘This was how we’re going to work together? I’m going to be on set and he’s not listening.’”
However, unlike so many other stories about Chase, this one had a happy ending. “I quit Christmas Vacation. The next weekend, I got another script from John (Hughes) — and it’s Home Alone,” Columbus explained. “Home Alone, for me, was even more personal, a better script. And I thought, I can really do something with this, and I don’t have to deal with Chevy Chase.”
