'Home Alone' Filming Secrets Revealed

— -- In "Home Alone," Daniel Stern plays a burglar named Marv who does most of his work over Christmas, when families are out of town celebrating.

However, as anyone who's seen the 1990 classic knows, his plans are foiled when he comes face-to-face with a precocious 8-year-old boy whose parents forgot him on a trip to Paris.

Stern, now 58, took to Reddit on Christmas Eve to talk to fans about the making of the film.

"I don't really have anything to promote," he said to kick off the chat. "I just want to hang out with all of you and say 'thank you' for all of the love and laughs we've shared over the years."

Among the tidbits of information he shared were:

His kids were afraid of the film: In the movie, Stern's character is hurt several times. "When my kids first saw it they got a little scared," he admitted. "[But] I loved all my stunts."

The tarantula that landed on his face was real: And, of all of the harrowing traps set for his character, it was his favorite. "Not only was it really fun and funny to do but it was a personal challenge to overcome my fear of having something that ICKY and deadly crawling on my face," he wrote. "It was even freakier because I had to do that scream, which meant my mouth was wide open too -- and I was afraid the little bastard might take a detour down my throat!" As for the scream, Stern insisted that that too was "most definitely real": "It came from a place in my soul that I've never before touched and never hope to again!"

But his most painful stunt actually came in 'Home Alone 2': In "Home Alone," his character takes an iron to the face, steps on a nail without shoes and walks barefoot across broken Christmas ornaments. However, he revealed his most painful stunt came in the film's sequel, when he climbed a tower of bookcases, TV sets, and other "bits of debris."

"It turned out to be a lot more complicated that I imagined," he wrote. "I must've hit every corner of every chair and table, take after take. When I was getting out of my costume at the end of the day I noticed a lot of bruising on my legs... and three days later, both legs were purple to toes to you know where..."

He never expected the movie to find such success: "When the movie first came out I was in the middle of shooting 'City Slickers.' Billy [Crystal] would come in the trailer once a week with The Hollywood Reporter telling me the movie was #1 again," he recalled. "I'd never been in a commercial success so I didn't even know what that meant... but I soon found out. It's unbelievable the movie has lasted as long as it has and I'm incredibly grateful to the fans for staying interested."

He was close to Macaulay Culkin: As the burglar pair "the Wet Bandits," Stern and Joe Pesci's characters tormented Culkin's character in the film, but in real life, Stern grew quite close to the child star. "I'm a big softy when it comes to kids and I loved hanging out with Mac," he wrote. "On the 2nd 'Home Alone' my kids visited me much more than on the first one... and we all had a great time taking Mac to Central Park, playing tag and catch. In any way, I think my character was much more of a softy than Joe's."