Juliette Lewis Remembers a Heartfelt Loss Behind the Scenes of ‘Christmas Trip’

Within the 4 a long time since its debut, 1989’s Nationwide Lampoon’s Christmas Trip has cemented itself as a vacation staple. The Griswold household’s quest for a quiet, picture-perfect Christmas is repeatedly derailed by one chaotic mishap after one other, and that festive mayhem stays a part of its enduring allure.

Nevertheless, behind the scenes, there was a tragic little tragedy behind the making of 1 scene specifically.

On the Fan Expo Chicago, Juliette Lewis, who performed Audrey Griswold, shared a narrative of what she believed to be the trickiest scene to movie, which, in accordance with the actress, was the second when Clark (Chevy Chase) discovers a small, woodland critter residing in his Christmas tree. Upon its discovery, the fuzzy costar then jumped from the tree to the desk, wrecking havoc on the household and the peaceable vacation second.

“There was an entire squirrel within the tree gag,” mentioned Lewis. “I believe we shot that for 3 days.”

Nevertheless, it was as much as her “mom,” Beverly D’Angelo, who broke the information to her in any case these years: “‘Trigger the primary squirrel died. Do you know that? Since you had been younger.”

In keeping with EW, D’Angelo defined intimately what it was prefer to movie the now-iconic chaotic scene, which had the complete household frantically racing round the home. “The squirrel had a coronary heart assault,” mentioned D’Angelo.

Warner Bros.

Because of this, manufacturing used an untrained squirrel to fill in for some scenes, and a pretend for the scenes by which the animal latched on to Clark’s again.

“So the squirrel that we ended up utilizing was not the unique squirrel. It was not skilled. And Chevy ended up sporting a stuffed squirrel on his shoulder for the whole lot however the leap on the digicam. I’ve destroyed the magic,” concluded D’Angelo.

“That was unhappy,” commented Lewis. Unhappy, certainly.