RUFFLING FEATHERS
Was the pigeon attack sequence in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York real?
Find out what the actress who played the Pigeon Lady is up to now
IT JUST wouldn't be Christmas without settling in front of the TV to watch a Home Alone movie marathon.
The second film sees young Kevin McCallister lost in New York where he meets the Pigeon Lady, who helps him fight of two robbers with a little help from her bird friends.
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Home Alone 2 followed the hugely successful first film and was released in 1992.
After Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) loses track of his father at the airport, he mistakenly gets on a plane headed for , while the rest of the his family fly to .
Now alone in the Big Apple, Kevin manages to book himself a room at the Plaza Hotel and begins his usual antics.
But when he discovers that the his arch nemesis' the Sticky Bandits () are on the loose, he tries to stop them from robbing a toy store just before .
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Famous pigeon attack scene
Whilst alone in New York, Kevin meets the Pigeon Lady AKA Annie, who initially he is scared of, but they soon become friends.
She helps him out when he is captured by the Sticky Bandits in Central Park.
Seeing her friend in distress, Annie throws all of her bird feed over the two robbers.
Her pigeons immediately swooped on the two bandits, as they are covered in the feed.
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The birds used to film this scene were all real and were trained pigeons.
Representatives of American Humane were present for both training and filming with the pigeons.
Macaulay Culkin stars in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Around 500 birds were booked to film scenes in the Home Alone 2, and they were swapped in and out so that they could rest.
Stunt men brought in
Two stuntmen were used as doubles for the two robbers and the filming took place on a sound stage, not in Central Park.
It has been revealed how empty cages with food were placed out of camera range behind the two stuntmen.
Pigeons were then released all at once from four locations and they flew to the cages.
The famous scene was shot over four days.
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Playing the Pigeon Lady
Irish actress Brenda Fricker played the Pigeon Lady in Home Alone 2.
Although to many she is best known for this role, her career has spanned over six decades on stage and screen.
She worked on TV and stage for many decades before she appeared in Casualty in 1986 as Megan Roach, a role that would cover 14 years and 60 episodes.
In 1989, Brenda won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in My Left Foot, beating the likes of Anjelica Huston and Julia Roberts, and was also nominated for a Golden Globe.
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In 2020, she was listed at number 26 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Brenda has continued to act and in 2023 she starred in the Channel 5 drama The Catch.
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