He wasn’t feeling holiday cheer.
Director Chris Columbus, best known for the “Home Alone,” Mrs. Doubtfire” and the “Harry Potter” movies, revealed that he was also supposed to direct 1989’s “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” — but opted out because of the movie’s star, Chevy Chase.
“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,” Columbus told Vanity Fair in a recent interview.
The movie was ultimately directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik.
The comedy follows Clark Griswold (Chase), a Chicago man with a wife and kids who wants to have a nice family Christmas, but events soon spiral into chaos. Johnny Galecki, Juliette Lewis, and Beverly D’Angelo co-starred.
Columbus explained that he had two meetings with the former “SNL” actor before telling the film’s writer and co-producer, John Hughes, “‘This is really hard for me, but I can’t do this movie with Chevy Chase.’’’
Columbus explained that during their first meeting, he sat down with Chase, “just the two of us.”
“He had to know I was directing the movie. I talked about how I saw the movie, how I wanted to make the movie,” Columbus added.
“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, but I’m telling you. I probably have never told this story. Forty minutes into the meeting, he says, ‘Wait a second. You’re the director?’’”
After Columbus explained that he was directing the film, he recalled that Chase, “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.’ After about 30 seconds, he said, ‘I got to go.’”
During his second meeting with the comedian, he said he met him for dinner with Hughes, who wrote and co-produced it.
During that dinner, “I was basically nonexistent,” Columbus said, as Chevy and Hughes talked to each other about everything but the movie.
“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,’” Columbus told the outlet.
The “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” director added, “First of all, he’s not engaged. He’s treating me like sh-t. I don’t need this. I’d rather not work again.”
Columbus said, “ I thought, ‘This was how we’re going to work together? I’m going to be on set and he’s not listening.’”
Chase, now 81, was also reportedly difficult to work with on the NBC sitcom “Community,” which ran from 2009-2014.
Chase starred in four seasons of “Community,” before being fired from the show in 2013 after allegedly using a racist slur toward Donald Glover during filming. This also followed a heated confrontation with the show’s creator, Dan Harmon.
During an interview with the Washington Post later that same year, Chase didn’t deny using the slur.
“I could have said it,” Chase told the outlet, before noting it would have been misinterpreted. He then added that he had been a fan of Glover’s the entire time they worked together on “Community” and denied that he was a bigot.
A “Community” movie is in the works, and in April, co-star Joel McHale Told The Post, “I don’t think [Chase is] allowed to [be in it].”
