ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke National Lampoon’s Vacation Star Dana Barron on the film’s 40th anniversary and working with Chevy Chase (watch and read more interviews). The film is now available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and digital.
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke National Lampoon’s Vacation Star Dana Barron on the film’s 40th anniversary and working with Chevy Chase (watch and read more interviews). The film is now available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and digital.
“Everything is planned, packed – and about to go terribly wrong,” reads the film’s synopsis. “The Griswolds are on vacation. In the driver’s seat is Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase), an everyman eager to share the open road and the wonders of family togetherness. Countless mishaps, rough relatives (Randy Quaid), encounters with a temptress (Christie Brinkley), financial troubles, Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) on the roof, a security guard (John Candy) and 2,460 miles later it’s a wonder the Griswolds they are together. There has never been a family holiday like this before. Except maybe yours. And that helps explain why National Lampoon’s Vacation continues to be so popular… and so very funny.”
Tyler Treese: The wild thing is that National Lampoon’s Vacation still holds up to this day. I just watched it again and it’s still so popular. Why do you think it resonates across generations?
Dana Barron: Because we all have families and families have stories and families have things that go wrong. And Vacation is like the typical American family that did something wrong but survived and ended up having a great time. So when we go on vacation with the family – and now that it’s summer, people will tell their stories. I do Comic-Cons and fans come up to me and tell me their horrible stories.
I’ve written a book, 40 Years on Vacation, which is coming out soon. I have collected their stories and there are some stories in the book that are such great stories – their family tragedy about their vacation, like “Vacation”. So I think it resonates because it was the 80’s and people had a certain nostalgia and thought back, ‘Oh I remember my dad teasing me so much when I was on this trip, and we couldn’t. I didn’t do anything, but I loved my father, and yet I loved this holiday, even if it stunk at the time.”
Chevy Chase was at his best in this film. What was special about working with him and seeing this top-notch comic timing?
Well, mind you, I was a teenager and Anthony Michael Hall – we call him Michael – knew very well who was who back then. For example: “Oh, Eddie Bracken, John Candy, Imogene Coca – all these great stars. And he taught me all the time. Mind you, I don’t know if you remember, Anthony Michael Hall was also on Saturday Night Live at one point. I never asked, (but) one thing I can ask him – we’re still very close – is whether he did Saturday Night Live because Chevy was on the shoot, or not? I don’t know. So he was in top form.
It was fun because we were driving through a town and he rolled down the window and said, “Hey, I’m Chevy and you’re not.” I think that was his trademark thing that he would do all the time. But as a little kid, I’m like, “Ooh, oh, is that okay?” It was good. It was fun.
You mentioned Anthony Michael Hall and in this film you just have a great relationship. You play back and forth against each other. How was this relationship built? You really do feel like siblings throughout.
We made. That’s very, very noticeable because at the time, our audition scene was a sibling rivalry fight. Rusty eats peanut butter cups stuck all over his teeth, whatever. We would fight back and forth. And during the film when he was 14 and I was a little bit older I was supposed to be the older sister and he became the older brother because he grew up at the end and was a lot bigger at the end.
We had that relationship and we’re still very close. He lives seven minutes away from me. We literally hung out just last week. So we’re still very, very close. But there is. It was just a natural bond with everyone in the cast. It was magical. It was so much fun.
A lot of it was filmed in the car. What was special about filming in such a closed area?
I have no problems with claustrophobia or anything. When you asked me that, there was a very specific smell… we were on vacation, so we traveled a lot and had different cars depending on the shot, but everything had this interesting desert dust smell and it squeaked a little bit. I don’t, when listening to the original you have to pay attention to the squeak it has inherently. So the truckster was a character in its own right. It was a bit like our Millennium Falcon in Star Wars. It was our star vehicle, so to speak.