The 1989 Christmas comedy film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation remains a fan favorite and must-watch for viewers. In the holiday movie, which premiered more than 30 years ago, Chevy Chase starred as Clark W. “Sparky” Griswold Jr. while Beverly D’Angelo played his onscreen wife Ellen Griswold — who had their great Christmas plan quashed.
Former child actor Ellen Latzen, who played Randy Quaid’s daughter Ruby Sue in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, recently shared her experience working on the movie set with Chevy Chase in an interview with the Daily Mail.
Ellen Latzen talks about her experience on the set
The 43-year-old can never forget a notable experience that she deems too graphic to be shown to the viewers. “So, the cat gets electrocuted, and the way that it was portrayed in the film was that there is this cat crater underneath the chair,” she recalled. “But an alternate take on it was they had found this plush, white long-haired cat that they had put these eyes on that were like bugged out of his head, and they were gonna maybe use that, but I think that it was made a little bit too graphic.”
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Further into the discussion, Ellen detailed that Chevy was kind of a recluse on the movie set, but the actor was receptive to her engagement as they both had a fun time playing cards in between scenes. “Chevy kind of kept to himself, but because I was this very gregarious kid and liked to build relationships with people I was working with,” she said. “I would go to his trailer when neither one of us were working and play cards with him or just sit and chat.”
The actress also touched on her relationship with other actors being a child star. “On that film, and pretty much any film I worked on as a kid, all of the adults were always very professional but also warm,” she added. “I think that probably from their perspective, working with children, they want to make them comfortable and feel safe and well cared for and in an environment that is friendly to them.”
Ellen and Chevy shared a hilarious on-screen moment
Ellen also shared a hilarious on-screen moment she had with Chevy, which happened around 50 minutes into the movie. Her character, Ruby Sue, interrupts Clark by asking him if he is Santa Claus amidst his daydream about a female shopping assistant going nude.
Clark, who is lost in his thoughts, responds with, “Nervous or excited?” before Sue makes an epic reply with her unforgettable line of “sh**tin’ bricks.” He then scolds her not to use the word as it is inappropriate, and she modifies her response and says, “Sorry, sh**tin’ rocks.”
Ellen added that she felt safe filming the scene, “It was important for me to sort of establish these relationships, and he was very open to that, and filming the scene with him, I think it probably was conducive to that moment.”