Photo: Everett; Phillip Faraone/WireImage
Zack Wardalmost didn’t play Scut Farkus, the bully he made famous in the 1983 holiday classicA Christmas Story.
“I had like eight auditions for it and finally, I got the role as the sidekick,” the actor, 49, tells PEOPLE. “I wasn’t the bully. I only had like two lines and I showed up on set right beside Yano Anaya and met [director] Bob Clark for the first time. He saw that I was a foot taller than Yano and said, ‘You get his lines, he gets yours.’ So Scut Farkus became the bully and I became the beloved jackass of Christmas.”
A Christmas Storycelebrates its 35th anniversary on Sunday, and Ward admits he still gets recognized for the character he played at age 13.
“All the time!” he says. “People have grown up with my silly face and when they meet me — I was at a tire store getting a new tire, talking to this lady and she goes, ‘Why do you seem so familiar?’ It’s bizarre because I’m not 13 years old anymore. I’m kind of a grown up.”
But it took a while before audiences responded to Ward’s character — and the movie in general.
“When it came out, no one cared,” the Canadian says, referring toA Christmas Story‘s moderate box office opening in 1983. “It wasn’t until it hit VHS and started doing the 24-hour marathon that it became the lovable juggernaut that it is.”
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Ward, also CEO ofThe Global Sports Financial Exchange, theorizes that what makes the film a beloved Christmas classic is also the same reasonA Christmas Storywouldn’t be made today.
“The film has such a sense of heart because it’s also got a sense of pain,” he says. “It’s a world that is not polished and shiny. The entire world that they are growing up in is 1940s, Depression-era Indiana where people don’t have enough gas. That’s why mom was always making red cabbage and meatloaf again and again, because there were no options.”
Ward continues, “What brings people together is hard times, not easy times. So when people watch the film, they realize that family came together as a unit through the difficulties. That’s not glamorous, but that’s something that we all shared with our families and our friends. I don’t think studios really feel comfortable showing that type of reality, especially when it’s in a kids world.”
But Ward callsFox’s 2017 live version, starring Matthew Broderick, Ana Gasteyer, Jane Krakowski, and Maya Rudolph, “a disaster.” His biggest problem with the production: “The kid who played me as Scut Farkus was ridiculously handsome! The movie’s supposed to be about real kids, not supermodels. That’s why real people like it. And to have the world’s most gorgeous bully, I don’t understand that.”
Everett
Still, Ward appreciates the film’s legacy and the role it’s held in his life. He still keeps in touch with Anaya, plus the actors who played Flick (Scott Schwartz), Randy (Ian Petrella) and Miss Shields (Tedee Moore).
“It’s such an amazing thing to be part of,” Ward gushes. “It doesn’t happen every day.”
source: people.com
