Zack Ward was separated from other children during filming

• “A Christmas Story” actor Zack Ward told Insider that he was separated from his co-workers during filming.
• Ward played neighborhood bully Scut Farkus in the 1983 Christmas classic.
• According to Ward, he was isolated to create tension among the child actors.

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The actor who played bully Scut Farkus in the 1983 movie “A Christmas Story” revealed in a recent interview with Insider that he and costar Yano Anaya were kept separate from the other child actors during filming.

According to Ward, this was intentional, as director Bob Clark wanted to create a sense of tension between Ward and Anaya (who played bullies Scut and Grover Gill, respectively) and the rest of the kids, including Peter Billingsley and Ian Petrella, who played Scut and Grover’s frequent victims Ralphie and Randy Parker.

“Most of the time, Yano and I weren’t with the other kids. They had different shooting schedules than we did,” Ward told Insider. “[Clark] told our parents, ‘I just want Yano and Zack to hang out and be friends, and if possible, without being rude to the other kids, not hang out with the other kids as much.'”

Per Ward, Clark wanted the other child actors to have “an innate nervousness about these two kids—the two bullies—showing up on set like they’re not quite sure what’s going to happen.” The actor told Insider that he thinks the film succeeded in part because of this tension between the younger cast members.

Flick, Randy, Ralphie and Schwartz take on Grover Gill and Scut Farkus in this still from ‘A Christmas Story’.

MGM

But despite their divorce, Ward said he and the rest of the kids in the cast got along great.

“We loved each other. And growing up, we just always had this touchstone that we could relate to, and then we had to build that touchstone into another movie,” said Ward, referring to the recent sequel to “A Christmas Story .”

The new movie, titled “A Christmas Story Christmas,” was released on HBO Max in November and follows a now-adult Ralphie (Peter Billingsley, reprising his role from the original) as he travels home to Indiana with his family after death. from his father, “The Old Man.”

Ward, Anaya, Petrella, Scott Schwartz, and RD Robb also appear in the sequel, reprising their roles as Scut, Grover, Randy, Flick, and Schwartz, respectively.