Keep in mind, when A Christmas Story was released in 1983 it only made $19 million (for comparison, the long-forgotten helicopter action movie Blue Thunder, made 42 million that year). But now it's impossible to get through the holiday season without seeing at least a clip of it (TNT does a 24-hour marathon of just this movie on Christmas Eve every year). It took the cast a few years to realize they had something iconic on their hands.

South Shore CVA
Or tongues for some of them.

"People started commenting to me that I was that guy from that thing they watch every year. By the time it hit the 20th anniversary we were doing a charity fundraiser, and the Mayor decreed it to be Christmas Story Day. And we see like 2,000 people lined up to meet us. That's where you realize that this is something different. It's amazing to watch a 5-year-old kid sit down and watch this whole movie just rapt."

No one involved thought it was anything other than just another acting gig at the time (It was Zack's first film role), probably thinking it would be buried deep in the pages of Hollywood history below such icons as Porky's II: The Next Day.

Box Office Mojo
Also directed by Bob Clark.

"I was doing a charity signing and this guy shows up, he's got to be like 75, and he's with his son, and his son has a kid, and the kid has a child who's like four. So we're talking four generations, and this 75-year-old man is like 'Where are the guys from A Christmas Story? It took place when I was a boy!' So here's this old man who related to the film as if it was his childhood, and he had watched it with his son, and then his son had taken his son to it, and then that guy had had a baby who knew who I was. That's pretty crazy."

So after all the work of being plucked out of a group of 300 aspiring actors, Zack was abruptly switched to a different, much more iconic part. That's life, kids.

It's right before the subplots with the Prime Minister and the rock star.

Four Christmases is about a rich couple who are forced to do the unspeakable -- spend time with their divorced parents, all of whom maintain gorgeous homes. Eventually they're inspired to start a family, right after they take an exorbitant vacation to Fiji to recover from suffering through all that family time.

New Line Cinema
But hey, at least they don't have to worry about possibly getting a pool put in slightly later in the year.

The Holiday is about two women who swap homes during the holidays -- one woman gets to live in a multi-million dollar LA mansion, while the other has to "settle" for flying to England to live in a picturesque cottage. Spoiler alert: They both find true love.

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures
Even though Cameron Diaz got stuck in this unlivable hellhole.

Even Home Alone is a portrait of extravagance. Remember, Kevin was forgotten in the confusion of a massive extended family all leaving for a vacation in Paris. The home he's defending is a fucking palace.

20th Century Fox
It would be a very different movie if he had to defend his single mom's run-down one-room apartment from people looking for drug money.

Most Christmas movies are about people who never have to worry about money briefly experiencing personal problems before holiday magic gives them a perfect life forever while bystanders applaud them and their newfound gorgeous sexual partner. A Christmas Story is about a family putting aside their bickering and financial woes long enough to spend a couple peaceful hours together with a few modest gifts. It's the difference between lifestyle porn and what many people, including a young Zack, actually experience.

"I don't know what your childhood Christmases were like, but mine sucked. I grew up poor as shit, one year we had to have a boarder in the house that we were renting. And for Christmas, one of my presents was a sweater that I had loaned my mom money to buy me. And the other one was a tulip bulb from our boarder. I'm like 14. What the hell am I going to do with a tulip bulb? 'Merry Christmas!' No. I'm good, let's move on with our lives, I don't want to talk about Christmas anymore. That's reality for a lot of people."

"Playing the role of Scut was revenge on the jackholes who were my bullies. I got to imitate them, and in that imitation really belittle them. Because if you look at Scut, there's really no moment where he looks cool. He's just a big douchenozzle. And then you see him at the end where his hat's knocked off, he's bleeding, he's just a stupid kid."

The only downside was that Zack was 13, an age where looking goofy is a crisis on par with watching your house burn down.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
"Ladies ..."

"Bob Clark invited myself and my mother in to see the scene where I get beat up, and Bob's like 'Oh, that's fantastic!' And he gets up and leaves, and my mom was like 'Oh, Zackarias, that was wonderful' and I have tears in my eyes and she asks what's wrong and I go 'Mom, I look so ugly!' And she says 'Honey, it's not you, you're playing a character.' But let's be honest, I was 13, I was a goober looking kid. My nose grew faster than the rest of my face, I had braces. So I felt bad about myself."

And, if you're not sold on that, there was a more practical downside to the gig.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Seen here.

"The scene where Ralphie beats me up, he actually never hits me, but because he's wearing idiot strings that hold his mittens, and his mittens had frozen solid, every time he was pretend punching me his mitts were slapping the crap out of me. So when you see my face is bright red it's because I had been pimp slapped for like 20 minutes."

Zack has had many, many roles, and he's proud of all of them, but let's face it: Scut Farkus is going to follow him to the grave.

Zack noted that his IMDB rating spikes around the holidays because people get curious about what he's been up to, so here's a sampling. Here's Zack in Resident Evil: Apocalypse before he gets killed:

Screen Gems
And here's the erotic fanfiction people have written about his minor character.

Here's Zack in Transformers before he gets killed:

Paramount Pictures
He saw the draft of Transformers 2, so it was a blessing.

And here's Zack in Almost Famous before he gets killed:

Dreamworks Pictures
He was playing a roadie in the 1970s. Don't try to tell us his character would be alive today.

Zack's voice recently appeared in Izzie's Way Home, a zero-budget Finding Dory knockoff that he had already forgotten about.

"I heard it's fucking horrible. But that's one of those things where you're like 'Hey, thanks for the job! My mortgage likes money!' And you do the best you can, and you don't watch it."

You have to take any role you can because, as Zack put it, "No one ever writes 'The lead guy walks in. He's got red hair and slanty eyes.' Nobody is going to buy a 10 million dollar movie starring Zack Ward. I have to be honest with myself about who I am and what I can accomplish."

But there was one exception: Zack starred in Uwe Boll's Postal, a 15-million-dollar movie that also features Verne Troyer as himself getting raped by a thousand monkeys.

Vivendi Entertainment

Vivendi Entertainment

Vivendi Entertainment
And that's not the weirdest part of the movie.

Making that was a ... unique experience.

"Great movies are inspirational, bad movies are motivational. And Uwe Boll is very motivational. He was so, so lazy. Literally, the version of Postal that was released was the first cut. I spent all my Christmas in an editing bay writing pages of notes, because Uwe had said 'Yeah, I absolutely want to hear [your notes!]' No one gave a crap, not a single change was made. Uwe just does not care."

Vivendi Entertainment
Here's Zack on the set of Postal, which certainly looks hellish.

So one of the kids from A Christmas Story grew up to spend a Christmas working his ass off on something he got no credit for, even while knowing it would never be as great as what he did as a kid, and all because he still saw something valuable in the process itself. Which, if you think about it for a while, pretty much sums up what Christmas is for adults.

You can follow Zack on Twitter, or check out Restoration, a horror movie he directed. Mark is also on Twitter and has a book.

For more insider perspectives, check out 5 Things I Learned As A Child Star Of The Worst Movie Ever and 7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy (An Insider's Perspective).

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