Late Canadian actress Catherine O’Hara used to rewrite entire scenes “from top to tail” for Schitt’s Creek, program co-creator and star Dan Levy recently revealed in an interview.
O’Hara, celebrated for her distinctive comic style and memorable performances in films and series such as Home Alone, Schitt’s Creek and Beetlejuice, died on January 30 in Los Angeles after a brief illness at the age of 71.
During an episode of the podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Levy recalled working with O’Hara, his co-star and friend.
O’Brien said, “I remembered thinking it was such a nice thing for Catherine to have that role during that last decade of her life, where she was playing someone who was beloved, because people love the character and they’re really getting to see yet another way that she’s really funny. … It was such a nice thing for her that you made happen.”
Levy took a stroll down memory lane and recalled, “She made it happen. I just made sure that I was prepared. That’s really what it came down to. Like so much of Moira Rose was Catherine.”
Levy also recalled Seth Rogen once telling him that O’Hara would send emails the night before a shoot, which would read, “Gentlemen, some thoughts about the scenes we’re shooting tomorrow”. The actor revealed “it would be a full top-to-tail rewrite.”
“And as soon as he said it, it was like: I got those emails. The ‘gentleman’ — it always started with ‘gentlemen, some thoughts’ — and then it was an unbelievable rewrite of the scene. And that is what the amazing, all the great Catherine roles were when she found collaborators that wanted to give her that platform,” Levy added.
“You know, because she had so much to offer, and she was so, the way that she thinks is so on another level that as a writer, you can’t get into her head. So all you can really do is set the table, wait for the email, ‘gentlemen, some thoughts,’ read the scene and say, ‘Fuck yeah.’ You know, and like, just be prepared,” he further said.
Levy still rewatches the clips of O’Hara from Schitt’s Creek whenever he finds them on social media.
“And I, every time I see her — even though I wrote the thing — I stop and I watch, and I’m watching not for anything that I did, but I’m watching because she is impossible not to watch. And she’s impossible not to love and she’s, it’s impossible not to laugh with her in anything she does. And it’s, it is like an unimaginable loss. She was just an irreplaceable talent and an irreplaceable person,” Levy reminisced.
O’Hara’s Schitt’s Creek character Moira Rose transformed her into a cultural icon. Her role in the comedy show, which reunited O’Hara with her iconic collaborator Eugene Levy, is perhaps her most celebrated role which also earned her an Emmy award. Her exaggerated accent (remember “bebe?”), lavish wardrobe and occasional moments of introspection won hearts of both old and new fans.