{"id":441444,"date":"2026-01-31T19:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T19:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/441444\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T19:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T19:54:07","slug":"how-catherine-ohara-created-moira-rose-on-schitts-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/441444\/","title":{"rendered":"How Catherine O’Hara Created Moira Rose on ‘Schitt’s Creek’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDuring the pandemic, when the prospect of interviewing people in person was an impossibility, I frequently thought to myself that if I never got to do that again, my interview over a long lunch with Catherine O\u2019Hara and Eugene Levy<\/a> for a \u201cSchitt\u2019s Creek\u201d cover<\/a> was the perfect way to go out. I met them on Friday, Feb. 28, 2020\u00a0at the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica, which has a restaurant in its penthouse \u2014 within two weeks, the world shut down.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith \u201cSchitt\u2019s Creek\u201d as our stated focus, we discussed how O\u2019Hara had embraced the role of Moira Rose, which Eugene Levy and Dan Levy, who\u2019d created the show, had conceived for her. Eugene told the story of being tasked to call her to ask her to join them, saying they\u2019d gotten an order from CBC, which excited her. And that they were going to shoot the show in the summer, which\u2026 did not. \u201cEugene,\u201d O\u2019Hara said, telling the story, and sounding stern, \u201cdo you even know me?\u201d She reminded him that, as many Canadians do, she has a cottage that she likes to go to with her family in the summer. He said he\u2019d get back to her. Imitating Levy in his next call, O\u2019Hara said, \u201cOK! We\u2019re going to shoot in the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThinking about that day now that O\u2019Hara has died, I feel so lucky to have had this experience. Her death is a devastating, shocking loss: for comedy, for the entertainment industry and for everyone who ever met her. To have had a conversation with O\u2019Hara \u2014\u00a0and with Levy, her creative partner over many decades \u2014 about work she loved doing, about a character she adored, feels like a privilege of this job. And I knew it at the time too, and was smiling (and laughing, probably too hard) throughout the hours-long lunch, which they kept going long after all my questions were answered.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Pop TV\/CBC<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Hara had a strong vision for who Moira was \u2014\u00a0what she looked like, and how she would sound. She\u2019d gone to the initial meeting with the Levys with visual aids, armed with photos of the socialite Daphne Guinness. Eugene, sounding proud of his son, as he did throughout the lunch, said, \u201cDaniel couldn\u2019t write stuff down fast enough.\u201d Moira\u2019s voice and accent were less tangible, though, and O\u2019Hara said she tried (and failed) to tell them what she was thinking \u2026 over email. \u201cI was giving you nothing!\u201d she exclaimed to Levy, describing the process. But then they heard it for the first time. \u201cUnreal,\u201d Levy said, marveling. As O\u2019Hara put it, \u201cYou have to work with lovely, smart, talented people who allow you to sound like an alien.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the pandemic, when the prospect of interviewing people in person was an impossibility, I frequently thought to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[62914,88,86389,132674,92],"class_list":["post-441444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-catherine-ohara","tag-entertainment","tag-eugene-levy","tag-schitts-creek","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}