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Taylor Ortega, Dan Levy and Laurie Metcalf, the stars of Netflix’s new series “Big Mistakes,” photographed in New York in March. (David Urbanke \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
You might wonder what Dan Levy has been up to in the six years since bidding farewell to \u201cSchitt\u2019s Creek<\/a>,\u201d the beloved, acerbic comedy series he co-created and co-starred in with his father, Eugene Levy. And the answer is, he\u2019s turned to a life of crime.<\/p>\n His new series for Netflix, \u201cBig Mistakes<\/a>,\u201d will release on April 9, and is once again centered on a dysfunctional family: hapless siblings Nicky (Levy) and Morgan (Taylor Ortega), their seemingly perfect sister, Natalie (Abby Quinn), and their domineering mother, Linda (Laurie Metcalf).<\/p>\n Opening on an already wild scene where the family members are bickering at the hospital deathbed of Linda\u2019s mother, the events of \u201cBig Mistakes\u201d escalate quickly and considerably. At the end of the first episode, Nicky \u2014 a gay pastor \u2014 and Morgan \u2014 impulsive and stuck in a seemingly dead-end relationship \u2014 land in the pocket of organized criminals, being forced at gunpoint into the back of a delivery truck.<\/p>\n Though it may seem outlandish, the series (which Levy created with Rachel Sennott, the \u201cI Love LA\u201d star) is really a comedic exploration of small-f family dynamics, generational trauma and why we stand by the people who make us craziest. \u201cBig Mistakes\u201d turns out to be a showcase for Metcalf \u2014 a decorated veteran of comic ensembles like \u201cRoseanne,\u201d “The Conners<\/a>” and \u201cThe Big Bang Theory\u201d \u2014 and Ortega, who\u2019s appeared on shows like \u201cSuccession\u201d and is making a meal out of her first starring series role.<\/p>\n Read more: For the cast of ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ the end is near. That means one thing: heartache<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cBig Mistakes\u201d is also a big window into Levy\u2019s own evolving sensibilities as a creator and performer, and what finally drew him back to series television. As Levy explained, \u201cI had taken six years off because I wanted to make something that I really loved \u2014 that I felt like had legs, had seasons worth of storytelling. It takes a minute in this momentum-obsessed industry, and this world felt endlessly entertaining.\u201d<\/p>\n In late March, Levy, Metcalf and Ortega gathered at Netflix\u2019s offices in New York to talk about the upcoming series. These are some edited excerpts from that conversation.<\/p>\n After the experience of making \u201cBig Mistakes,\u201d do you feel like you\u2019ve bonded as a group?<\/p>\n Taylor Ortega: It wasn\u2019t traumatizing.<\/p>\n Dan Levy: It wasn\u2019t a forced experience at all. In the casting process, I\u2019m always very aware of social compatibility. I don\u2019t really love an ego on set. It\u2019s a really corrosive quality to bring to a group activity. The cast we put together for this show was so easy and wonderfully fun.<\/p>\n Laurie Metcalf: I can\u2019t recall a group like that, that jelled so quickly, that I\u2019ve ever worked on before. It was a really fast-clicking ensemble.<\/p>\n When was the first time that the three of you all met together?<\/p>\n Ortega: We did a rehearsal at the hospital with Abby and us that was really fun.<\/p>\n Levy: You\u2019re dealing with four actors who have never worked together. For me, it was important to give us the rehearsal space, to experiment with the physicality of the space and how we relate to each other. There\u2019s no exposition in the pilot. It\u2019s all revealed. Part of our job as actors was to make sure that once you\u2019re dropped in, you know exactly who these people are. I didn\u2019t want to risk us finding that out when the cameras were rolling.<\/p>\n Metcalf: That was so beneficial. Two days later when we got to the scene, we knew the pace of it. We know how big it could be. In my case. [Laughter]<\/p>\n Levy: It was just a morale boost. We were able to see it work, and we were laughing. Without that rehearsal, that would have been a long, very frustrating first day.<\/p>\n Ortega: [to Metcalf] You pitched something so funny with the nurse coming in at one point. It made everyone feel comfortable to collaborate.<\/p>\n Did that feel like a risk, to pitch ideas on Day 1?<\/p>\n Metcalf: Yes. I didn\u2019t know what the rules were. But you just got the feeling that we were all jumping in cold water and let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n Dan Levy on the cast of “Big Mistakes”: “In the casting process, I\u2019m always very aware of social compatibility. I don\u2019t really love an ego on set.” David Urbanke\/For The Times<\/p>\n “I can\u2019t recall a group like that, that gelled so quickly, that I\u2019ve ever worked on before. It was a really fast-clicking ensemble,” Laurie Metcalf says. David Urbanke\/For The Times<\/p>\n What was the genesis of this show, anyway?<\/p>\n Levy: I have a completely unfounded fear of being trapped in an organized criminal situation.<\/p>\n Ortega: That\u2019s totally reasonable.<\/p>\n Levy: I\u2019ve watched a lot of documentaries. There are people who find themselves trapped in organized crime and unfortunately, the rate of people getting out once they\u2019re in is low. The concept of finding myself obligated to a criminal organization, knowing how ill-equipped I am as a person \u2014<\/p>\n Ortega: And how righteous and justice-oriented.<\/p>\n Levy: I don\u2019t want to be committing crimes. I follow the rules to a fault. And the more I read, the more it opened up thinking, like, how would a very strong family react to this? So I called up Rachel, who seemed like an equally incapable person when faced with criminal tasks.<\/p>\n Read more: With ‘Good Grief,’ pro funnyman Dan Levy modulates into bittersweet rom-com territory<\/a><\/p>\n Laurie, how were you approached to be part of it?<\/p>\n Metcalf: I got home from doing something in L.A. and I had an email saying \u2026 to read this script from Dan Levy, to see if you would be interested in being a part of it. I said yes. And then I read it, and right off the bat, my character has the first three lines, all in caps, in a hospital room. I thought, I can do that and bring that energy.<\/p>\n Levy: I knew that the matriarch of this family was so important to the legitimacy of this. It\u2019s a study of what we inherit from our parents. We are the product of their trauma, from their parents. As soon as Laurie said yes, I knew that this show had the potential to be so much more than I could have ever imagined. If you didn\u2019t have somebody [like her] who was as multidimensional and curious and able to excavate every little moment for the truth, the comedy, then it would be a different show.<\/p>\n Taylor is hardly a newcomer, but even so, how did you discover her for this show?<\/p>\n Levy: Taylor was the very first person who auditioned for this show, and the last.<\/p>\n Ortega: It had been like six months [between auditions]. I was in a different place in my life. When I first auditioned for this, I thought, \u201cThis is a very good fit.\u201d It doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s my job, but it would be the best choice to pick me. [Laughter] Very rarely do you think, \u201cI could do the best job at this,\u201d and get to do the job.<\/p>\n Taylor Ortega says she related to her character Morgan: “Even the way that she reacts to her misfortune \u2014 and a lot of it is self-inflicted \u2014 feels like a past version of me, or a low-vibrational version of me.” (David Urbanke \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n What made you think that?<\/p>\n Ortega: I just have a very similar background. I\u2019m not typically reading breakdowns that are like, she\u2019s from New Jersey. Even the way that she reacts to her misfortune \u2014 and a lot of it is self-inflicted \u2014 feels like a past version of me, or a low-vibrational version of me.<\/p>\n Levy: You don\u2019t want to be the first person in the [audition] room. When you\u2019re seeing 250 people \u2014 it was a lot of people \u2014 it gets muddled. I had seen so many people do the first couple of scenes so I wrote an additional scene, us being trapped in the back of a van in Episode 2. To me, there\u2019s no greater joy than watching an actor who has been working but not gotten that starring role, walk into something that\u2019s so tailor-made. [Realizes what he\u2019s said and rolls his eyes.]<\/p>\n Ortega: It\u2019s one of those classic lucky breaks where you do something for like 10, 15 years, and then the perfect thing comes along.<\/p>\n Dan and Laurie, you\u2019ve both been part of iconic television families in the past. How do you know when a cast\u2019s chemistry is working?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Levy: Chemistry is not something that you can really work on. It\u2019s either there or it\u2019s not. You feel comfortable with somebody or you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n What do you do when it isn\u2019t working? Has that ever happened to you?<\/p>\n Metcalf: I\u2019ve had ones that I haven\u2019t felt as connected, I haven\u2019t felt as proud of, I haven\u2019t felt as much a part of. I just stayed in my lane and treated it as more of a job than something I do feel proud and a member of and want to support it in any way I can.<\/p>\n Taylor Ortega, Dan Levy and Laurie Metcalf. Levy says “Big Mistakes” is “a study of what we inherit from our parents.” (David Urbanke \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n When was the first time that the actors got to see the results of their work?<\/p>\n Metcalf: [to Levy] The cool thing that you did was show the whole pilot at lunchtime to the whole cast and crew. I wasn\u2019t there. [Laughter] But everybody got to see.<\/p>\n Levy: Laurie has a five-year rule \u2014 she will watch things after five years.<\/p>\n Is that right?<\/p>\n Metcalf: When I\u2019m doing it, I have a vision of what it looks like, and it\u2019s never anything like that and it shakes me up in a bad way. I have to wait until I\u2019ve forgotten \u2014 at least \u2014 the lines.<\/p>\n Levy: I am making this show for Laurie to watch in five years. [Laughter] I had to cut the first episode a week after we shot it, because they send it out for testing, if there were any major changes to the story or if something wasn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n Ortega: They were thinking of replacing me with a very little girl.<\/p>\n Levy: I mean, I could end up getting replaced. It was a very new world for me. \u201cSchitt\u2019s,\u201d we had just total control over. I sort of feel like, [under his breath] I\u2019m not going to change anything. I\u2019ll do it, but I feel sure of what I\u2019m making and if I didn\u2019t, I wouldn\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n What did you want to say about religion with this show?<\/p>\n Levy: With every character, at the beginning of this show, I\u2019m thinking, how can we exacerbate the dire circumstances that crime would rub up against? This is his choice [to be in the church], and part of that stems from his relationship to his family and wanting to be on a track that is stable. For him, going to school for this and then going into a job that told him exactly how to be, who to be, when to be, felt very comfortable for him.<\/p>\n But I never wanted religion to be the butt of the joke. That\u2019s why we had a gay pastor [the Rev. Warren Swenson] who, across all of our scripts, was authenticating what we were saying and doing. I was very hypersensitive about, like, \u201cIn a time of crisis, would I really say ‘Jesus Christ’?\u201d And he was like, \u201cYeah, behind closed doors, we are human beings.\u201d I didn\u2019t want to caricature that person. I wanted to respect the fact that these are his beliefs, whether I agree with them or not.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of anger on the show \u2014 often, the very understandable result of the situations the characters find themselves in. Is that cathartic to write and to perform?<\/p>\n Ortega: We all do that really easily.<\/p>\n Levy: I always like to pull the pendulum back as far as possible. I think you\u2019re seeing these characters at the breaking point. And I don\u2019t think that they would be as susceptible to the crime that happened if they weren\u2019t in particularly precarious times in their life.<\/p>\n I speak from my experience \u2014 you come from a yelling family or you don\u2019t. And the yelling families will deeply identify with this, and the non-yelling families, it might take a minute to understand.<\/p>\n Metcalf: It\u2019s regional. Ninety percent of it doesn\u2019t land on anybody. My own kids just roll their eyes. It doesn\u2019t mean anything at all.<\/p>\n Ortega: If I yell in my real life, other people will go, \u201cI know you\u2019re upset, but it is funny.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been only a couple of months since the death of Catherine O\u2019Hara<\/a>, your \u201cSchitt\u2019s Creek\u201d co-star, and audiences are still missing her tremendously. Do you have any memories of her you might want to share?<\/p>\n Levy: I have nothing but memories. I feel very grateful to have worked with her on something that I know she was so proud to be a part of \u2014 to know how excited she was by the show, how proud she was of the character that she built, and to be there for her during those six years to give her everything she needed to help build that character into what it\u2019s become. To be a part of that chapter of her brilliant career is a real blessing. Aside from that, she was just a wonderful, wonderful person.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/54f47c5a238d80cf6b8378149c24c6f3.jpeg\"\/)
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