Dan Levy talks about the hilarious Catherine O’Hara scenes that nearly broke him

The glory that was Schitt’s Creek may be over, but the legend of Moira dahhhling lives on. Star and co-creator Dan Levy participated in Variety’s Actors on Actors series via video chat with Succession actor Kieran Culkin to chat and share anecdotes about working on the two most popular shows in recent memory. And to Dan’s memory, he still to this day is in awe of a scene from the pilot in which  Catherine O’Hara, aka Moira Rose, nearly broke him on set.“I remember shooting the pilot, the first episode of our show,” he recalled, “she has lost her bracelet or her necklace, and she’s running around the motel room, opens the drawer, pulls out a lightbulb and makes an ‘ahhh’ sound. If you notice in the scene, I’m covering my face like this, because I couldn’t keep myself from laughing. I physically could not stop laughing. And every time we did this take, we had to walk in the room, and I would see her in various states of insanity, so I made the choice to [covers mouth] to at least look like I’m shocked or disturbed.”

Dan Levy reveals the hilarious #SchittsCreek scene with Catherine O'Hara that nearly broke him on set https://t.co/TTNMMX0OwN pic.twitter.com/tZbNP3KUFJ

— Variety (@Variety) July 5, 2020

“I don’t think Catherine has done a single take the same in the six years that we shot the show. Every. Single. Take. Was different,” he said, clapping his hands for emphasis. “And you never knew what you were gonna get […] But there were moments shooting the show where you realize you are working with someone who is absolutely brilliant. And the choices that they make and the decisions that they make in a scene, this kind of electricity that they bring to their work, the spontaneity, you realize, ‘oh we’re part of something special and I get to watch someone who is the best of the best do what they do best.’”During the hour-long exchange, the entirety of which can be watched here, Levy also lauded and praised O’Hara for her ability to give a nuanced portrayal of someone three sheets to the wind.“Nobody plays drunk better than Catherine O’Hara. Nobody,” he stated. “There is not a single human actor on the planet that can play drunk with the level of complexity, struggle, nuance that Catherine … I mean, and we’ve asked her time and time again to share the secret of it, and she was like, ‘It’s just a matter of not wanting to be drunk.’”Even Kieran Culkin, who is a veteran actor (he is the brother of Macauley Culkin and got his start early on with small roles in the Home Alone series), admitted that Catherine O’Hara is responsible for his mega-LOLs. “Catherine O’Hara is responsible in your show for making me laugh one of the hardest times I’ve ever laughed in my life, to the point where I actually was on the floor and it actually started getting to a point of being unpleasant, how hard I was laughing, because it was hurting,” he admitted.Levy also had nothing but glowing praise for his father, actor Eugene Levy, who has starred in some mega hits other than Schitt’s Creek, like SCTV, Splash, and American Pie – the latter of which son Dan had a fun behind-the-scenes tidbit to share.“I remember my dad getting the script for American Pie and passing on it because it was like about a kid who was having sex with a pie, and I remember thinking ‘what is this movie? What are you talking about?!’”Levy goes on to say that after meeting with the directors, papa Eugene proposed an alternate take on his character’s reactions and interactions with his on-screen son. “I guess the character was a little bit harder, and like gave his son porn, but what my dad decided to do was soften the character and have him be a little bit more uncomfortable with the world of talking about sex with your child.”[video_embed id='-1']Before you go: Nicholas Braun picks his favourite ‘Succession’ meme[/video_embed]