It’s been over 40 years since Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara first met as members of Toronto’s Second City improv troupe — sparking a fruitful working relationship that’s spanned comedic genres from stage to movies to television.
The stars of Pop’s fish-out-of-water comedy “Schitt’s Creek” segued together from the Second City stage to its TV version, “SCTV,” and played on-screen couples in the Christopher Guest mockumentaries “Best in Show” (as spouses Gerry and Cookie Fleck) and “A Mighty Wind” (as estranged ’60s-era folk duo Mitch & Mickey) — while co-starring (not as a couple) in Guest’s “Waiting for Guffman” and “For Your Consideration.”
Both Levy, 71, and O’Hara, 63, say their on-screen chemistry is more a happy coincidence than anything pre-planned. “I first became aware of Catherine when she started work at Second City, though I think we actually met a year before that,” says Levy, who co-created “Schitt’s Creek” with his son, Dan Levy. “We didn’t actually work together a lot as a team on the Second City stage or on ‘SCTV’ … but I think we have the same approach. We kind of go to character first and find more comfort in creating through a character than we do as individuals.
“We approach the work the same way — kind of intensely — and I think there’s great comfort in that.”
“He was in the cast [of Second City] and I was a waitress,” O’Hara says of meeting Levy. “We have similar sensibilities. Eugene is a really great actor and always has been. The smartest people who watched ‘SCTV’ got that he was the best actor on the show. I don’t think Eugene knows how hilarious he is because he takes his character so seriously. I can go too far in certain kinds of humor or just [in the] things that come out of my mouth — and he makes me want to behave better.”
“Schitt’s Creek,” back for Season 4, revolves around Johnny and Moira Rose (Levy and O’Hara), a home-video magnate and his wife, a former soap star, swindled out of their millions and forced to live in Schitt’s Creek, a podunk town Johnny bought years before as a gag gift. They’re hunkered down in the sketchy Schitt’s Creek Motel with their twentysomething kids — socialite daughter Alexis (Annie Murphy) and flamboyant son David (Dan Levy). The quirky series also features Levy’s daughter, Sarah Levy, Chris Elliott, Jennifer Robertson, Emily Hampshire, Dustin Milligan and Tim Rozon.
“She’s very chameleon-like,” Levy says of O’Hara. “The touches she added to the character; the wigs that Moira names and wears based on how she’s feeling each day … that was an amazing addition. And stylistically, what Moira wears — these are all things Catherine added early on and took us in the direction where this is one of the great comedic characters on television. Her ability to add things … all of that comes in the same package.”
And, O’Hara says, her long on-screen association with Levy has led to the occasional misunderstanding about their off-screen relationship.
(Levy’s been married to wife Deborah since 1977; O’Hara married Bo Welch in 1982.)
“I was at a party in December and someone said, ‘Is your husband here?’ and I said, ‘He’s right over there,’” O’Hara says, referring to Welch. “And they went, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I thought [your husband] was Eugene Levy.’”
“Schitt’s Creek” Season premiere 8 p.m. Wednesday on Pop