The biggest TV hit of the pandemic? A comedy about a family holed up against their will. Its star discusses warmth, wigs and why she loves playing Moira Rose
Catherine O’Hara and I spend most of our time together anxiously apologising to one another, me for my terrible wifi connection, her for what she describes as her “ramblings”. Her infraction is more forgivable. A frozen Zoom screen is just annoying. O’Hara’s verbal meanderings (“Oh dear, what am I on about?”) are far more fun, swooping among the highlights from her career as a comedy cult star in the 1970s (the Canadian sketch show SCTV), 80s and 90s (Beetlejuice, Home Alone), and then Christopher Guest’s series of brilliant and largely improvised films (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration).
Now, at 66, she has peaked yet further, with her glorious performance as Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, the most endearing sitcom to come along in yonks. The show came to an end last year after six seasons and it went out with fireworks, setting the record for the most Emmys won by a comedy series in a single season. One went to O’Hara, almost 40 years after she won her first, for her writing on SCTV, in which she starred alongside John Candy, Harold Ramis and, most importantly, her Schitt’s Creek co-star Eugene Levy.
