Catherine O’Hara was honored posthumously at the SAG-AFTRA Actor Awards on Sunday.
O’Hara, who died in January at the age of 71 after a short illness, won the award for outstanding performance by a female actor for the Apple TV comedy series “The Studio.” She also won as a member of the cast of “The Studio” for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
O’Hara received a standing ovation when her “The Studio” co-star Seth Rogen took to the stage to accept the award on her behalf.
“I think it would have been an honor for her to receive this award from her fellow cast members. I know she had a lot of respect for it. She was a big fan of all of you,” Rogen said. “You know, I’ve been looking back at the time I’ve spent with her and been lucky enough to work with her. What I’ve just been amazed at over the past few weeks has been her ability to be generous and kind and gracious, but never to downplay her own talent or her ability to contribute to the work that we’re doing. I knew I could destroy and I wanted to destroy every day on set. And I didn’t tell the other actors this because they didn’t want to.” But mostly, she would email me and Evan (Goldberg) every night before the show’s shooting day. The email was always pretty much the same: “Hello, I’d be happy to consider the following.” And there would be a completely rewritten version of the scene she was in. ”
Rogen continued, “Literally 100 percent of the time, it not only made her character better, it made the scenes better, it made the whole show better overall. And she really showed that people can be geniuses and they can be kind, and one of those doesn’t have to come at the expense of the other in any way.”
She was nominated for her role as former studio chief turned producer Patti Lee in The Studio. She was nominated along with her Studio co-star Kathryn Hahn (Maya Mason), Jenna Ortega (Wednesday’s Addams), Jean Smart (Deborah Vance, The Hux), and Kristen Wiig (Maxine Simmons, Palm Royale).
The camera panned to a teary-eyed Ortega as Rogen eulogized O’Hara. Ortega co-starred in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. Hearn also became visibly emotional upon hearing O’Hara’s name.
At the end of Rogen’s speech, he said, “I think I’m going to stop with this. If you know someone who doesn’t know about her work, if you’re a kid or just a naive person or an idiot, show them O’Hara dancing to Harry Belafonte in Beetlejuice.” Show O’Hara doing that amazing thing on Best in Show where she hurts her knee and hobbles around, and you laugh and tell people that’s Catherine O’Hara. And we’re lucky to live in a world where she shares that talent with us in general. ”
In addition to the acting award, O’Hara was nominated for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for her role in “The Studio.” She previously won Best Actress in a Comedy Series and Best Actor in a Comedy Series Ensemble (then known as the SAG Awards) for Schitt’s Creek in 2021.
O’Hara, of course, has been a beloved presence in film and television for five decades, starting with “SCTV” and then going on to movies like “Beetlejuice,” “Home Alone,” and Christopher Guest mockumentaries like “Best in Show,” “For Your Convention,” “Waiting for Guffman” and “A Mighty Wind.”
The star was nominated for Best Actor in a 2011 award for Outstanding Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for “Temple Grandin.” Of course, her role as Moira Rose on ‘Schitt’s Creek’ brought her further recognition and awards in recent years. Last year, O’Hara received an Emmy nomination for her role in The Studio, as well as an Emmy nomination and Emmy nomination for guest actress in a drama for her role in The Last of Us.
O’Hara’s death shocked Hollywood, with friends and fans paying tribute to her, writing on Instagram: “Mom, I thought there was still time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in the chair next to you. I could hear you, but I had so much to say.” “I love you. See you again.”
“I really don’t know what to say…When I first met O’Hara, I told her I thought she was the funniest person I’d ever seen on screen. ‘Home Alone’ was the movie that made me want to make movies,” Rogen wrote on Instagram.
