Hollywood stars break down as ‘genius’ Catherine O’Hara wins posthumous award
Catherine O’Hara was posthumously awarded an Actor Award on Sunday for her performance in The Studio.
The Schitt’s Creek star died in January at the age of 71 following a brief illness, having made her final public appearance at the 2025 Emmy Awards in September.
The star and creator of The Studio Seth Rogen went on stage to accept the best actress in a comedy award on O’Hara’s behalf, in front of a visibly emotional Hollywood crowd.
On the Apple TV show, O’Hara played studio exec turned producer powerhouse Patty Leigh, in a role that strove for film quality before commercial success, in the face of Rogen’s character Matt Remick’s swerve towards the former.
Rogen had prepared a speech to accept O’Hara’s posthumous award and was audibly moved as he told the audience: ‘I was asked to assume the very sad honour of accepting this award on O’Hara’s behalf.’
The 43-year-old said he knew O’Hara would have been ‘honoured’ to have been in the same category as stars Jenna Ortega, Jean Smart, Kathryn Hahn and Kristen Wiig at the Actor Awards, formerly known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
‘She was such big fans of all of yours,’ he said, before sharing his recent reflections on working with O’Hara on The Studio.
‘Something I’ve just been marvelling at over the last few weeks was really her ability to be generous and kind and gracious while never ever minimising her own talents, and her own ability to contribute to the work that we were doing,’ he said.
The camera moved to O’Hara’s fellow nominee and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice co-star Ortega at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in LA, as she wiped away tears.
‘She knew she could destroy and she wanted to destroy every day on set,’ Rogen continued.
‘I haven’t said this to the other actors, because I haven’t wanted them to get ideas, but pretty much every evening before she had a shooting day on our show, she would email me and [co-creator Evan Goldberg] an email that always was pretty similar, that said, “Hello, I hope you’ll consider the following”, and then there would be a completely rewritten version of the scene that she was in.’
Saturday Night Live alum Wiig laughed in the gathered crowd as Rogen went on to say that O’Hara’s notes would make a scene better ‘100 percent of the time’.
He continued: ‘She really showed that you can be a genius and be kind, and one of those things does not have to come at the expense of the other in any way, shape or form.
‘If you have people in your lives who don’t know her work – if you have kids in your lives or people that are out of touch or stupid or something – just show them O’Hara dancing to Harry Belafonte in Beetlejuice.
‘Show them O’Hara hurting her knee in Best in Show and doing that amazing thing where she hobbles around. And tell the people as they’re laughing that that’s Catherine O’Hara, and we’re lucky that we got to live in a world where she so genuinely got to share her talents with us.’
The Studio is available to stream on Apple TV.
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