Backstage Magazine Digital Edition: Emmy Award Winners 2020

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Celebrating the 2020 Emmy Award winners

in this unprecedented year of must-watch TV

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Letter From the Awards Editor

The 2020 Emmy Awards Reminded Us of Their Purpose Literal garbage fires notwithstanding.

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Dear Backstage awards enthusiast, ow that my gut reactions to the 2020 Emmy Awards ceremony have been digested, it’s time to lay this saga—this epically, historically weird saga—to rest.

Although the 72nd annual Emmys were able to endure where other awards shows couldn’t, both the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and our society’s renewed focus on systemic issues of inequality impacted the Television Academy’s prestigious honors. That goes for the nominations and voting process (delayed, given a wider eligibility window, and with adjusted category rules to allow for more inclusive contenders) and the final ceremony (including unprecedented safety measures in place, with presentations from essential workers plus female actors and creators of color highlighting discrimination they’ve faced in the biz).

Few could have predicted exactly how the ceremony would unfold, but one thing was certain: good, bad, or simply surreal, the 2020 Emmys telecast was the first major awards show produced in this new era. It was always guaranteed to be a fascinating time capsule perhaps for future historians studying the pandemic’s effect on the entertainment industry. Most awards shows provide a snapshot of a society’s taste and cultural values; this one did so perhaps more than any other.

A question facing this enterprise, however, was so glaring that host Jimmy Kimmel had to address it in his opening monologue: Amid the chaos of political upheaval, climate change-induced fires, and public health crises in 2020, what is the purpose of awards shows?

Should they even be happening?

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Delivered to what turned out to be an eerily empty stadium, Kimmel’s introduction provided a kind of answer. “What’s happening tonight is not important,” he stated. “It’s not going to stop COVID, it’s not going to put out the fires. But it’s fun, and right now we need fun.”

Soon afterward, marquee presenter Jennifer Aniston emerged in person to help Kimmel sanitize and, alarmingly, set fire to the evening’s first presented envelope. Watching a literal garbage fire threaten to engulf the Staples Center within moments of an Emmys host positing that this ceremony was justified despite its inability to put out fires was one of those ironic, out-of-body experiences that feel all too familiar these days. (To Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon, who later in the telecast heralded the end

of this godforsaken 2020, I say “Hear, hear!”)

But a feeling of intimacy pervaded the ensuing presentations, which provided casual glimpses into nominees’ homes and a spirit of camaraderie; when Mark Ruffalo thanked his wife while sitting right next to her, or Uzo Aduba called to her mother out of frame, I was reminded that a winner’s joyful gratitude is fundamental to such an event’s design and appeal. Zendaya becoming the second woman of color and youngest ever winner in the drama actress category was both the jaw-dropper of a result and celebration of a star’s talent we tune into awards shows to see.

There are other core functions to a Hollywood awards show—they put projects on audiences’ radars, provide marketers much-needed

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credibility, and feed the ecosystem of an industry that this year has taken a considerate economic blow. Why do you love awards, dear reader? Do we need these ceremonies—for their traditions, the sense of routine or normalcy amid crisis? I’ll be grappling with these questions as much as I’m reveling in the excitement of awards races, especially entering an extended, extraordinary film and guilds season. But for now, we’re still celebrating the winners out of the 2020 Emmys, and this book filled with Backstage interviews from the victors is a great way to do so.

If all else fails—and this year, it sure feels like everything is failing—let’s hope Aniston is standing by, fire extinguisher at the ready.

Sincerely, Jack Smart Awards Editor

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And the (Remote) Winners Are...

The 2020 Primetime Emmys will surely be remembered for all time

By Jack Smart

BACKSTAGE 10.01.20

hosted by Nicole Byer, were Pop TV’s comedy “Schitt’s Creek,” HBO’s drama “Succession” and limited series “Watchmen,” VH1’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” and “Star Wars” drama “The Mandalorian,” from new streaming giant Disney+. HBO’s “Bad Education” was crowned as outstanding TV movie. Taking home victories in the guest acting categories were Ron Cephas Jones of NBC’s “This Is Us,” Cherry Jones of “Succession,” and Eddie Murphy and Maya Rudolph for the Murphy–hosted episode of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”

After Kimmel kicked off the ceremony outlining safety procedures in place, the major comedy results were announced with a clean sweep for outstanding comedy series winner “Schitt’s Creek.”

The show totaled nine Emmys,

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its first, and broke the record for most comedy series wins in a single season, with co-creator Dan Levy winning statues for writing, co-directing, producing, and supporting actor. Catherine O’Hara, Annie Murphy, and co-creator Eugene Levy also accepted acting trophies, marking the first time in the 72-year history of the Emmys that a comedy has swept all four acting categories in one year. The Levys’ small-budget sitcom about a wealthy family forced to relocate to a backwater town, which began in 2015 and recently aired its final season, was distributed by Canada’s Pop TV and aired in the U.S. on Netflix.

Regina King won her fourth Emmy in six years for “Watchmen,” and Mark Ruffalo earned his second for HBO’s limited series “I Know This Much Is

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HBO; POP TV; HBO; APPLE TV+; DISNEY+/IAN ROBINSON

THE JIMMY KIMMEL–HOSTED Primetime Emmy Awards will be remembered for being a ceremony like no other, and not just as the first major awards show to present prizes entirely remotely following the COVID-19-induced lockdown. First-time winners and talent from new content platforms have appeared in the results alongside regular recipients of the Television Academy’s highest honors. Broadcast live on ABC, the ceremony was planned in accordance with pandemic safety guidelines, with Kimmel stationed in Los Angeles’ Staples Center and over 100 cameras beaming in live feeds from nominees in lockdown.

Among the winners of the 2020 Creative Arts Emmys, presented virtually in the week leading up to TV’s big night Sept. 20 and

True.” They and other winners, as well as several presenters, implored viewers to have a plan for voting in the upcoming general election. “If you have privilege, you have to fight for those who are less fortunate and more vulnerable,” said Ruffalo. “We are stronger together when we love each other and respect each other’s diversity.”

Governors Award recipient and Hollywood trailblazer Tyler Perry also used his speech to underline the importance of diverse voices in media, echoing stories included on the telecast from Issa Rae on her disappointing first TV pitch, Lena Waithe on the first time she felt seen on the small screen, and America Ferrera on being asked to act out stereotypes in an audition. Among the category presenters were essential workers including teachers, drivers, farmers, and medical professionals reporting from the frontlines of the pandemic.

“Watchmen,” adapted by Damon Lindelof as a sequel to the sci-fi graphic novel from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, continued its impressive showing, with wins for Lindelof and Cord Jefferson as co-writers, supporting actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and ultimately, outstanding limited series. The 11 total Emmys for “Watchmen” made it the night’s winningest show; in the final tally HBO earned 30 Emmys while Netflix netted 21.

Uzo Aduba won her third Emmy for her supporting role as congresswoman Shirley Chisholm on FX’s limited series “Mrs. America.”

In the drama races, leading actors Jeremy Strong of “Succession” and Zendaya of HBO’s “Euphoria” earned their first Emmy statues. “I know this feels like a really weird time to be celebrating,” said the 24-year-old Zendaya, the drama actress category’s youngest ever winner. “But there is hope in the young people.” The supporting drama actor winners were Billy Crudup for AppleTV+’s “The Morning Show” and Julia Garner for Netflix’s “Ozark.” Closing out the ceremony, Jesse Armstrong’s “Succession” earned the trifecta of writing, directing, and outstanding drama series prizes.

C O N G RAT U L AT I O N S B I L LY C R U D U P ® E M M Y AWA R D W I N N E R

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THE SLATE Annie Murphy on ”Schitt’s Creek”

as a young Goldie Hawn, which I thought was a really interesting reference point, because Goldie Hawn is bubbly, but she has a real likability and grounded side to her. That said, I went on the internet and [looked up] ‘Kardashians,’ ‘Lindsay Lohan,’ and ‘Olsens.’ [I developed] a way of speaking from them.”

She and Dan began copying each other’s physical tics. “[My mannerisms] came from stoned actor research and just kind of ran away with themselves.

And I think I took a lot of Dan’s kind of contorted facial expressions for myself, and he started taking some of mine—because you know, as siblings, you share similar speaking inflections and physicality, so we started borrowing from each other. But, yeah, there’s some scenes where I’m like, Goddamn it, do I look like the spawn of Jim Carrey? What is happening with my face at this exact moment in time?”

Annie Murphy Show: “Schitt’s

with comedic heavyweights Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara as her parents, and Dan Levy as her brother (all of whom are also up for Emmys this year).

Creek”

Nomination: Outstanding

in a Comedy Series

Supporting Actress

By Lauren LaMagna LAST JANUARY MARKED THE beginning of the end for Pop TV’s “Schitt’s Creek”—and few characters are more missed than brat-with-a-heart Alexis Rose, played by Annie Murphy. As the spoiled daughter of a millionaire family who suddenly finds itself bankrupt, there was nowhere to go but up for the globe-trotting socialite once she lost it all. While

she’s still in some ways none the wiser, Alexis’ growth over six seasons was fertile ground for comedy and heart in equal measure. The 33-year-old Murphy, now an Emmy nominee for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series, joined Backstage to discuss the final season, how she stays positive in the face of rejection, and what it’s like acting

Even the best actors can learn something from watching “Schitt’s Creek.”

“Someone who is willing to try things and someone who is fully with you and engaged [make great scene partners], and Catherine [O’Hara] is kind of the prime example of that. From her improv background, she’s a real professional, but she always has a glimmer in her eyes and is always ready to play around and give things a shot. Even though she’s so incredibly experienced and an exceptional actor, she never tries to control the scene.”

Be creative, even in an audition.

“On the breakdown for the audition, they didn’t describe [Alexis] as a Paris Hilton type. They described her

Even after a rejection, keep moving forward.

“It’s very hard advice ’cause it’s not something you can just do, but growing that thick skin and knowing that if and when you do get that inevitable ‘Not for us,’ don’t take it personally and don’t let it drag you down—because it’s going to happen. It happens all the time, and you just have to keep going and keep going and keep going, because one day it’s going to be you. You’re going to get the callback, and you’re going to get the call.”

Finding a good reader can help you memorize your lines.

“Lucky [Bromhead] is the makeup artist on the show, and she helps me memorize my lines. She does my makeup, and I’m like, ‘And now you will sit with me and we will run lines into the ground.’ So thanks, Lucks, so much for my career, basically! But she was great because she’s a performer herself in her own way, and would do everyone’s voice. She was a good reader.”

This story was originally published on Jan. 29, 2020.

POP TV

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IN THE ROOM

Jon Comerford Show: “Schitt’s

Creek” Job Title: Casting Director Nomination: Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series

By Elyse Roth WHEN A LITTLE SHOW CALLED “Schitt’s Creek” first aired on CBC in Canada, nobody involved could’ve guessed that it would become an international hit. Six seasons, a pickup from Pop in the U.S., and a fistful of Emmy nominations later, including 15 nods in 2020, fans all over the world said goodbye to the Rose family and their small, unfortunately named town. Those beloved characters were cast by Jon Comerford and Lisa Parasyn, who were Emmynominated themselves in the final season, in addition to the four core Rose family members

that centered the cast. Filling out an ensemble around creators Eugene and Dan Levy and comedy legend Catherine O’Hara wasn’t easy, but they assembled a cast of mostly fresh faces to invite viewers into the show’s quirky locale.

Talk about how you went about assembling the cast of “Schitt’s Creek.”

We really went out of our way to make sure it wasn’t just a revolving door of faces you might expect to pop up on a show like this. The Rose family is suddenly dropped

into a totally new world and initially don’t recognize or relate to anyone around them, so neither should the audience. We really wanted them to stand out, because their characters do just that in the town. So, yes, you’ve got someone like the great Chris Elliott, whom everyone knows, but we really tried to populate “Schitt’s Creek” with fresh, new faces from there.

The most fun we had was casting Alexis Rose when we had the final callback and screen test in Toronto with Eugene, Dan, and the whole team from CBC. Annie Murphy’s final screen test was so dead-on

How did you make sure some of the actors with less experience could hold their own opposite well-known comedic talent?

What’s key to remember is although an actor may have less experience on their résumé, I audition and therefore work through scenes with them. It may look to audiences like we took a risk on an unknown or lesser-known performer, when I’ve actually seen them prove themselves time and time again while auditioning for various projects over the years. I’m well aware of how talented and funny they are. It’s just a matter of the timing and role being right so that other people can finally see it, too.

What can an actor expect when they’re auditioning for you?

I like to really work on a scene, so if I have you do multiple takes and give you notes in between each one, don’t mistake that as having done something wrong. We’re just circling in on the bull’s-eye, and that takes time. How long is often dictated by the weight of the scene. It’s best not to gauge how well any given audition went based on how many takes we had you do.

You say you looked for fresh faces. Where do you look for new talent?

I see a lot of theater. I began acting on the stage myself, so it’s my go-to when looking for new performers. For example, Patrick on “Schitt’s Creek” was a hard role to cast because it’s such an important addition to the main ensemble. I had just seen a great production of David French’s “Jitters” with Noah Reid in it. I was already very familiar with him, but that was just the right reminder at just the right time of what a strong comedic performer he is.

This story was originally published on June 26, 2020.

POP TV

Annie Murphy and Eugene Levy on “Schitt’s Creek”

and had everyone in the room, including Dan, who was reading with her, on the floor laughing.

The connection between them was magical and electrifying. It really was a match made in heaven.

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MEET THE MAKER

Hugh Jackman on “Bad Education”

Cory Finley Show: “Bad

Education” Job Title: Director Nomination: Outstanding Television Movie

By Jose Solís WHEN HE WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, Cory Finley starred as Sonny in a production of “Grease.” At the time, he didn’t care that he was playing “one of [lead character] Danny Zuko’s deadbeat friends,” he says, laughing. All he could see was how great it was to be the youngest member of the ensemble.

He was a freshman or sophomore (he can’t remember which) and the rest of the cast were all seniors, “so, despite the minor role, I thought it was really cool to get to hang with the big kids,” he continues.

Almost two decades later, the now-31-year-old found himself back in high school. This time, his role was far from minor: He was

directing “Bad Education,” the HBO film inspired by a real-life case that’s been described as the largest public school embezzlement scandal in American history.

“Bad Education,” now nominated for two Emmys, including best television movie, takes a look back at what feels like too-recent history.

The film, set in 2002, stars Hugh Jackman as Frank Tassone, the suave superintendent of Roslyn School District on Long Island, who, unbeknownst to his staff and students, is using school funds to pay for an extravagant lifestyle of custom suits, plastic surgery, and travel.

“I knew Hugh first as a superhero, then as an amazing singer and

dancer,” says Finley. “So one of the joys of this role was seeing him do something so different from what he’s best known for.” In Finley’s first film, “Thoroughbreds,” which he also wrote, two young women rekindle a friendship in order to commit a murder. That project’s tone displayed Finley’s ability to dig deep into characters without snapping to moral judgments.

He achieves the same with “Bad Education,” which never feels like a sensationalist look at the amorality of affluent suburbs, but instead is a humanistic take on how seemingly innocuous decisions can lead well-intentioned people down a path of crime. When he directs

actors, Finley remains respectful of the screenplay (“Bad Education” was written by Mike Makowsky) but also allows actors room for improvisation.

In fact, one of the film’s most memorable moments—in which Frank, who’s following a strict low-carb diet, is teased by his co-worker Pam (Allison Janney, in top form), who dangles a sandwich in front of him—was completely improvised. That’s what happens when “you have these really pro, experienced actors riffing on each other,” says the director.

For the look of the film, Finley was inspired by “All the President’s Men,” which “finds real poetry in not traditionally pretty institutions.” Going back to 2002 also forced Finley to come to terms with the passage of time. “It was surprising going back,” he says. Before he and director of photography Lyle Vincent, costume designer Alex Bovaird, and production designer Meredith Lippincott began diving into the specifics of the look of the film, the time period felt closer than it was. “As soon as we started looking back at old yearbooks and old photos and just seeing the fashion alone, [we realized] it was so deeply different from what it is right now,” says the filmmaker.

Vincent’s camera, guided by Finley, captures moments in which the unremarkable fluorescent lights of diners and offices illuminate the complex beauty of people we only know about because they happened to do things that are either extraordinary or heinous.

“Bad Education” was screened at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, where HBO bought it for a whopping $17.5 million. The film, released in late April, showed the director that there could be a new kind of audience reaction.

“It was there immediately for the whole world, [and] it gives me hope that we can still have sort of a communal experience around art and entertainment even when we’re all stuck in our homes on a Friday,” he says excitedly. “Although I hope it’s not the only kind we can have going forward.”

This story was originally published on Aug. 18, 2020.

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Don Roy King Show: “Saturday

Night Live” Job Title: Director Nomination: Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series

By Casey Mink admits. But he realized—thanks in part to a few wrist slaps from Michaels—that if an audience member thinks about the shot for even a second, admiringly or otherwise, it’s defeated the purpose: They’ve now been taken out of the sketch.

“It’s my job to sell it in the best way possible, whether it’s a hard, satirical political sketch or a one-joke fart sketch,” he explains.

Unlike traditional scripted series, directing “SNL” does not entail giving actors notes beyond technical ones. Those, instead, come from the script, which is the series’ grail. As King says, “We’re all there to fulfill the vision of that writer.

That comes before the directing, certainly, and it even comes before the performance. Lorne wants the material to be served by the writer individually.”

What King is there to do, then, is captain the ship through waters both rocky and smooth. Or perhaps another metaphor would be more apt.

“As a live director, my job is to continue to call the shots like a quarterback. We’ll find sketches that don’t click for one reason or another, or something goes wrong or a graphic is missing,” he says.

“It’s my job just to barrel through and to salvage as I go, and not let

a single mistake start to snowball into others while we try to figure out who failed where. Whether it’s the passer or whether it’s a touchdown, we’re still in the game.”

But even the most battering football game has nothing on a show week at “SNL.” Notoriously grueling, it starts on Wednesday for King, when he arrives to find about 40 sketches on his desk. Three days later, after a table read with the week’s celebrity host, countless meetings, rehearsals, rewrites, and run-throughs, the show goes on.

“There are days when I think, I have no idea how to get this done,” King says. “But the end result is 14 years of by far the most challenging and rewarding work I have ever done, and it is thrilling to work with people who are the best at what they do, on a show that is designed to make people laugh and clap.”

And no matter what, he says, the week only ever ends one way: “And then, 11:30, we fly.”

This story was originally published on Aug. 19, 2020.

Elizabeth Warren and Kate McKinnon on “Saturday Night Live“

NBC

DON ROY KING ARRIVED AT “Saturday Night Live” 14 years ago, and he’s directed every episode since. How was it that he ended up at television’s most elite latenight institution?

“A mistake, I think,” he says.

On the heels of its 45th season, “SNL” is its own TV ecosystem in which one director helms every sketch of every episode in every season, reporting to the almighty Lorne Michaels. Until 2006, King had a robust career directing talk shows and morning shows, but never sketch comedy. “I’d probably directed every kind of show ‘Saturday Night Live’ makes fun of,” he says.

Then, that year, a call came from a former colleague who’d gone on to be an AD at the NBC series. He told King that then-director Beth McCarthy-Miller was leaving and, “ ‘They’re desperate. They can’t find anybody,’ ” King remembers.

“I said, ‘Well, there’s no show I’d rather direct than ‘Saturday Night Live.’ ” After as much hoop-jumping as you’d expect (including a decision-making meeting with Michaels), King was hired. And then, at age 58, the most arduous, fulfilling phase of his career began.

“They did take a chance on me, and it was a steep learning curve,” says the director, who’s nominated for a 2020 Emmy Award. “There’s a whole different approach to bringing these little one-act plays to life. There’s a whole different way to stage and shoot them. It needs to do justice to the material and make the people at home identify quickly with the situation and the characters.”

King’s biggest mistake early on was trying to do too much in order to show off his own style. “I was looking for unusual angles and soap opera-ish cross shots,” he

MEET THE MAKER

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IN THE ENVELOPE

On “The Morning Show”

Billy Crudup Show: “The

Morning Show” Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Nomination: Outstanding

By Jack Smart WHETHER YOU’RE JUST STARTING out and your job is, essentially, auditioning, or you’re a stage and screen veteran, Billy Crudup has valuable advice for working actors at every level: Do the best you can in the moment.

“Don’t think that your best performance is who you are as an actor,” he tells Backstage. “Don’t think of your worst performance as who you are as an actor. You’re somewhere in the middle, all the time. All you can do is embark upon it each night with the

enterprise to do the best you can that night. And the results are what they are.”

Crudup developed this philosophy—valuing the creative process over a results-oriented approach— through years of working on classic texts onstage, playing offbeat characters in “Almost Famous,” “Spotlight,” “Jackie,” and “20th Century Women,” and, in the case of his first real gig, an old-timey sailor. He moved around a lot as a kid but would return to his native New York to see theater,

pursued communication studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and used Backstage to book regional theater jobs. (“If you wanted to know about what was happening and if there were open calls or anything, or if you just wanted to read the interesting articles about the actors that were working, Backstage was the thing.”) He made his Broadway debut in 1995 in Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia” and later played a different role in its 2011 revival, earning him one of his four Tony

nominations (he won in 2007 for Stoppard’s “The Coast of Utopia”).

His fascinatingly zany work in 2019 as television executive Cory Ellison on Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show,” created by Jay Carson and starring and produced

by Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, earned Crudup a Critics’ Choice Award, a SAG Award nomination, and now a Primetime Emmy nomination.

It’s a surprising performance for its off-kilter qualities, cartoonish yet believable enough that the character must be inspired by real entertainment bigwigs.

“In order to play somebody who speaks so confidently and in such volume,” he explains, “you have to have the ability to hold an ornate idea in your head before you speak.

It’s sort of like saying you could divide four by two and get two. Or you can do the long division part of it that takes you through some addition and some multiplication and back through around, and you still get two at the end of it.

But he’s the guy who has the long-form variable equation about everything. Ultimately, it becomes indefatigable. It’s so impressive, what he said, that you go, Wait, has he thought of everything? Or has he just voodooed me there? I would have to make serious choices about how he moves from one thought to the next in the space of these monologues.”

Crudup also has plenty of experience with, and thoughts on, auditioning. “Early career is almost, for most people, entirely taken up with auditions,” he points out. “Your career is auditioning, and your work as an actor is auditioning. If nobody knows you, then that’s all you’re going to be doing.

“I think of that as the time I get to play the part. It’s mine. For that two minutes? That’s my part....

It’s a great way to get through the day,” he says. “And you feel like an artist, which is a really important thing to feel like when you’re starting out. Because mostly, you feel like a failure!”

A version of this story was originally published on Jan. 16, 2020.

APPLE TV+

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IN THE ENVELOPE

Cord Jefferson & Damon Lindelof Show: “Watchmen” Nomination: Outstanding

Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special

By Jack Smart

Regina King and Andrew Howard on “Watchmen”

incredibly insecure.”

It may comfort film or TV storytellers early in their career to hear such an admission from Lindelof, the Emmy-winning creator of “Lost” and “The Leftovers,” and Jefferson, a journalist-turned-screenwriter and 2020 WGA Award winner for “Succession” and “The Good Place.” In their joint interview, the two peel back the curtain on their creative routines, the ingredients of a great TV writers’ room, and their childhood inspirations. Lindelof grew up in New Jersey and moved to L.A. to pursue screenwriting

upon graduating from New York University, inspired by Stephen King novels and blockbusters from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Jefferson hails from Arizona; as one of “very few Black people in Tucson,” he says, he was steeped in the music of Wu-Tang Clan and the films of Spike Lee. Emmy-nominated together this year in the limited series writing category for HBO’s “Watchmen,” their sequel to, and radical reimagining of, the alternate-history sci-fi graphic novel from writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, Lindelof and Jefferson tell Backstage about the often

This story was originally published on Aug. 13, 2020.

HBO

LIKE ANY GOOD COLLABORAtors, co-writers Damon Lindelof and Cord Jefferson can find common ground despite drawing from different inspirations. One similarity they share may be familiar to artists on any career path: relentless imposter syndrome.

“All of us [have] some degree of imposter syndrome,” says Lindelof. “ ‘I don’t belong here. I don’t deserve to be here. These people are going to figure out that I’m completely and totally winging it.’ ” Jefferson agrees: “I’m terrified all the time of what people will think of my work. I’m

difficult process of bringing that show to the screen.

“I think that the ‘Watchmen’ writers’ room worked for a couple of reasons,” explains Lindelof, who is credited as the show’s showrunner and creator. “The first was that we were able to develop camaraderie as we went, because many of us were strangers.... You have to confidently present ideas, and then fight for those ideas, and then employ some level of group-think—it requires a tremendous amount of trust.”

Jefferson adds, “It was genre, but it was also incredibly grounded and full of rich details that I was super interested in, like generational trauma, like [the Tulsa race massacre of] ’21, all of these things that I was really, really captivated by, along with the genre stuff that people know and love from Damon.... You’re dealing with sexual violence and racial violence and secret identities and things that you hide from your loved ones and anger that you carry with you throughout the course of your life, not to mention things like reparations. All of these issues, it’s hard to talk about with your closest friends and family, let alone a bunch of your coworkers that you’ve just met.”

Asked for their top piece of advice for other screenwriters, both reiterate that the life of an artist usually entails a lot of internal insecurity. “The thing that I always say is, don’t get stuck on the one thing,” says Lindelof, who recommends churning through tons of first drafts that may never see the light of day. For Jefferson, working on several different writing projects is key to retaining peace of mind and being in control of your career. “There are so many obstacles to getting stuff made in this industry.... The thing that’s kept me from losing my mind and going crazy every time that happens is just working on a new thing, coming home every night and saying, ‘This is my thing. Nobody can say yes or no to this.’ ”

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10.01.20 BACKSTAGE

IN THE ENVELOPE

With Larry David and Will Ferrell on “Saturday Night Live”

Maya Rudolph Show: “Big

Mouth”

Nomination: Outstanding

Character Voiceover Performance Good Place” + “Saturday Night Live” Nomination: Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series Show: “The

By Jack Smart “I THINK SO MANY ACTORS, when you talk about it, will admit to this imposter syndrome,” says Maya Rudolph. “We all kind of feel like we don’t belong, we don’t know what we’re doing, we don’t fit in, we’re not good enough.” She rolls her eyes.

“Blah-bitty-blah-bitty-blah.”

The solution, at least for Rudolph, is to harness the inherent power of acting: By pretending to be other people, you’re empowering yourself to channel different energies and explore vulnerabilities.

“I think one of the amazing things that I discovered about my own strength is that, without being aware of it, I created something stronger out of what I saw as a deficiency,” the six-time Emmy Award nominee says. “My version of [acting] comes with a suit of armor and allows me to protect my little sensitive insides.”

The daughter of composer Richard Rudolph and the late singer-songwriter Minnie Riperton, Rudolph was born in Florida and raised in Los Angeles, “a kid performing for my parents in

the living room—maybe even a no-pants-on kid,” she remembers.

Despite her roots in the music industry, it was always acting—especially the idea of a diva being unapologetically herself in front of a crowd—that captivated her. “There’s something about a woman onstage that’s always really appealed to me. It’s probably watching my mom onstage singing in all these beautiful dresses and flowers in her hair and being adored.” And, yes, she admits, a lot of it came down to wanting attention.

Early comedic and musical influences set Rudolph on the path that would lead her to eight stellar years on “Saturday Night Live” and beyond. After her time at the University of California Santa Cruz, she performed in the rock band the Rentals and worked for years at the Groundlings in L.A. After joining “SNL” in 2000, Rudolph went on to steal the show in “Away We Go,” “Bridesmaids,” “Grown Ups,” and “Wine Country,” and produced and starred on “Maya and Marty” and “Forever.”

Rudolph is currently nominated for three Emmy Awards: for her voiceover work on Netflix’s “Big Mouth” and for outstanding guest comedy acting on NBC’s “SNL” (as vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris) and “The Good Place.” She’s the first actor in Emmy history to be nominated twice in the same guest category, and one of only a few ever in contention for three performances in the same year.

Asked for the secrets to a great sketch show impression, Rudolph says her strategy is to think of them as characters rather than imitations of real people. “You want to emulate that person. I think in the world of comedy, for me, what I like trying to go after is finding the thing that creates a character that’s got some sort of a goofy joy.”

She also breaks down what went into creating Connie, the Hormone Monstress on “Big Mouth”: “I was trying to create this game of highs and lows, as well as big. She’s a big, hairy lady!” Voice acting is another challenge and opportunity to push yourself in directions you may not otherwise go, says Rudolph.

“That really speaks a lot to the joy of doing voiceover and animation: You can really be anything.”

One of Rudolph’s best pieces of advice is passed on from “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels: “If it’s funny to you when you’re writing it, it’s funny. I think that’s a really important thing for me to constantly remember, especially when you’re creating content.... It’s just human nature stuff.”

This story was originally published on Aug. 20, 2020.

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In The Envelope The Actor’s Podcast

Recent guests include: D’Arcy Carden Rob McElhenney Gugu Mbatha-Raw Michelle Dockery Hailee Steinfeld

For intimate, in-depth conversations with today’s most noteworthy film, television, and theater actors and creators, subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts!

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Eddie Murphy

T Show: “Saturday

Night Live” Nomination: Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series

By Jack Smart | Photographed by Emily Assiran

hat’s got to be some kind of record,” says Eddie Murphy, who at age 18 booked a career-launching gig on “Saturday Night Live,” then, at 20, earned a Golden Globe nomination for his film debut.

As he readily admits, “It’s the closest you can come to walking out of heaven and into Hollywood.”

Chatting at the Four Seasons hotel in Midtown Manhattan at the end of 2019, Murphy is thoughtful and wry at just above a whisper—when he’s not launching into a hilarious bit. Maybe it’s because at the time of this particular conversation, the Brooklyn native is 58 (Murphy turned 59 in April 2020), having worked consistently as a comedian-singer-actor for just over four decades, that he’s looking back at his unlikely success in quiet awe. “I feel grateful, and I know that this is rare.

The way everything in my life happened? On paper, it could never happen.” He cites his favorite statistic: The odds of each of us being born, factoring in the probabilities of ancestors meeting and the many combinations of DNA, are apparently 1 in 400 trillion.

“Everybody you look at, even the bum in the street, is a walking miracle!” he exclaims. “Now, to get here and to make something of your life and connect with other human beings and find who you are and get a career—each thing that you do, the odds are slimmer and slimmer. What are the chances of becoming a fucking actor? And to become an actor who becomes known globally....

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That’s a super rare thing.

“And,” he adds for emphasis, “you’re Black!”

Murphy is one of those prolific artists whose career has lasted so long it must be categorized in multiple arcs: an explosion onto the comedy scene with “SNL” and his subsequent leather-clad standup specials “Delirious” and “Raw”; leading blockbuster films (“48 Hrs.,” “Trading Places,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Coming to America”) and supposed duds (“Vampire in Brooklyn,” “The Adventures of Pluto Nash,” “Norbit”); and a family-friendly era (“Mulan,” “Doctor Dolittle,” the “Shrek” franchise).

He’s also sung as a solo recording artist, and his electric vocals in the “Dreamgirls” movie musical earned him an Oscar nod.

And in 40 years, just the one audition. He’d forgive you for counting the time he had to put himself on tape, though. In pitching his 1996 remake of “The Nutty Professor,” Murphy wanted to again play multiple supporting roles in different makeup, an homage to his idol Peter Sellers. Studio heads were not convinced. “I think I had a couple movies that had flopped before that, and the studio was like, ‘Should we get somebody

to play all these characters?’ ” he remembers. “But I saw it this way.

To get the studio to see it, I did makeup tests where I got Rick Baker to make me up as all those characters and put it on video and send it to the studio. They said, ‘OK, we get it.’ ” After years of relative quiet following such mainstream success, Murphy is now tiptoeing back into the spotlight—or, as he’s put it, off the couch. The conversation naturally turns to the main reason he’s back in New York City: coming home to “SNL” to host for the first time in 35 years.

“There will be Gumby,” he guesses. “What else did I do?

Buckwheat! James Brown.... Who’s the other one? Velvet Jones.”

It’s been long enough that Murphy has trouble remembering his characters, but you wouldn’t know it from watching his Dec. 21, 2019 “SNL” episode featuring Lizzo. Buckwheat indeed returns, right at home in a sketch poking fun at “The Masked Singer.”

Gumby’s hilarious appearance on “Weekend Update” feels like a time warp to 1982.

And the episode’s final sketch reminds us of Murphy’s power,

his ability to turn something that shouldn’t be funny into a hurricane of comedy with gale-force winds. “A polar bear got into the workshop and started eating the elves!” he shrieks, decked out in pointy ears and candy cane-inspired suspenders. As usual, his physicality is what makes the entire premise funny; Murphy stands stock-still with wide eyes, until he’s suddenly ranting and raving and refusing to reveal his name (“Kiddle Diddles”).

Between last year’s buzzy appearance on Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” long-awaited sequels to “Coming to America” and the “Beverly Hills Cop” films in the works, and now a Primetime Emmy guest acting nomination for his “SNL” hosting, Murphy seems to be on a roll. Is this all part of a planned comeback?

“If you were planning, that would mean going into the movie knowing the movie was going to get received the way it was, which you can’t,” Murphy points out. “Things work in cycles. ‘Coming 2 America’ was in development for six years.

‘Dolemite Is My Name’ was in development 15 years ago. And [the

new] ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ has been in development since ‘Beverly Hills Cop II’...or ‘III’? Did we do a ‘III’?”

Yes, there was a “III.” He laughs.

“Yeah, that’s how bad ‘III’ was. I’m repressing it.”

He’s also—finally!—readying a big return to standup. The forthcoming Netflix special Murphy is planning will mark his first in decades, a prospect that feels simultaneously like flexing muscle memory and starting from scratch. “The way I come up with my stuff has always been: I’m having a conversation with a bunch of people and somebody says something, and I’ll say something funny. That’s how everything comes, just talking.” Recently, he’s been repeating those bits into a tape recorder. “I have a bunch of little things that if you listen to them by themselves you’re like, ‘Doesn’t sound like jokes!’ Like, ‘mayonnaise and ice cream,’ whatever I’m talking about.”

(Soon enough, we see that process in action: “ ‘Assouline,’ what is that?” he asks, pointing to a coffee table book. “That sounds like gasoline for your ass.” There

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are chuckles from the team of assistants and publicists hovering nearby. He keeps riffing on the publisher’s name until they become belly laughs. “Or some cream that you put on, Assouline.

Sounds like what a black person would put on their ashy ass. ‘I need some Assouline, I’m ashy.’ ”) And what about achieving the preternatural confidence he exudes onstage? Doesn’t he ever get nervous? “Nah,” he says. “I get an excited feeling: Oh, I want this to be good. I think nervous is a negative. Whatever process I have is a constructive one. I think thoughts like, I want to go out there and crush it, how do I crush it? Not, Are they going to laugh?

What could go wrong? Am I going to offend somebody?

“All I’m doing is getting on the stage and being who I’ve always been, you know?” Which is not to say you’ll see him in 2020 wearing a “Raw”-esque leather outfit. He barely recognizes that person. “I’m 58,” says Murphy flatly. “What’s the thing they say in ‘Star Wars’? It’s a galaxy far, far away. That’s who that guy is. You can’t wear leather

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at 58. Well, I mean, you can! But you want to laugh for the right reasons.”

It all begs the question: How can an aspiring comedian or actor dream of lasting this long? To have a career like Murphy’s, with a following that will support your every project, is to defy the very nature of a business as fickle as it is grueling.

Perseverance is key, advises Murphy—in the industry, but also, frankly, in life.

“All of my contemporaries are dead,” he says with a shrug. “All the people who came onto the scene when I did, in music and all that stuff—Prince and Michael [Jackson] and Whitney [Houston], all people around my age, are all gone.... They got shorted. They’re supposed to still be here. But the pressures of this business, the pressures of life, the pressures of the whole thing—a lot of people fold under that.”

His perseverance through it all is reminiscent of Rudy Ray Moore, the real-life Blaxploitation pioneer and Godfather of Rap in 2019’s Netflix film “Dolemite Is My Name,” which earned Murphy his sixth Golden Globe nomination. “Movies, TV

shows, records, entertainment— it’s a group of people who come together to do it,” says Murphy. “But you’ve got to have one person at the center of it who believes in it at every stage of development.

“There’s a movie called ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,’ ” he adds, “and ‘Attack of the Killer Donuts,’ and ‘Sharknado.’ You’re flipping through the TV and go, ‘What the fuck is this?’ And, hey, this happened because someone somewhere got this killer tomato shit made.” Everything from Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” album to the “Twilight” movie series, for example, was rejected by countless producers before someone took the risk. “There’s somebody that stayed on that shit: ‘This vampire shit is gonna work, I believe it.’ ” That’s how Murphy best sums up his ultimate craft and career advice. “You don’t have to be the best; you don’t have to be a genius,” he says. “You just have to believe in it, whatever it is.”

A version of this story was originally published in the Dec. 19, 2019 issue of Backstage Magazine.

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06.11.20 BACKSTAGE

Jeremy Strong

Show: “Succession”

Nomination: Outstanding

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

By Casey Mink | Photographed by Patrick Hoelck

ZACH DILGARD/HBO

or Jeremy Strong, acting is like tennis. It’s also like painting. Other times, it’s a lot like playing guitar. It really depends, at a given moment, on whomever it is he’s quoting.

“Everyone has said things better than me,” Strong insists with a laugh. “I rely on other people’s words, so I’m going to keep quoting things.” While he does cite everyone from Shakespeare to Bob Dylan to Federico García Lorca to Meryl Streep during our hourlong conversation, Strong has plenty to say himself, too—particularly about acting, the layers of consciousness it blends, and its metaphysical demands.

“I’m reading this book right now

by Andre Agassi called ‘Open.’ It’s his autobiography, and it’s basically about how much he hated tennis and how he was locked in this endless mortal combat with this

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thing he couldn’t stop doing, that he was obsessed with doing, but that caused him a lot of psychic pain,” Strong muses. “I wouldn’t say that I hate acting. I have a ton of joy in the creative process. But the idea, to me, is it’s like you get to be a beginner forever. You have to have a beginner’s mind.”

The “beginner’s mind” is a reference, too, to Zen philosophy.

But more on that later. The Agassi autobiography did not end up on Strong’s nightstand by chance. “I’m reading it for the show, because it seemed it could be useful,” the actor says, referring to HBO’s “Succession.” “[Agassi] had a very difficult relationship with his father.” A similar through line can be found on the pitch-black satire about the Roys, a media family of billionaires; each character, including Strong’s Kendall, is in some way vying for the affirmation of ironfisted patriarch Logan (Brian Cox).

Though the Jesse Armstrong– created series—which was mid-production on Season 3 when it was forced to shut down due to the pandemic—is an ensemble showcase in the truest sense, Kendall has become its best argument for a main character, antagonized by demons that could make even those of a tennis champion read like a bedtime story.

Oscillating between helpless and dead-eyed destructive, there’s no wonder why the role just notched Strong his first Emmy nomination for Season 2.

“His needs are so oceanic, and his pain is—there’s, like, a grand canyon of hurt in him,” Strong says. He’s speaking via Zoom from his sunny patio in Los Angeles, where he appears to carry none of the anguish of his onscreen counterpart. “I always thought of myself as a character actor, and those were my heroes—the chameleonic actors who would travel somewhere far from who they are every time they did a role. But Kendall feels like the only way out is through. I have to practice the discipline of moment-to-moment honesty without any disguises.”

Despite Kendall’s mercuriality, Strong maintains that in order to play a person who is endlessly at war with himself, it isn’t necessary for an actor to take a decisive stance on their character’s every motive or purpose. A great

performance instead comes from a visceral connection—or, as Strong once heard someone call it, “your belly mind.”

“Acting is not a theorem that you’re trying to solve. You don’t have to know those answers in an intellectual way,” he says. “You try and connect with the emotional physics of the character: What do they need? How are they in trouble?

In one of the books I read about the Murdochs”—who are, let’s say, an influence on “Succession”—“there was a mention about how tightly James Murdoch would tie his shoes. That was a little detail that honestly gave me so much, that told me something about a tension level in that person.

“What I feel proud of on‘Succession,’ ” he adds, “is that I’ve taken it as far as I know how to go as an actor and as a person, in terms of kind of endangering myself.”

If that sounds life-or-death serious, well, for Strong, it basically is.

But that’s only because acting is and always has been inextricable from his own personhood. When he was a kid in inner-city Boston, a self-proclaimed ham, his mother got him involved in a children’s theater group. Something clicked for him then, and it has kept clicking since. “I was 5, and I must have found it to be an escape and a release and all the things that it still is for me now, but for different reasons,” he says. “As adults, our creative selves and our social selves are pretty separate. And when you’re young, they’re fused.

You’re just present and are an open channel to your imagination

On “Succession”

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and instincts. And then as you get older, the world can muzzle that in different ways.”

As he grew up, Strong continued to do theater, feeling at home in a way that contrasted with the displacement he experienced in other areas of his life. As he explains, “I just had an elemental sense of sanctuary, and whatever I might have to offer, that’s where I wanted to offer it, on that altar.”

He followed acting like a faith all the way to Yale, where he studied theater before switching to English, still performing in plays as frequently as possible.

Eventually, as so many have before and after him, he tried his hand in New York City, where work as a waiter and in hotel room service subsidized what could generously be considered Off-Off-Broadway theater.

Still, his mind was one-track, and he kept knocking on the door even though it appeared bolted shut.

“There were so many years where I’d be in the subway, on the F train, and I’d see someone on the cover of Backstage and I would think, Fuck, man, am I ever going to get a chance to work?” he remembers.

“Am I ever going to get a chance to work at a level that feels exciting and meaningful? Am I ever going to be able to make a living doing this? Every actor is in a wilderness for some amount of time, and it tests your staying power and resolve and foolishness, in a way, because it’s a crazy thing to persist when there’s no evidence around you that suggests it might work out. And I guess something in you just keeps going. Something in me just had to keep going.”

As so rarely happens, things started to work out for Strong.

He amassed a few reputable Off-Broadway credits in the early aughts, and in 2008, he made his Broadway debut in the Roundabout revival of Robert Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons,” starring opposite Frank Langella. The production coincided with another turning point in the actor’s career: He began working regularly in film, while theater took a back seat. Still, the play’s director, Doug Hughes, gave Strong some of the best advice he’s received to date:

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“You have to forget where you’re going.” Now, whenever you see him on camera—in “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Lincoln,” “The Big Short,” or today on “Succession”—know he fought to be conscious of that with every take of every scene.

The mantra may well have planted Strong’s fascination with the concept of beginner’s mind, which, as he applies it here, is the idea that one can never really know “how” to act.

“People talk about craft, about technique, in a way that makes it sound like these are known quantities, something that someone possesses, and I’ve certainly never felt that way,” he admits. “I wish someone had told me that. I spent many years thinking I was missing something, like some acting chromosome, because I didn’t have a sense of security in terms of, ‘I know how to do this.’ You have to perpetually be a beginner. Every scene, you’re starting from scratch again, and you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

There are, however, some controlled measures you can put in place to preserve your own beginner’s mind. For example, Strong is particularly thoughtful about where and when he reads a script for the first time. That way, “It can imprint itself on you the way it wants, because it will only do that once.” Ultimately, he believes, there has to be a reconciliation of preparedness and continued blankness, of knowing exactly how your character would react while still having no idea how they actually will.

“It’s like you enter into some kind of creative state, and in that moment, all of your preparation and acuity of perception and intuition—hopefully, those things are all firing on all cylinders,” he says. “I have to do so much work and really saturate myself and my unconscious as much as I can through research, through attuning, in blind exploration and through deeply internalizing the material. You can change, almost molecularly, cellularly, who you are. And when all of those things are done, then you can drop all of it and have a beginner’s mind.”

While reading recently, this

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time a book about painting by Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård, Strong came across a passage that struck him like lightning, and he underlined it, by his estimation, 50 times. “He said that painting cannot merely reconstruct a moment. It must itself be a moment,” he says, relating the idea back to performance.

“It must not exist beforehand, but come into being in the moment it is expressed.”

It’s there that Strong signs off; but with just one last thing to say, he adds a coda via email the following evening. He knows he spoke about acting, specifically on “Succession,” in a way that makes it sound entwined with pain and endangerment. But he hopes to emphasize that in searching for that liminal space, in acting and in life, pain is just the cost of admission.

“That pain is because acting is

still a mystery to me. I love it, need it, am afraid of it; it constantly eludes me, and I think it is always only an imperfect attempt,” he says. “I think the thing that has motivated me is a search for authentic experiences where you go beyond yourself. And acting just happens to be the closest way I know to do that—to go beyond yourself and to, at times, break your own barrier and come upon some form of genuine expression.

“Everything I do is oriented toward that search,” he concludes.

“For the unexpected, authentic moment that comes only when you have prepared the ground in the right way and are giving it everything.”

A version of this story was published in the Aug. 13, 2020 issue of Backstage Magazine.

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Eugene Levy

W Show: “Schitt’s

Creek” Nomination: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

By Benjamin Lindsay | Photographed by Deborah Divine

hen his son, Dan Levy, approached him 10 years ago about co-creating and starring on their own comedy series, Eugene Levy was scared, well, “Schitt’s”-less. He knew his son, by then a popular host for MTV Canada, had the chutzpah to chart his own path in the business—“I would always go up to him and ask if he needed any help, and he always said, ‘No, I’ve pretty much got it,’ ” Levy recalls—but the endeavor still made his heart “pitter-patter.” my career, certainly, having no confidence in myself, so I would try anything I could to not be myself. Changing my appearance was important to me in terms of being a character and trying to get laughs through that character.

“Every time I looked too much like myself,” he continues, “I’d get an uneasy feeling, like, ‘I need something—give me a mustache!’

So, Johnny Rose, it was a big step for me, but a very exciting step.”

Growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, Levy had an early penchant for performance, acting his way through small roles in high school stagings of Shakespeare and more. He also formed a musical folk trio that was eventually absorbed into larger sketch performance pieces for an audience.

“I can’t say I would’ve turned on any casting directors who may have been out there watching,” he admits. “[But] I absolutely loved it.” He kept it up, so much so that during his first year at McMaster University, he started cutting class to spend all his time with the drama club and the McMaster Film Board, a student group led by peer and future collaborator Ivan Reitman.

“Come the end of the year, I

wasn’t going to make my year because I hadn’t been to class,” Levy remembers. “I had to go back to all of my professors and say, ‘Look, I’ve got to be honest with you: I’ve been doing a lot of acting. I haven’t gone to class. Tell me what books I need to read and what I don’t need to read. If you can tell me that, I might be able to get through my finals.’ Half the professors said, ‘OK, don’t read this, don’t do this, only focus on this.’ And the other half, with delight, said, ‘You are in trouble, my friend.’ ” Needless to say, he didn’t accumulate the passing grades he needed. But he returned in the fall with a new head on his shoulders: “I went back and said, ‘No, I’ve got to do this right for my family. I’ve got to make my year.’ The idea of quitting school, dropping out, or failing was just not an option.

So I went back to do it right and got involved in the same stuff: I started doing plays again, I started making movies, I cut classes again.

And that was that.”

Still, the idea of professionally pursuing what had been, until then, a distraction wasn’t taking hold. “With all the stuff I was doing at university, not one time

POP TV

“I put a little pressure on myself to make sure that I tried to come through for him on this, that this project that we [were] working on would actually come to fruition,” he says. On a recent Zoom call from his Los Angeles home, the beloved actor and writer looks back on his years as co-creator, executive producer, and star on “Schitt’s Creek” as a series of firsts.

And it wasn’t just his work becoming a family affair (both Dan and his daughter, Sarah, acted on the Emmy-nominated Pop TV series); it was also his first time playing a straight man to the heightened characters around him, magnified by his first time navigating a sitcom writers’ room. “I’ve never done that,” he says, “and that was scary to me.” You’d think that, nearing his 50th year on camera, the sketch and comedy icon would have seen it all by now. But to hear him tell it, “Schitt’s Creek” was a welcome exercise in continued learning and in exploring parts of himself that he hadn’t allowed with the characters of his past.

“I would say it’s less of a performance—it’s probably closer to me than anything I have done,” Levy says of bringing patriarch Johnny Rose to the screen. “I’ve spent

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did I ever think, ‘Boy, this would be great, to make a living at this!’ ” he says. “Nobody from Hamilton then became an actor. It just wasn’t on the radar.” But after dropping out during his second year at McMaster, Levy was scooped up

by Reitman to P.A. his first feature, “Foxy Lady.” For his second feature, “a little gem called ‘Cannibal Girls,’ ” Reitman promoted Levy to leading man opposite soon-tobe-regular collaborator Andrea Martin, knowing his acting and sketch work in college would serve the improvised horror-comedy well.

“Then, that was it,” Levy concludes. The year was 1972. He and Martin reunited soon thereafter in a “Godspell” residency at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre, which also boasted the talents of friend and McMaster classmate Martin Short, plus Victor Garber and Gilda Radner. When Chicago’s famed Second City comedy troupe set up shop in Toronto, Levy was firmly set on the path of a career entertainer.

“Fortunately for me, these two major productions, ‘Godspell’ coming in from New York and Second City coming in from Chicago, were great things to get into—especially Second City,” he says. “In the world of comedy, that was the best schooling you could’ve had. If you

A With Catherine O’Hara and Annie Murphy on “Schitt’s Creek”

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thought you were funny before, forget it. Learning how to do it and learning the rules and seeing this kind of brilliant comedy on its feet in such an intimate setting as these Second City revue theaters, that was an amazing experience.”

To this day, Levy carries the lessons gleaned during that time into his work.

So what about those “rules” of comedy? Asked to walk through his tricks to character-building, Levy says that comedy works best when you keep it real. It’s a process that has benefited a wide-ranging list of harried, neurotic, oddball men, including roles from any of his twice-Emmy-winning “SCTV” bits; the affably out-of-place dentist of “Waiting for Guffman,” his first of several genre-defining Christopher Guest collaborations; and the cringe-inducing father of “American Pie.” “No matter how broad you want to take your character, you have to make him real,” he explains. “I was never a joke guy. My kind of work had to do with writing a real person and trying to make him funny through his behavior. There are people who are great at jokes, who look at life through a comic prism. Those are your standup comedians; those are people who have to find the humor in everything they do. That’s not me.

I’m just more regular than that, I guess, and I really try to get that humor in through the character work that I do.”

Levy cites his work on “SCTV” and its offshoots through the early ’80s (on which he and his “Schitt’s Creek” wife, Catherine O’Hara, worked together onscreen for the first time), where even the broadest sketches were populated by men and women reacting as they naturally would in their given circumstances.

“Nothing was ever done tonguein-cheek; you never stepped outside your character to get a laugh,” Levy says. “Everything had to be organic within the character, and that’s just the kind of comedy I’ve always been attracted to. You have to have the audience emotionally involved, no matter what it is or how broad it is. If you can do that, if you can hook the audience

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and have them care about your character, then you have the option of going a lot of different ways with how you want to tell a story, or how funny or not funny you want to be. You can create the kind of comedy that has such an emotional underbelly to it that you make the audience feel things they never thought they would.”

For years, Levy has been able to tap into that “underbelly” as a consummate supporting and bit actor on cult-classic indies and studio comedy tentpoles alike. While honoring Tom Hanks in 2002 at the American Film Institute’s 30th Life Achievement honors, Levy wryly noted that he had learned a lot while working with the Oscar winner on Ron Howard’s “Splash” 18 years earlier. “I learned the importance of controlling your eyebrows,” he quipped, before adding, “I learned that I probably don’t

have the physical attributes to be a Tom Hanks kind of leading man— unless the film industry flourished in Turkey.”

Speaking about his résumé today, Levy’s outlook remains the same: “Listen, my career—I’ve loved just about everything I was involved with,” he says. “My job usually was to come in for a few scenes in a movie, get your laughs, and get out, and that was great!

I didn’t have to carry anything; I didn’t have to carry any exposition.

My job was just to come in, bop, bop, bop—two, three, four scenes.

That was it.”

That is exactly, however, why his heart started pitter-pattering when his son proposed “Schitt’s Creek” and Johnny Rose came to fruition as a video store tycoon who takes a financial nosedive.

Flanked by a family of disastrously ill-equipped one-percenters—his

fussy fashionista son, David (Dan Levy), his globe-trotting “it girl” daughter, Alexis (Annie Murphy), and his wig-wearing soap diva wife, Moira (O’Hara)—it became clear that Johnny, while also in over his head after being forced to move to the titular town, would have to be their steady center.

Levy, for his part, believes that every successful half-hour thrives on the strength of its straight man.

“You had to have one character that makes sure the story moves forward,” he says, pointing to the likes of Jack Benny, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, and Jerry Seinfeld. “So the idea of playing Johnny Rose as the straight guy I found very exciting because I’d never done it, and I liked the fact that I was this grounding force in the show [who] let everybody else do their thing.”

Of course, the success of “Schitt’s Creek” speaks for itself. After wrapping its sixth and final season last April, it’s been nominated for 15 Emmy Awards going into the 72nd annual ceremony on Sept. 20, including for comedy series and all four major acting categories. The cast has maintained that they finished the story as they wanted to, but that doesn’t mean a tear or two wasn’t shed; in the post-mortem behind-the-scenes documentary “Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: A ‘Schitt’s Creek’ Farewell,” Levy is shown getting misty in the shadows as an emotional scene wraps.

To quote Murphy shortly thereafter: “A sad Eugene Levy—that’s a heartbreaker.”

“It’s the most special—I love everything about ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ ” Levy says, looking back on the series and ahead to the future.

“I’m proud of a lot of things in my career, but this, for so many reasons, I’m proud of. I’m glad I was able to be a part of a quality show at this point in my career. And more than that, I’m glad I had something to do with getting it off the ground.

“Going into work every day, you just loved it. Is that going to happen again? I don’t know. But I’m glad it did.”

A version of this story was originally published in the Aug. 27, 2020 issue of Backstage Magazine.

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