Catherine O’Hara won posthumously for Outstanding Female Actor in a Comedy Series at the Actor Awards on Sunday, and her “The Studio” co-star and creator Seth Rogen accepted the award on her behalf.
Took took the emotional moment to pay tribute to the actress and her comic genius.
“I was asked to assume the very sad honor of accepting this award on O’Hara’s behalf,” Rogen started. “I know she would have been honored to receive this award from her fellow performers, who I know she respected so much.”
In his speech, Rogen said that he’s spent a lot of time thinking about his friend’s life and legacy in the month since her death. In particular, Rogen noted her generosity in the face of her immense, singular talent as a comedy powerhouse.
“Something that I’ve just been marveling at over the last few weeks was really her ability to be generous and kind and gracious, while never, ever minimizing her own talents and her own ability to contribute to the work that we were doing,” he said. “She knew she could destroy, and she wanted to destroy every day on set.”
Rogen, who had already won an Actor for Outstanding Male Actor in a Comedy Series earlier in the evening, shared that he and longtime partner Evan Goldberg would often receive emails from O’Hara rewriting scenes they’d written for her — though they didn’t want any other “The Studio” stars thinking they could get away with the same.
“‘Hello, I hope you’ll consider the following,’ and then there would be a completely rewritten version of the scene,” Rogen said of the emails. “Literally 100% of the time, it made not just her character better, but it made the scene better and the entire show better as a whole.”
Watch the full speech below:
Rogen encouraged those watching to show people in their lives, whether they be kids or “just people who are out of touch or stupid or something,” some of O’Hara’s most memorable comic moments — her dancing in “Beetlejuice,” her hobbling in “Best in Show” — and to tell them “as they are laughing, that that’s Catherine O’Hara.”
“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.”
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