Eugene Levy Looks Back on ‘American Pie’ and ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ Working With Son Dan and Catherine O’Hara, and Whether He Finds Himself Funny
08.03.2024 - 17:44
/ variety.com
Hunter Ingram Eugene Levy doesn’t think he’s funny — and he’s not kidding. Talk to the Canadian film and television icon about his career and he’s pretty adamant that he isn’t funny. For him, it’s all about the character.
“It always comes down to my own kind of psychiatric approach to myself, which is that I’ve spent my career in comedy, and I don’t think I’m a funny person,” Levy tells Variety. “My laughs come through the characters I do, so character work has always been a big thing for me. If I’m playing a character, I can be funny.” But for nearly 50 years, audiences have disagreed with him.
They believe he is funny. In fact, Levy has spent his career being so instinctively and dependably funny that he’s often the best part of the projects he’s in — even if only for one or two scenes. From his sketch-comedy start with “SCTV,” to the awkward dad of a generation in “American Pie,” to the steady hand amid small-town shenanigans in “Schitt’s Creek,” and dozens of films in between, Eugene has built a legacy on not only being funny, but being the kind of treasured talent that audiences know they can count on.
“I think his success is that he’s always found the heartbeat of whatever character he has chosen to play,” says his son, Daniel Levy, who co-created “Schitt’s Creek” with his dad. “A lot of people overlook the value of that — the warmth of a character, the empathy that you extract from them. All of his work is tied together by his ability to find that.
The website celebfans.org is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can
send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.