The friends, former collaborators, and countless admirers of Catherine O’Hara are paying public tribute to her after her death on January 30 following a brief illness. The comic actress was an Emmy Award winner and a beloved entertainer across generations. Hollywood and beyond mourned her 50-year career, including her co-stars from Home Alone, her fellow nominees from her recent project The Studio, and longtime collaborators from what ended up being her final project, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Below, find all the celebrity tributes to the legendary Catherine O’Hara.
Schitt’s Creek co-creator Dan Levy spoke on behalf of him and his father Eugene Levy on Instagram. “What a gift to have gotten to dance in the warm glow of Catherine O’Hara’s brilliance for all those years,” he wrote. “Having spent over fifty years collaborating with my Dad, Catherine was extended family before she ever played my family. It’s hard to imagine a world without her in it. I will cherish every funny memory I was fortunate enough to make with her.” Busy Philipps commented on his post “sending you and your family and her family so much love.”
The comedians remembered the “sweetest angel” when they raised a toast in her honor during their comedy show in Austin, Texas on Friday night. “I met her when she was 18 years of age, and all these years later, she’s been the greatest, most brilliant, kindest, sweetest angel that any of us worked with,” Short said. “God bless her.” The two raised their glasses as the audience cheered.
Burton, who directed O’Hara in both Beetlejuice films, shared a photo of them together, alongside the cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. He wrote, “Catherine, I love you . This picture shows how much light you gave to all of us. You were a special part of my life and after life.”
Martin Scorsese directed Catherine O’Hara in After Hours, a “one bad night” comedy that has achieved cult status over the years. “To lose Catherine O’Hara… it feels impossible to me, and to millions of others as well, I’m sure,” the director said in a statement obtained by IndieWire. His daughter, Francesca, posted a screenshot of their FaceTime when she presumably shared the news. “For me, and for most of my friends, it’s SCTV: all I have to do is think about one of the characters she created, like Lola Heatherton or Dusty Towne, and I’m laughing. Catherine was a true comic genius, a true artist, and a wonderful human being. I was blessed to be able to work with her on After Hours, and I’m going to miss her presence and her artistry. We all are.”
Balaban, who co-starred with O’Hara in many a Christopher Guest film, said he was “devastated” by her passing and praised the actress for her “gift of loopiness,” something he ascribed to being Canadian. “Catherine O’Hara had an extraordinary kindness that so many Canadians seem to have,” he told Page Six. “She also had the gift of loopiness that so many Canadian comic actors have, too — Eugene Levy, Marty Short, John Candy, for example.” Balaban suspects that the Canadian loopiness and kindness both come from “having to wear a woolen hat with earflaps for too many months of the year.”
“Catherine was as smart as a person can be, but never showy,” he added. “And effortlessly creative with material. She had great generosity, which she would often use to bolster another actor’s performance…And you have to love a person who, after they beat you at a big, big hand of poker, apologizes.”
In an Instagram post, Keaton said he and O’Hara “go back before the first Beetlejuice.” He also shared his condolences with O’Hara’s husband, Bo Welch. “She’s been my pretend wife, my pretend nemesis and my real life, true friend,” he wrote. “This one hurts. Man am I gonna miss her.”
Baldwin, who co-starred with O’Hara in Beetlejuice, called the actor “one of the greatest comic talents in the movie business” in a statement to Page Six. “She had a quality that was all her own and my sympathy goes out to Bo and their family,” he said. His wife, Dancing With the Stars contestant Hilaria Baldwin, posted a TikTok of Baldwin and O’Hara on the set of the 1988 film.
McKean worked with O’Hara going all the way back to SCTV — a troupe that has already lost John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Tony Rosato, and Harold Ramis. “Only one Catherine O’Hara, and now none. Heartbreaking,” he wrote on Twitter. “Catherine’s knowledge of humanity was always at the center of her comedy, no matter how absurd the character or loopy the material. She could play heartless because she was warm, brainless because she was brilliant, careless because she truly cared. Everyone loved her and everyone learned from her. This is a deep loss.”
Catherine’s knowledge of humanity was always at the center of her comedy, no matter how absurd the character or loopy the material. She could play heartless because she was warm, brainless because she was brilliant, careless because she truly cared. Everyone loved her and…
— Michael McKean (@MJMcKean) January 30, 2026
She was nominated for an Emmy for her work on Seth Rogen’s award-winning series The Studio for playing his former boss, studio executive Patty Leigh. “I told O’Hara when I first met her I thought she was the funniest person I’d ever had the pleasure of watching on screen,” Rogen wrote in a tribute on Instagram. “Home Alone was the movie that made me want to make movies. Getting to work with her was a true honour.” Variety reports that season two of the series had just started filming.
Macaulay Culkin starred as O’Hara’s son Kevin McCallister in the Home Alone films. He mourned O’Hara on Instagram with side-by-side photos of them together when he was a child, then again as an adult. “Mama,” he wrote. “I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you.” In the comments, he added, “I’m mad about this…”
Actor-director Ron Howard directed O’Hara in the 1994 film The Paper and wrote on X that “This is shattering news.”
This is shattering news. What a wonderful person, artist and collaborator. I was lucky enough to direct, produce and act in projects with her and she was simply growing more brilliant with each year. My heart goes out to Bo & family. #RIPCatherineO’Hara https://t.co/7pWcpYARai
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) January 30, 2026
Pedro Pascal and Catherine O’Hara acted together in the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us. “Eternally grateful,” Pascal wrote on Instagram. “There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always.”
O’Hara worked with Theroux on the 2024 film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. He posted a photo of her on-set chair from that production.
Amy Sedaris and O’Hara both voiced characters in the 2005 movie Chicken Little, but Sedaris’s admiration went beyond that. “Catherine O’Hara was such an inspiration to me,” Sedaris wrote alongside a clip of O’Hara in Waiting for Guffman on Instagram. “I was obsessed with her and SCTV.”
Actor Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird) talked about loving O’Hara during press for his 2025 film The Naked Gun, then posted a tribute when she died. “She was my Meryl Streep,” he wrote in his post. “I could watch her in anything. Didn’t matter how good or bad the film or show was. I wanted to see what she would do.”
Rita Wilson and O’Hara never worked together, though they did come up in Hollywood at similar times and knew each other. Wilson paid tribute to O’Hara on Instagram. “A woman who was authentic and truthful in all she did,” Wilson called O’Hara in her post. “You saw it in her work, if you knew her you saw it in her life, and you saw it in her family.”
Comedian Kevin Nealon and Catherine O’Hara crossed paths multiple times. In 1991, she hosted Saturday Night Live while he was still in the cast. He wrote about her on X. “From the chaos and heart of Home Alone to the unforgettable precision of Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, she created characters we’ll rewatch again and again,” he wrote.
Catherine O’Hara changed how so many of us understand comedy and humanity. From the chaos and heart of Home Alone to the unforgettable precision of Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, she created characters we’ll rewatch again and again.
— Kevin Nealon (@kevin_nealon) January 30, 2026
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