‘She Really Showed That You Can Be a Genius and Be Kind’

Catherine O’Hara was awarded the Actor for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series at the 2026 Actor Awards on Sunday night for her role in The Studio, two months after her unexpected death.

The audience gave O’Hara an emotional standing ovation when her name was announced. Seth Rogen accepted the award on her behalf, recalling her “genius” and kindness on the set of The Studio, where she played studio executive Patty Leigh.

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“I know she would have been honored to receive this award from her fellow performers, who I know she respected so much — she was such big fans of all of yours,” Rogen said. “I obviously you know, have been reflecting on the time I was fortunate enough to spend with her, working with her, and 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. She knew she could destroy, and she wanted to destroy every day on set. And I haven’t said this to the other actors, because I didn’t want them to get ideas, but pretty much, every evening before she had a shooting day on our show, she would email me and Evan, an email that always was pretty similar, and said, ‘Hello, I hope you’ll consider the following.’ And then there would be a completely rewritten version of the scene she was in.”

Rogen continued, “And literally, 100 percent of the time, it made not just her character better, but it made the scene better and the entire show better as a whole. And 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.”

O’Hara died on Jan. 30 at the age of 71 after privately battling cancer.

O’Hara was one of the most celebrated comic actresses of her generation. She emerged out of the Toronto chapter of the Second City, first garnering attention on the improv and sketch troupe’s hit series, SCTV. She went on to make memorable appearances in an array of movies, including the Home Alone series, Beetlejuice, and Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. More recently, O’Hara earned wide acclaim (and several awards) for her performance as Moira Rose on the hit TV series Schitt’s Creek. Just last year, she received additional Emmy nominations for her work on The Studio and The Last of Us.

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