‘We are not ignoring it’

Key points

• Seth Rogen says Catherine O’Hara’s death will be aknowledged in The Studio season 2: “We are not ignoring it.”

• The actor and co-creator added that the show will contain “heavy themes.”

• Co-creator Evan Goldberg said working on The Studio in the wake of O’Hara’s death has been “an unbelievable challenge.”

The Studio season 2 will address Catherine O’Hara‘s death.

The Emmy-winning Hollywood comedy series starred the late Beetlejuice actress as Patty Leigh, a producer and former studio head who mentors protagonist Matt Remick, played by Seth Rogen. The actor and Evan Goldberg — who co-created the show and co-directed every episode — recently discussed how O’Hara’s sudden death will affect the upcoming season.

“It has been an unbelievable challenge,” Goldberg said in a new interview with the U.K. outlet The Times. “Obviously emotionally, dealing with the loss, but also when it comes to the show itself.”

Goldberg said The Studio‘s team fully expected O’Hara to return for its second season. “We wrote it for her to be there,” he said. “We had it all set, and the shock waves permeate throughout the entire new season. It’s been difficult.”

When the Times referred to O’Hara as an anchor for the show, Goldberg responded, “You worded it better than we could — she was the anchor, and now the anchor is gone.”

Rogen agreed. “If anything,” he said, “we’re acknowledging the idea that we are a little anchorless. But, honestly, that is a part of life and what we all experience.”

The Pineapple Express star continued, “And so while we try to not dwell too much on heavy themes in this show, they will be there in this second season. We are not ignoring it.”

Rogen also expressed his admiration for O’Hara. “We just wanted her to think we were funny,” he said of working with her on The Studio.

O’Hara died on Jan. 30 at 71. Her primary cause of death was listed as a pulmonary embolism, with rectal cancer as an underlying cause.

The actress won the Actor Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series last month for her role on the show. Rogen gave an emotional speech accepting the award on his late costar’s behalf.

“I know she would have been honored to receive this award from her fellow performers, who I know she respected so much,” he said at the ceremony. “She was such big fans of all of yours.”

He continued, “I obviously have been reflecting on the time I was fortunate enough to spend with her working with her, and something I’ve just been marveling at over the past 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 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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He concluded, “If you have people in your lives who don’t know her work — if you have kids in your lives or people that are out of touch or stupid or something — just show them O’Hara dancing to Harry Belafonte in Beetlejuice. Show them O’Hara hurting her knee in Best in Show and doing that amazing thing where she hobbles around. And tell the people as they’re laughing that that’s Catherine O’Hara, and we’re lucky that we got to live in a world where she so genuinely got to share her talents with us.”

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