Seth Rogen recalls first day back on ‘The Studio’ after Catherine O’Hara died: ‘We didn’t know what to do’

Key Points

• Seth Rogen looks back on the first day of filming The Studio after Catherine O’Hara’s death.

• The celebrated Canadian actress died at 71 on Jan. 30 after a private cancer battle.

• Rogen said that upon learning of her illness, he hoped it would be possible for O’Hara to return for the second season — but began to see that was not the case.

Seth Rogen left the door open for Catherine O’Hara‘s return to The Studio, right up until her death.

Looking back on that period in a recent sit-down with The New York Times, the actor and series co-creator shared that he learned of O’Hara’s illness in-between the first and second season but hoped that she would get well enough to return to the show.

“It was just incredibly sad,” Rogen said in the interview published June 13. “We started to hear she was sick. As we were nearing the second season, we would talk to her and she really wanted to come back. Honestly, in the back of our heads we were like, ‘We hope she can, but we don’t know if she’ll be able to.'”

He continued, “So it is this very sad thing where, creatively, in the back of your mind, you’re making contingency plans but you don’t want to think about it. But your brain is kind of telling you one thing and you’re trying not to believe it.”

O’Hara died on Jan. 30 at 71. By that point, season 2 of The Studio was in full swing for its first week of shooting. Rogen shared that he was back on set hours after learning of her death, partly because he didn’t know where else to be.

“We heard she passed away one morning. It was the first week of shooting,” he recalled. “It was really, really sad. We were all together, the whole crew, and everyone loved her very much. We didn’t know what to do, and we just kept shooting.”

He added, “I think the idea of making each other laugh and being together felt preferable to anything else we could have done that day.”

The Emmy-winning comedy, a hilarious peek inside the inner-workings of Hollywood, starred the late Beetlejuice actress as Patty Leigh, a producer and former studio head who mentors protagonist Matt Remick, played by Rogen. The actor said that from the early stages of penning the show, they knew they wanted O’Hara for the role.

“When we first conceived of the show, she was the one that we wanted on it more than anybody,” he said. “She was like a god to us, especially as Canadians.Home Aloneis the movie that made me want to make movies. And then as we got older, we became obsessed with Christopher Guest‘s films, Waiting for Guffman. Beetlejuice was one of my favorite movies ever growing up.”

He continued, “To us, she was as funny as a person could be. Getting to work with her on the first season, it really pushed us to want to do right by her and to make the show live up to her standards.”

O’Hara’s cause of death was revealed 10 days after her passing; her manager initially told Entertainment Weekly that she died following a brief illness. But her death certificate listed a pulmonary embolism as the main cause, with rectal cancer as the underlying cause.

Patty Leigh stands as O’Hara’s final role; however, she shot her role in The Last of Usseason 2 concurrently with The Studio in 2024. (The HBO horror series concluded its arc on May 18, three days before her final appearance on The Studio.)

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Rogen previously addressed the way that Patty was an anchor for Matt just as O’Hara was for the series as a whole. While he has not delved into story specifics, he has confirmed that the upcoming second season will address O’Hara’s death.

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

He added, “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.”

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly