Eugene Levy makes embarrassment feel lived-in and worried fathers worth listening to. We value the care he takes with people who could easily become stock comic figures, both as an actor and a writer.
Fi1m perspective
Johnny Rose keeps his tie on in Schitt’s Creek (2015), even when the family has been reduced to living in a motel. Eugene Levy lets the eyebrows register what the rest of him is trying to contain. Beside Catherine O’Hara’s Moira, who treats every conversation as a performance, his restraint makes the family’s predicament more credible. We rate him highly: he can make a sensible response funny without giving the impression that he is waiting for a laugh.
That attention to character runs through a career built largely in ensembles. He wrote and performed in SCTV (1976), before film roles including Splash (1984). Waiting for Guffman (1996) began his run of co-written mockumentaries with Christopher Guest, while American Pie (1999) made his awkward, supportive father familiar to a wider audience.
Best in Show (2000) is where that approach works particularly well. As Gerry Fleck, opposite O’Hara’s Cookie, Levy makes embarrassment look like something the couple have long since learnt to live with. Guest and Levy take the dog-show competitors’ hopes seriously, so we can laugh at their behaviour and still care about the competition. A few routines repeat themselves, though, and we occasionally want Guest and Levy to stop indulging them.
Schitt’s Creek gives Levy, as co-creator with Dan Levy, longer to develop that sympathy. Its first season relies too heavily on the ruined family recoiling from the locals and their motel. The later seasons let the Roses become kinder without losing the jokes, a change that makes the programme worth the wait. O’Hara supplies the louder comedy, while Levy’s Johnny gives the family someone capable of behaving like an adult.
Even the uneven Finding Dory (2016) benefits from that seriousness. Voicing Charlie alongside Diane Keaton’s Jenny, Levy plays a parent frightened for a child who struggles with the words they teach her. We were moved by their patience as Dory struggles with her introduction, because both actors let worry show beneath the encouragement. Start with Best in Show if there is only one evening to spare.
Biography
Eugene Levy is a Canadian actor and writer. Born on 17 December 1946 in Hamilton, Ontario, he began his career on the sketch comedy series SCTV, which ran from 1976 to 1984.
He has collaborated regularly with Christopher Guest, appearing in and co-writing several mockumentary films including Best in Show (2000), in which he played Gerry Fleck. He is also known for playing Jim's father in the American Pie series of films and for co-creating and starring as Johnny Rose in the television series Schitt's Creek (2015–2020) with his son Dan Levy.
Levy has received multiple awards including four Primetime Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media for "A Mighty Wind" (2003), the Governor General's Performing Arts Award in 2008, and appointment to the Order of Canada.
