The story of “Schitt’s Creek” is that of a little show that could. Dan Levy‘s writing and directing debut, the show launched on the CBC and little known POP TV in early 2015 with positive, but not over-the-moon reviews. That began to change. As the first season aired critics and viewers saw there was something special in the story of the Roses, a rich family who were forced to move to a small town after massive mismanagement of their funds. And by season two Levy and his writing staff really began to explore just who the Roses were and if they could ever find happiness in Schitt’s Creek. Once the show hit Netflix? The fandom exploded.
READ MORE: Catherine O’Hara on the “surreal” Emmy love for “Schitt’s Creek”
In case you’re blissfully unaware, the Roses begin with Johnny (Eugene Levy) and Moira (Catherine O’Hara), a former soap opera star with loftier career aspirations. Their son David (Levy) has spent years lost amongst the A-list gays and their daughter Alexis (Annie Murphy) was literally lost in all sorts of shady shenanigans that are constantly referenced throughout the history of the show. In Schitt’s Creek, they live in a dumpy motel in hopes of making the best of their new situation (all except for Moira, that is).
As the seasons have progressed the laughs have been consistent, but the heart of the show has become even more paramount. With Emmy voting upon us, Levy took some time to chat about the series’ fantastic fifth season which has aired on the CBC and POP but will debut on Netflix in the fall. So, if you’re afraid of spoilers because you somehow can’t figure out how to visit’s POP TV’s website…well, you’ve been warned.
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The Playlist: First of all, congratulations on a great season.
Dan Levy: Thank you.
I know that you’ve talked about the fact that when the show went on Netflix, it opened it up to a whole new audience. Is there a moment you remember either seeing something online or being in an airport or anything where you were like, “Oh no, something’s changed. The audience for this show has really grown.”
Yeah, I mean I think in retrospect it was a blessing for our show to essentially have two premieres. I mean we have our home network on POP and then six months later, I think it was season three, we started on Netflix. So we were getting to premiere a season in January. And then again in October, which essentially led to, I guess the water cooler conversations, like being a continuous thing, which is ultimately, you know, the great thing for TV, considering how much is out there. So for people to be able to be talking about it all year round was a great benefit to the show and obviously, Netflix has a has a totally different viewer base. I remember being at my local coffee shop and like, a family coming up to me saying that they loved the show. Up until that point we had a slowly growing audience on POP and we were a slightly more recognizable name in television up in Canada. But we were by no means, you know, in the zeitgeist of like “talkable TV.”
Do you sit down before scripting each season and sort of say, “O.K., these are our goals. We want Moira ready to go through this. We want Patrick and David’s relationship to hit this point.” Are you thinking of multiple seasons down the road? Basically, “Let’s set this up in season five before we get to six.”
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, probably too much. I would say that I’ve spent the past basically every moment of the past six years thinking about this show in one way or another. But we knew we were ending in six when he started to write five. So, as a package, I knew that I had 28 episodes finish the show. But in my mind, originally I had in the very early days thought that the show would end on season five. So when we were given the opportunity to do two more, obviously we took it. And it just tweaked the way I was going to wrap things up. But before we start every season I had a checklist of where I want the characters to end up where I want, you know, tonally speaking, the kind of tone we set in our season. I mean, season four was a really regulatory season for our cast in terms of revealing an emotional side to all of our characters that hadn’t really been seen before. I wanted [to not only] play into it, but also have fun with it. Because, again, when you know that you’re winding things down, I think you try to have as much fun as you possibly can.
Of course.
And I knew going into season five that I wanted Moira to have a big creative win. I wanted the audience to be able to see her work and see that as much as we’ve laughed with and at Moira and her delusions of grandeur, that her experiences and entertainment actually were worthwhile and that her production of “Cabaret” was going to be good. Which I think was sort of the unexpected surprise for a lot of viewers who were expecting the worst. Giving her that kind of win.
Where there any other characters you wanted to spotlight?
I think Stevie (Emily Hampshire), who has been sitting behind the motel desk for seasons and really slowly but surely building this simmering desire to do more with her life, putting that to the test by making her the star of “Cabaret” and having her perform the “Maybe This Time” number at the end, which we sort of shifted the intention of that song to be quite inspiring, was a fun treat for that character. And I think I knew that by the end of season five I wanted David and Patrick (Noah Reid) to get engaged and I wanted Johnny’s business to be on even more stable ground than it was before. And you know, Alexis to really be finding her footing professionally and in her relationship. And just finding ways of making these people feel secure and that their time in this town has been for good.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but it seems that every member of the family feels more comfortable in their time in this town to an extent, except for Moira. Is she the last one who still has dreams of escaping?
Yeah, I think the rest of the family is making the best of what was once a bad situation. And I think for Moira there’s a lot to that character that sort of informs why she’s holding on so hard. She comes from a small town, she spent a lot of time trying to get out so the fact that she’s back in one I think is a really hard pill for her to swallow. But the family did not lose their money because they did something wrong. It was just an unfortunate series of events.
Right.
I think she is this person that has always trying to remind people that “We didn’t deserve this experience.” You know, “We built our lives to be successful and we deserve that.” There will always be [something] quite rebellious when it comes to fully accepting her surroundings because I think she’s a very ambitious woman who wants a lot for herself and now, surprisingly, for her family. That tension is really fun to play because I think if everyone just sort of leaned into the experience, we wouldn’t have the same kind of spice.
Moira was obsessed this season with the premiere date of her Bosnian crow movie and you literally end the final shot with her on the ground emotionally crushed because it’s not being released. What was the thinking behind that?
It’s twofold. I think it sets the character up for a big choice. We had just seen a very impressive production of a local musical that she had sort of pulled together at the last minute and to then flip her success on its head by pulling the rug out from under her on a larger scale thing that she had been pinning her sort of hopes and dreams to it, for me, set up our final season, which is going to be, in a small part, Moira figuring out what she wants. And learning that misfortune or what she perceives as tragedy, what does that really mean? So getting a glimpse of happiness and success and then sort of flipping it on its head to me was really important because I think Moira needed that kind of guilt, emotionally speaking, to carry her into season six, and all the fun things we have in store for her.
You had so many fun things this season. This is likely the most naive question, but is it hard to get the rights to use the scenes and music you used from “Cabaret? How did that even come about?
I mean I’ve always loved “Cabaret,” the stage show and the film. And I knew what we were doing with Stevie’s character and I knew what we were doing with Moira. The character of Sally Bowles was such a strong choice to pull Stevie out of her shell while at the same time aesthetically speaking was very in line with Moira’s world. It’s a little bit dark, it’s a little bit sexy, it’s sort of shiny but tarnished. It’s really interesting and fermented and fun. So the cabaret came very early for me in terms of just picking it as the show we were going to do. And then fortunately in getting the rights, people had watched the show and loved the show, which made the process easier, but it wasn’t a difficult process to get the rights. [Well,] financially speaking it was a nice little investment for us, but fortunately, the people we were working with in terms of clearing the rights and acquiring the songs and all of that, being fans of the show made it a very sort of lovely experience.
One of the most fun sort of subplots through the years has been Alexis’s whatever happened to her overseas throwaway lines. She always has these crazy, out-there references.
Yeah.
I don’t know how you guys keep topping yourselves because it continues to be quite hilarious. For season six, had you thought of doing anything to clarify any of it or do you like the fact that you just, we may never know?
I think in a way people, the colorful paths to be characters, for example, David has the same sort of thing with all of his, like really tragic romantic failed relationships. I think they’re just the wallpaper to these people’s lives in terms of how we see them on the show. You know, it’s funny little reminders of just how extravagance their life used to be. So in a way the little anecdotes about where they’ve come from and the kinds of strange experiences they’ve had, are fun ways of reminding the audience of their displacement and just how sort of far they’ve fallen. But also, you know, in a way it’s sort of expositional without having to have characters talk that much about their past. Because those sort of little, the little anecdotes sort of play as jokes, but in reality they’re just continuing to strengthen, you know, the foundation of who these characters are and where they came from. There will definitely be some fun little revelations for Alexis in season six. But I think in terms of her path, it’s just who she is and it’s what continues to sort of motivate her and inspire her to make the kinds of decisions she’s making now. And I think that was the really fun thing about Alexis as a character is we really intended from the very beginning as we did with all of the characters, that season after season and episode after episode, we’d be pulling back the layers on who they were and revealing who they really are. So to juxtapose this sort of life, I mean it’s interesting to watch now, because the kind of stories that she tells in relation to where she is in her life now feel even weirder than they did in season one because we didn’t really know who she was.
I honestly feel like she’s the unsung star of the show. As for a completely different subject, something that we would not have expected in season one is the relationship between David and Patrick. It’s one of the sweetest gay relationships I’ve seen on onscreen. How important was that to you to convey in the series?
Well, thanks. And I think, I mean I’ve always known that that David was going to end up with someone and that the person was going to be his opposite and would really sort of, allow him the space to let his guard down because he was such a protected character for so long and has really been sort of put through the tumble dry cycle of love. And I think finding Noah and us sort of having a really nice chemistry on screen and being friends offscreen has led to a sort of freedom and familiarity I think as actors that has allowed for us to really mine these characters and their relationship for all that there is. But in terms of writing them, I think my biggest mandate was that we were never going to write these characters with any kind of preciousness because they were two men. I have no interest in teaching people a lesson about gay relationships. If they learned something from watching two men fall in love and how transformational that can be for themselves and the people around them, so be it. But I think I’ve been just conditioned to see a lot of queer narratives presented in a very sort of, educational way. Like there’s supposed to be some big lesson learned at the end or presented in a way where the relationships are threatened because of homophobia or intolerance of some kind. I guess that my silent protest is just to write a love story and not ask any questions about why or how. Just show these two people falling in love in the way that so many straight relationships had been presented for centuries in film and television. And just treat them with that same kind of respect.
I think the other thing that’s even more of a credit to you guys is you’re not doing it in 30 minutes or 35 minutes on a Netflix show that has no commercials. You’re doing it in like 19 or 20 or 21 minutes, which is very short.
21 minutes and 50 seconds to be exact.
And with commercial breaks cutting up the narrative as well.
Yeah.
That makes it even harder. I’ve gone over my time, but I have one last question for you. It’s Emmy voting season. aIs there any nomination that would mean a lot to you? Is there anyone you’d be happy to see the television academy recognize for the show?
I’ll preface it by saying that we’re Canadians, so we don’t expect awards. It’s not in our DNA. Knowing how much work gets put into this show, knowing how small the show is and how far it’s come, I’m just so proud of our team. I’m proud of our production team. I’m proud of our writers. I’m proud of our actors who I think are doing brilliant work. And it’s really hard to make things look as effortless as our cast have made it look. Listen, I would be thrilled if the show is recognized in any capacity because a win for either an actor or a writer or a director or the show itself is a win for the whole team because we were so collaborative in what we do that everyone is sort of invested in everybody else. So if it happens in any way, great. But the fact that we’re even having this conversation is a moment that is so surreal to me considering where we came from and the fact that this show is such a small Canadian show, it continues to astound me.
“Schitt’s Creek” seasons 1-5 are now available on POP TV. Seasons 1-4 are available on Netflix.