Macaulay Culkin, Annie Murphy and Dan Levy paid tribute to their late friend and co-star Catherine O'Hara during the In Memoriam segment at the 2026 Emmys on Sept. 14, months after her death in January.
Culkin, who starred alongside O'Hara in Home Alone, opened the tribute by reflecting on how the world remembers her. "We remember her as the forgetful mother," he said. "But I will never forget about her. There are all kinds of words I could use to describe Catherine. She was encouraging. She was warm. She was funny. But the word that I think of is mama."
Culkin said O'Hara was more than a wife to her husband, Bo Welch, and a mother to their sons, Matthew and Luke. "She was my mom. She was our mama, and by extension, she's all of her mama," he said. "By the way, call your mother tonight, for real. But like a good mama, she always showed up when I asked her to, because that was Catherine. That's what she did. She showed up, and this is the best that we can do for her tonight." He added, "We're showing up for her. So, she may have forgotten me twice, but we will always remember her."
Annie Murphy and Dan Levy remember their Moira Rose
Murphy, who played O'Hara's daughter on Schitt's Creek, described the effect O'Hara's laugh had on people. "Catherine's laugh was a perpetual 'yes and,'" she said. "It challenged anyone who heard it to join in and be as delighted as she was, and she spread that delight everywhere." Murphy recalled that after O'Hara's death, a stranger on an Air Canada flight passed her a note reading, "She was so special. I hope you're doing okay." Murphy said moments like that showed her "how profoundly Catherine has impacted the world, and it's because she brought us joy."
Levy, who co-created Schitt's Creek with his father, Eugene Levy, said O'Hara taught him to trust his instincts. "The greatest lesson I learned from Catherine, both professionally and personally, was to always say yes," he said. "Say yes to her instincts, all of them, as radical as they may sometimes seem. She is miles ahead of you, and you will learn to catch up."
He also credited O'Hara's willingness to take risks in shaping her Emmy-winning character, Moira Rose. "Say yes to helping her build a TV character over the age of 60 that wears leather miniskirts and 8-inch heels and speaks in a strange, sometimes unintelligible transatlantic accent, and know that she will not scare an audience away," Levy said. "Say yes to giving her space to experiment and create. It will amaze you on a daily basis, and it will change your life. Say yes to her dinner invites and her stories and her wisdom and her generosity. Those are the things you will hold on to the tightest."
O'Hara's death and a reunion that won't happen
O'Hara died on Jan. 30 following a brief illness at age 71. At the time, Levy had been discussing a potential Schitt's Creek reunion that would have brought back her Emmy-winning role as Moira Rose.
Asked in an April interview with CBS News Sunday Morning whether he and his father would ever revive the show without O'Hara, Levy said simply, "No." Speaking while filming in Ontario, Canada, where the CBC series was shot, he said, "You can't. It's tough. It's tough being back." Though the memories moved him to tears, Levy said, "It's what you have to hold onto is the memories of it all."
Seth Rogen says The Studio will address her death
Seth Rogen said his Apple TV series The Studio, which earned O'Hara an Emmy nomination in 2025, will address her passing in its second season. "If anything, we're acknowledging the idea that we are a little anchorless," Rogen told The Times of London in April. "But, honestly, that is a part of life and what we all experience. 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."
The Studio won 13 awards for its first season, a run Rogen has attributed largely to O'Hara's presence. In a tribute posted on Jan. 30, he wrote, "I told O'Hara when I first met her I thought she was the funniest person I'd ever had the pleasure of watching on screen. Getting to work with her was a true honour. She was hysterical, kind, intuitive, generous... she made me want to make our show good enough to be worthy of her presence in it." He added, "We're all lucky we got to live in a world with her in it."
