NEW YORK — Dan Levy said during a March 31 appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that the public response to Catherine O’Hara’s death has brought him “great comfort” since the Schitt’s Creek star died in January. Levy said the outpouring of love showed how deeply audiences felt connected to O’Hara, April 1, 2026.
In People’s post-broadcast report, Levy described O’Hara as “irreplaceable.” The appearance came as he returned to late-night TV to promote new work, but the conversation quickly moved back to the performer who played Moira Rose opposite his David Rose.
Dan Levy on Catherine O’Hara’s loss
O’Hara died Jan. 30 at 71 after what representatives initially described as a brief illness, according to AP’s obituary report. A death certificate later showed she died from a pulmonary embolism, with rectal cancer listed as the underlying cause, in a follow-up report from The Associated Press.
Levy’s Fallon appearance also coincided with the rollout of Netflix’s Big Mistakes, which premieres April 9. Still, the interview’s emotional focus shifted from the new series to Levy’s explanation that seeing how widely O’Hara was loved had become a source of comfort.
Dan Levy and Catherine O’Hara’s bond beyond Schitt’s Creek
The shared history behind Levy’s comments stretches back years. Schitt’s Creek ended with a history-making Emmy sweep in 2020, capping the show’s run with a clean sweep of the major comedy categories.
The connection stayed visible after the finale. In 2023, Levy and O’Hara reunited at Paris Fashion Week, and in early 2024 O’Hara said in an interview with People that she would love to return for a reunion project.
That continuity helps explain why Levy’s short Fallon remarks carried more weight than a standard late-night aside. They sounded like the words of a co-star mourning a collaborator whose work had made millions of viewers feel as if they knew her personally. For fans still revisiting O’Hara’s catalog, Levy’s point was simple: the love did not stop when she died. It became part of the way she is being remembered.
