Abby Quinn, Dan Levy and Taylor Ortega in 'Big Mistakes.' Courtesy of Netflix Logo text Dan Levy knows you’ve been wondering if he was ever going to make more Schitt’s Creek. Or, at the very least, something like it.
Five years after it concluded its run and the Emmy-winning series is what the actor, writer, director and producer for more than two decades in Hollywood remains most recognized for. For a moment, he did consider making more of it. “But nothing came to fruition. If the idea was there, we would have done it already,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. Now with co-star Catherine O’Hara’s passing, it’s completely out. “You want her in the cast. It wouldn’t seem right to make anything without a complete cast coming back.”
Related Stories
TV Netflix Drops First Look at 'Little House on the Prairie': "Every Day and Every Night Was an Adventure"
TV Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Attend Ted Sarandos' 'Beef' Season 2 Event Following Netflix Drama
So while more Schitt’s Creek might have been what people most wanted from him, Levy instead chose to pursue different things, including what Hollywood maybe hasn’t expected. He’s created and hosted the reality cooking competition The Big Brunch and co-hosted the Primetime Emmys with dad and Schitt’s co-creator Eugene Levy. He nearly launched a Hulu animated series (among the strike-era cancellations) alongside I Used to Be Funny and Black Mirror director Ally Pankiw. He also wrote and directed his first feature film, Netflix’s romantic drama Good Grief. He appeared in the pandemic-era drama Coastal Elites, queer rom-com Happiest Season and headline-grabby music-drama The Idol.
Not only has all of it been an opportunity to go outside what everyone was waiting for him to do, it brought him to fellow comedic writer and actor Rachel Sennot (I Love LA). Together, they created Big Mistakes, a true romp of a comedy crime thriller and Levy’s latest project under his overall deal with Netflix. “What Dan’s really good at is not just writing these whole characters for other people. He’s really good at making the characters trigger each other,” says Big Mistakes’ Taylor Ortega, Levy’s co-lead, on-screen sister and partner in crime, Morgan. “He writes a real person in a way that lets you react in the best and most likely way, with also the biggest, funniest reaction possible.”
Big Mistakes is what people know Levy for, with its sharp humor, overly earnest and vulnerable characters, and wild plot turns that somehow maintain a sense of relatability. It’s also a series that fully embodies what Levy describes as a creative proclivity for pendulum swings — the characters who move from one extreme to another, who face one extreme after another. Forced into situations where they must do the opposite of what they or even audiences expect, the writer-director plays with how far his characters can get away from themselves without also betraying that self.
In Big Mistakes, think what a gay pastor named Nicky (Levy) would do to protect his life and the people he loves after being unwillingly recruited into a criminal outfit. “I feel like he has this gift to tell stories in a way with no pretense,” Jacob Gutierrez, who plays Nicky’s boyfriend Tareq, says while talking Levy’s approach to writing LGBTQ+ characters. “It’s authentic and he doesn’t comment on it. He’s just aware and mindful, which makes it refreshing.”
According to fellow Big Mistakes star Laurie Metcalf, who portrays Levy’s onscreen mother Linda, he’s also a genuine creative partner. “He sets the tone for the whole show, and the vibe on the set is all-inclusive, collaborative. Everybody’s opinions are welcome. He’s very respectful and grateful to everyone, and tells us all that. He plants that seed in you where you want to come to work and support the whole show for everyone.”
That support and motivation extends to off-screen collaborators, too. “I got how to infuse my identity without my voice, just through the actual music. Dan always says, ‘Your voice is there. There’s a scream in every episode because of the theme music,’” says prolific electroclash artist Peaches of what she got creatively out of working with Levy in her first role as a TV series composer. “It was challenging and great, and also a little out of my comfort zone. But I think the point of the actual series Big Mistakes is about being out of your comfort zone.”
In the years since Schitt’s Creek’s swan song, if there ever was something like it, Big Mistakes is the closest Levy’s gotten. It’s also something that pushes farther than what most people know him for and, at times, what Levy himself was ready for. “Schitt’s Creek was a warm hug. This is a roller coaster ride. I want people to have fun, lock in and just ride it out. And I promise, if you stick with it, you are in for the ride of your life,” he said when discussing the show before it released (all episodes are now streaming). “I wanted to have fun with this show, and that’s what it is. It is a full roller coaster ride of fun, funny, sometimes anxiety-inducing storytelling.”
Below, Levy discusses the ride of bringing Big Mistakes to the screen — including creative fears, challenges and his collaborators — how his overall deal with Netflix made Big Mistakes possible, and the lessons from Schitt’s Creek he took into his second time creating and showrunning a scripted series.
***
Hollywood and TV have, in some ways, dramatically changed since you debuted Schitt’s Creek over a decade ago. What about your experience making that show did you to take with you into Big Mistakes — or, what was something that you realized just doesn’t apply anymore?
In the early days of making Schitt’s Creek, I knew the experience we were having creatively was never going to happen again — the fact that we didn’t have network interference in any way. So what I was able to do was show that great things can happen when faith is put into creators. Right now, it feels like there’s a lot of fear around whether something is going to work or not, and from that fear, we’ve gotten into this habit of thinking that we know what an audience wants, so we’re going to make something for that audience. Audiences don’t want to be spoon-fed things. If you look at all the great things in culture that have made a mark, they have all come out of left field. They have all taken us by surprise. They have all caught us off guard. They’ve all shown us things we didn’t know we wanted. That’s where the hysteria comes in. That’s where the real fandom comes in. And you can look at anything that’s hit big. No studio executive could have predicted those successes.
Dan Levy on the set of Big Mistakes. Spencer Pazer/Netflix So we find ourselves in this crosshair of wanting to give something to an audience that has now, through algorithms and numbers, proven they like X, Y, and Z, and they’ll watch for X number of minutes. I was obviously spoiled making Schitt’s outside of that machine, but what it did do is give me the point of no return. When I am pitching an idea to somebody — in this case, it was Netflix — there’s a point that I will not cross in terms of the things that will make this idea something I will regret if it fails. How much can I manipulate this idea to work within the confines of what everyone needs without compromising the integrity of the origin of the idea? What’s most important for me is that when I go to sleep at night, I know that what I’ve put on the screen is the closest possible representation of the thing I wanted to make.
I can’t think of a greater sadness as it pertains to this scenario than adjusting, changing, warping, putting it out there, not recognizing your own work, it doesn’t work, and then you have to go to sleep being like, “If I had only just fought for this more. Why did that character have to change?” So, I prioritize my own sanity, honestly, over making too many adjustments. Part of that is knowing what you want to make. Part of that is the privilege of being able to say no sometimes. Everyone can say no, but some people can’t afford to lose a job. So my heart goes out to a lot of creators out there who sell their idea and then watch it get twisted into something that some data point thinks they want. For me, it’s about fighting for the integrity of the show and trying to embrace the creative adventure of saying, “OK, you need X, Y, and Z? I can give you this and this and this, but I will never give you this.”
You have a pretty dynamic cast here, led by compelling and funny women. In Schitt’s you cast similarly with Annie Murphy and Catherine O’Hara, the latter who really owned and commanded her character. What did you take from working with them into Big Mistakes?
You have to put them on a pedestal and let them shine. You have to trust the actors and their instincts. You have to trust what their lived experience and what their brains bring to the table. That show wasn’t me. They walked into the room as those characters. It was them. I simply said yes and wrote some scripts that allowed them to shine.
With Big Mistakes, it’s the same process. I wanted to make sure that Morgan was accurately written, so I went to a female writer to help flesh out that character. There is something special about the nuance that certain lived experiences coming from the writer then being imparted into what the character can do for the experience of an actor. So often, particularly as a gay actor, I’ll read scripts that feel like a two-dimensional depiction of the character, and you see the potential of what the character could be, but you don’t necessarily see it on the page. That’s my worst nightmare. So for me, it’s all about the authenticity of these characters and making sure you have a team around you who can write to the lived experience of the character with the kind of nuance that would then allow Taylor to come onto the show and do what she does best without having to question whether her part is a whole person.
Ortega as Morgan with Levy as Nicky in Big Mistakes. You worked with Rachel Sennott on this, and her touch and influence are so clear. Can you talk about jumping into this with her, whom you’d been in the orbit of but only previously directly worked with on The Idol, and how it’s been a different creative collaboration versus some of your other co-created projects?
Anytime you’re representing characters, you need to go to the people who have lived their lives. That, to me, is necessary. I knew this was a brother-sister comedy, and I can’t assume to flesh out the character of Morgan. I haven’t lived that life. It was important I brought in a younger woman who could speak to the character, who could give her nuance and flaws in ways that I couldn’t. Rachel was that person. We have a lot of overlap in terms of what we find funny, but our voices are very separate, and I knew that that clash could be really fun. I wanted this to have a sort of chaotic energy that wasn’t instantly identifiable as something that was just me, and she brought that vibrant young energy to this crotchety old grandpa. Together, we made something really special. Rachel’s voice was crucial.
Finding Taylor Ortega was crucial. Peaches and Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum doing this score was crucial. I think an all-female DP team was crucial. Putting the team together by finding people who could speak to the totality of the vision that I knew I could not do on my own, that was it. And this is why I’m so excited to talk about the show, because it’s such a thrill for me. It is something I’m so proud of, but cannot take total ownership over. It is the byproduct of an unbelievable team of people who are making something, I think, quite fresh.
And yeah, Rachel’s the fucking best. I love her to death. I was talking to her when we had this event a little while ago. I was like, “We need to find a way to work you into season two.” If we get one, we need to find the perfect role for Rachel to come and just do a couple of days on set. It would make everything complete.
Last year, you posted a TikTok speaking to creators feeling beaten down, looking at the work of people they love and comparing it to their own and feeling not good enough. You mentioned this balance between the inspiration and the challenge of the work, and how social media or publicity can misconstrue the reality of what it is to be creative. Were you talking directly about Big Mistakes and if so, why did you feel like that?
Of course I was. I was delving into a genre that I had no experience in. This show is a comedy, but it’s also a crime thriller, and I didn’t want to cheap out on the crime. I really wanted the crime, the thrills and the suspense to be earned; to be real. It is its own method of writing, and I was sitting there with a very talented room of comedy writers, wondering why we couldn’t crack the crime. It turned out that I needed crime writers. I could bring the comedy. I needed people with experience to walk me through how you lay out a criminal story arc.
When I made that post, I was at this point where I’d just come off the success of this incredible show. It was so in my comfort zone, and I’m so out of my comfort zone right now that I’m not seeing the light. There came this point where I thought, “I’m watching colleagues of mine soar,” and it became very clear to me that we never really talk about when things don’t work. IMaybe it’s not sexy? Maybe it’s pulling back the curtain too much? Maybe it’s hard, and maybe you don’t want to talk about it.
But at that moment, I thought, if there is someone out there who will look at me once this show is out, and think, “I love that show. Gosh, it must have been so fun” — it was, but man, was it hard. I needed to be honest. It was more for myself. We don’t see the struggles. The ups and downs. And it was amazing how many other writers reached out to me at that point who said, “I am in the darkest depths of hell. Thank you so much for saying that. I feel so comforted by the fact that you’re in pain right now.” It’s very relatable, and I think we need to be more open about the fact that you see the red carpet and the press release of the thing getting greenlit, but you never see anything in between. It’s far less glamorous than people think. This also frees you. It frees you as a creative who’s making something to just say, “I’m struggling.” So we rearranged the room a little bit and within two weeks, the entire season was broken, which was a huge lesson for me.
Catherine O’Hara and Dan Levy in Schitt’s Creek season three. Everett Collection In that same TikTok, you mentioned we are in a dark time. Your first show also came out at a very specific moment, and I think it’s fair to say part of its success is in how it brought relief and joy, both through its comedy but also for LGBTQ+ people. As a gay creator, in a politically dangerous time and when inclusion around town has been retracting, why did queer relationships and storylines like the ones in season one feel important to include?
When you’re creating a series, you have to sit down and realize you’d better have multiple episodes of storytelling in you, and if you’re not able to pull from your own experiences, you’re going to run out of steam. For me, being gay and loving my life and wanting to tell stories that reflect things I see in the day-to-day — my friends, experiences — it’s a natural thing. I never feel the need to write those stories with a heavy hand because I think the more radical thing is to treat them as nonchalantly as all the straight stories we see out there. That is freedom. Because the minute you put a shrine around something and ask people to pay attention or care about it, you are forcing something that doesn’t need to be forced. Just show people living their lives. That’s what’s going to make the change.
I saw that firsthand on Schitt’s. I would get letters from right-wing religious people who grew over time to understand the character of David Rose and then ultimately cheer for him to get married. We didn’t shove it down people’s throats. We simply put it on the screen and said: Watch. We’re not going to judge you. Just watch.
You learn when you watch things. I don’t learn when I’m being told to pay attention to something and care about it. I need the freedom to understand people for who they are, and that’s all this is. This felt like a very different conversation to have as my character is struggling with his faith in relation to finding love, and what that means. And yet, you have to make fun of yourself as well. I love toward the end of the season when he’s in the bathroom with the son of the Brazilian cartel member like, “We are not open. I wish we had had that conversation.” It’s real life, and you’ve got to show the good, the bad and the ugly, and hope your audience is smart enough to play along. I never want to pander to an audience, and I think that’s also talking about the current state of affairs with entertainment. I feel like we’re always talking down to an audience. I would much rather assume greater for an audience than presume worse.
Big Mistakes comes out of an overall deal you have with Netflix. Those are rarer in Hollywood now than they were a few years ago. What has it been like working with them, and what has having that deal done for you?
We wrapped Schitt’s, and I got into a deal with them, and the first thing I brought them was a small film about grief that was a drama, and they said yes. That was such a vote of confidence because I’m aware. I’m not an idiot. I know what they wanted from me. They wanted this show from me. They want the big, funny show. I needed time to get there. I needed time for the dust to settle for me. I respect the audience so much, and when you’re making television, that is a long commitment of audience time. I had to show up, ready and excited to get back into TV. I really respected and appreciated the fact that they supported a creative venture so far outside of what people had come to know me for, and then supported this one. That’s where you see people for what they want.
I really respected the Netflix team for letting me experiment. Because I do think that you become better the more that you play around with things. As someone who I knew was only going to be pigeonholed as a comedic actor, I wanted to tell a dramatic story for myself. I wanted to just do something else. I wanted to flex a different muscle. It made me a better actor in Big Mistakes. It’s all for something, and I just respect the hell out of them for allowing me to explore all the areas of my creativity and curiosity. Are they happy that I made this show? Yes. (Laughs) But I don’t think I could have made this show had I not made Good Grief.
***
Big Mistakes season one is now streaming on Netflix.
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe Sign Up
