“And then they get married.”
“It does provide an instant tension, but people watching know how solid this relationship is.
It’s a little harder to tell the story of a successful relationship.
Queer couples even posted selfies beneath a giant billboard version on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip.
So many unlikely stars in showbiz had to align to giveSchitt’sthe chance it needed.
First, it was always a family show.
Eugene plays onetime VHS rental king Johnny Rose, cowed by failure but still donning crisp suits every day.
As David, their high-strung and higher maintenance grown son, Dan Levy channels an extreme version of himself.
“But their sense of humor is exactly the same.")
The Roses beginSchitt’s Creekuniversally flummoxed by small-town life.
Underneath the melodramatic maladjustment dilemmas, however, were always the bones of a smarter than average family sitcom.
“A lot of shows are really under the gun of ratings.
Everyone is [usually] under the watchful eye of, ‘Is this benefiting us financially?’
Instead, Levy held a lot back.
And the audience especially its growing core of passionate online fans began to swell.
“At that point, we were introducing Patrick.
With Patrick came this whole other conversation.”
He and Levy, who knew each other a little socially, didn’t even have a chemistry test.
“We didn’t have time,” Levy says.
“We cast him halfway through the season.
David needed a relationship because he’s so fragile when it comes to love.
We thought, if it works, great. "
Instead, Levy says, as Patrick, Reid brought “a stability and a sense of calm.”
Reid was also feeling things out.
“It’s strange to walk into a show that’s already going.
And I was like, ‘Okay, sure, I guess this is where I am.’
But that’s true of human relationships, too, right?
You meet somebody, you have no idea.
You know that you’re interested.
Then, you see where it goes.”
In the third season finale, David finally makes his move, and they kiss for the first time.
What was very clear is that Patrick wouldn’t be leaving.
“Let’s give him another season, see what happens.'”
Unlike pretty much every TV show ever, no one onSchitt’s Creekever has an overt crisis of sexuality.
“Their relationship happened pretty fast,” Reid admits.
And one song during their courtship gained hall of fame status among fans along the way.
“I find it incredibly cringey, people singing generally,” Levy says.
It was like, this is both very sweet and so dark.
What he had done with that song was extraordinary.”
David returns the musical grand gesture in the form ofa lip-sync to Turner’s original recording.
“David’s not a particularly romantic person,” Levy says.
“You’re scripting it like, isn’t this hysterical?
And then you get up to the day and it’s like I’m not a dancer.
I’m not really a performer.
The night before I was just learning the lyrics to the song.”
But you get those moments so rarely.
So I was like, ah, screw it.
Let’s try this.”
When they finished the scene, the director came over crying.
“I had always pictured that moment to be quite funny,” Levy says.
“The rest of our team behind the cameras were crying.
I thought I had done it wrong.”
“That’s the furthest out on a limb he’s ever gone for anybody.”
The episode marked another social-media turning point for the show.
Once it aired, people were like, ‘I was sobbing through your performance.’
I’m glad that it carried a deeper significance.”
The confidence Levy had in working with Reid began to take on a deeper significance, too.
“I knew that things were working with Noah,” he says.
“I knew that what we were doing was something I hadn’t seen before on TV.”
But it was still, despite the surge of media attention, more of a local darling.
Its creators felt lucky to have been making work they loved with people they loved for so long.
The CBC and Pop TV agreed.
They planned out the big plot points.
“You plan your seasons around these big moments,” Reid says.
“To know where you’re going in that way feels pretty good.”
David incredulously asks, “Are you sure?”
And Patrick answers, “Easiest decision of my life.”
But Levy still hadn’t told fans they’d decided on a stopping point for the series.
A motley crew of famous fans were now proud and vocal late adoptees.
Paula Abdul posted photos of herself fangirling with the cast backstage after a live event.
Keith Urban swore he’d never binged two seasons in a row of anything before.
(A very calm Levy replied, “OH.
That’s a lot of pressure for a grand finale and a wedding.
Table reads got more emotional.
“I’m the least emotional of the cast, I would say probably,” Reid says.
“Even in the early days where people were like, ‘I love David.’
I’m like, ‘Ilove David.’
[But] he was slightly more prickly.
“I’m still an incredibly sort of trepidatious person.
I’m very insecure and have a lot of social anxiety.
Ensemble or not, it’s Levy who’s now unquestionably the face of the show.
“But the minute that I had that control, something clicked.
I think my approach to the storytelling shifted a little bit.”
He signed an overall three-year deal with ABC Studios to develop and produce new projects.
“What is it worth if you’re signing yourself up to be compromised?
I don’t want that.
I want to do special things, and they might not be huge money-making things.
Giving suggestions as opposed to just criticism.
It has been such a constructive world to live in for six years.
I don’t want to do anything but that.
I have no interest in it.”
Despite 80 episodes starring as a now-legendary character, Levy’s own acting experience is still otherwise admittedly thin.
How will I be?
I don’t work very well under pressure when I’m not the person putting the pressure on.”
“There are other people out there who want to tell meaningful stories and on a big scale.
(Last year they lost toFleabag; at SAG it wasThe Marvelous Mrs. And now the show’s doing great.
Now we’re of great benefit to our data pipe.
It took a minute, but what a wonderful thing to leave with.”
And what a legacy to build on.
“Television with heart,” he says, in summary.
The heart is what clearly has tied us all together in terms ofSchitt’s Creek.
That is an area that I’m not finished exploring yet.”
“I have ideas for hour-long thrillers,” he says.
“That’ll come down the line, I think.
Watch Dan Levy break down previous seasons as part ofour BINGE series on YouTube.
