Catherine O’Hara’s beloved work includes films like Home Alone and Beetlejuice and recent TV hits Schitt’s Creek and The Studio. But some of the most memorable career turns for the actress, who died in January at 71, hail from the largely improvisational string of features she made with Christopher Guest, starting 30 years ago with Waiting for Guffman.
After the success of Rob Reiner’s 1984 satirical classic This Is Spinal Tap, which counts Guest as a star and co-writer, the latter returned to the mockumentary genre with Guffman, focusing on the quirky residents of a small town producing a stage musical to celebrate their history. Co-writing the script with Guest and starring in the ensemble cast was Eugene Levy, who worked with O’Hara when the pair — known for later playing a married couple on Schitt’s Creek — were members of the Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV that launched in 1976. Rounding out the Guffman cast were Fred Willard, Parker Posey and Bob Balaban. They were encouraged to ad-lib in character as Guest collected more than 60 hours of footage before taking a year to whittle it down to 84 minutes. During a 2019 interview, O’Hara described the shoot as “scary and thrilling” and recalled viewing footage upon arriving to the Austin set after filming had commenced. “That was even more intimidating, to see what other people had done,” admitted the actress, who played singing-and-dancing travel agent Sheila. “And [Guest] said, ‘Don’t worry about being funny, just be in the scene.’ ”
After the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1996, Sony Pictures Classics released Waiting for Guffman in theaters Jan. 31, 1997, and it made a modest $2.9 million ($5.9 million today). But as Guest’s profile rose with later mockumentaries like 2000’s Best in Show (which also featured O’Hara, as did Guest’s A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration in 2003 and 2006), Guffman developed a cult following and has earned support from such famous fans as Judd Apatow, who has called it “my Citizen Kane.” Deborah Theaker, who co-starred in Guffman and was close with O’Hara and her family through the Second City theater in Toronto, tells THR of the star: “Nobody made me laugh harder.”
This story appeared in the Feb. 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
