In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast features in-depth conversations with today’s most noteworthy actors and creators. Join host and senior editor Vinnie Mancuso for this guide to living the creative life from those who are doing it every day.
Dan Levy got a lot out of “Schitt’s Creek,” the comfort watch–ready, endlessly GIF’d sitcom he starred in and co-created with his father, Eugene Levy (including four Emmys in a single night for its sixth season, a record). But as he debuts his small-screen follow-up, the Netflix comedy-thriller “Big Mistakes,” Levy’s main takeaway is what he learned about leading a set. “It was watching my dad and [costar Catherine O’Hara] set that tone for everybody,” he tells us on the latest episode of In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast. “It’s one thing to hear about it; it’s another thing to see it firsthand.”
“You have two very well-respected legends in Canadian comedy, No. 1 and No. 2 on the call sheet, showing up to work every day on time, open to other people’s ideas, incredibly collaborative, humble, but at the same time [understanding that] work is work and we should be doing the best job we can,” Levy continues. “Nobody is allowed an ego on the set if the people at the top don’t have one. You watch that reverberate through the crew…. You have these kind of gruff crew guys being like, ‘This is a nice set.’ And they’ve seen the best and they’ve seen the worst.”
“Big Mistakes,” which Levy co-created with Rachel Sennott, sees Levy star as Nicky Dardano, an openly gay pastor who, along with his sister, Morgan (tremendous breakout Taylor Ortega), gets blackmailed into working with an organized crime ring. It’s a tonal departure from “Schitt’s Creek” that manages to keep a similar heart at its center, and Levy wanted to ensure that extended behind the scenes as well.
“The most valuable part of the [‘Schitt’s Creek’] experience was watching the two of them treat people with respect and empathy and kindness the entire way through. That never changed from season to season,” Levy says. “Now that I am No. 1 on the call sheet in my show, I think about them all the time in terms of, OK, I am the person people look to to understand what kind of behavior they can get away with. If I am available and collaborative and hopefully decent to everybody, there’s no way anyone else can get away with any worse, because you’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
In this episode, Levy goes in-depth about what it takes to create and lead a TV show, how he feels about the amount of “Schitt’s Creek” reaction GIFs there are in the world, his thoughts on whether anybody can learn to be funny, and much more. Listen and subscribe to hear the full conversation:
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