WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1120 - Dan Levy

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

The OTHER Dan Levy joins Marc to talk about the Canadian perspective of America, the rite of passage for all Canadians that is Degrassi, and having Eugene Levy as a dad. Dan reminisces about his first big show business job, working on Canadian MTV, which led to an existential crisis at the MTV Movie Awards. It was only after being ok with walking away from show business that Dan got the inspiration to start writing for himself, leading to the creation of Schitt’s Creek. This episode is sponsored by The Shivering Truth on Adult Swim and Squarespace. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fucksters? What the fuckadelics? What the fucknicks? What the fuckettes? What the fucksters what the fuckadelics what the fuck nicks what the fuckettes what the fuck nuts i don't even know if i've said that one in a long time how are you i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it how's it going are you guys all right are you doing all right man you are you doing okay what's going on snap out of. Don't fucking fall into a hole.

Look, we're all in this together. Most of us who aren't standing on the steps of Capitol buildings, dress like we're prepared for war. Random flags. Dress like characters. Some sort of video game. Jesus Christ. Where's the demand for more tests?

No. Our sense of freedom in this country is very shallow. Almost infantile. Very short-sighted. Not too many people thinking about the long game. More about like, when can I eat at the place I like? I want to eat at the place I like. Why?

No one can tell me I can't go to Wienerschnitzel and eat inside if I want in my bandana hat with my goggles on and my gun. I'll eat hot dogs. I don't know where that's coming from, people. Is there any DeWiener schnitzels left? This is not a paid plug. I remember DeWiener schnitzel. Do you?

Get a Kraut dog at DeWiener schnitzel or the Chicago style, which had the tomatoes on it, which I didn't like, or the chili dog, which was okay. I was a Kraut dog guy, which which was weird there was something about kraut when you're in high school you know the other fellas were like kraut I'm like yeah I was way ahead of the curve in this probiotic business I knew what gut health was back when I was going to de wiener schnitzel in high school getting a kraut dog

with mustard two or three of them they're eating chili dogs i'm like you guys are gonna pay for that shit it's all about the gut it's all about the gut some of you are asking what about the hot dog dude you know you got balance kraut sausage you know what i mean you want that fight to go on that is the eternal conflict between probiotics and what the fuck did you just eat what's the fuck what is wrong with you man how are we to even the probiotic bacterias are like dude we i mean you make it a little easier. Jesus Christ. By the way, I'm going to talk to Dan Levy today of Schitt's Creek, the other Dan Levy. I talked to another Dan Levy a few weeks ago, Dan Levy.

Now I'm talking to Dan Levy. A lot of you thought that Dan Levy was going to be Dan Levy, but no, it was not Dan Levy. Today is Dan Levy. Sorry for those of you who were disappointed by dan levy no one's more disappointed by dan levy than dan levy so today dan levy is here it's kind of here i talked to him on the thing schitt's creek's fun show i talked to his father eugene a while back i'll talk to uh dan levy about his father eugene levy and how i did with eugene levy i think i did pretty

well with him uh you know here's the thing i know you're over it look i'm over it i want nothing more than to just be able to go do things talk to people not wear a mask i'm not even sure what i'd like to do how about socialize in a real way? But look, the point is, despite the fact that some states are opening and that the leadership is non-existent or nebulous, there's still a lot of virus out there. We're all sick of it, I know know but there's virus out there you can't avoid it just because you've decided it's time your gut tells you my gut tells me it's okay fuck your gut i mean there is some leadership if you happen to have a decent thoughtful empathetic concerned governor or mayor but the leadership at the top is not giving any impression

that they're leading anything. Got an email from a guy who's in a nursing facility, a nursing home facility. He's there for some other reason. It's a convalescent home. He's convalescing from mental problems with a lot of older people there's the virus is in the place it's in chicago and it's really made me think that like those people are incredibly vulnerable and it's a fucking disaster but jesus man the reality for most people right now is that we're without leadership and without guidance and without any prognosis of how this is going to end.

And so for people in vulnerable situations like nursing homes, long-term health facilities, prisons, public housing, it's even fucking more terrifying. And this guy, he's in Chicago, Cook County. One in four COVID deaths are at the nursing home. So he's got a you know he's got a right to be to be fearful but as I said before you know if you're lucky to live in a state where the citizens are concerned and the majority and that the governmental leadership mayors and

governors and people in the health care professions and law enforcement are are kind of like on top of the fact that look just because you're tired of this and just because what's sort of coming down from the top is that, hey, it's kind of going away. It's not really. I don't want to be a downer, but hang in there. Let's lighten it up a little bit. My buddy, old friend of the show and me, we don't talk much, but I always liked him. Mike Kaplan, the comedian, that's M-Y-Q, Kaplan, K-A-P-L-A-N, Jew, has a new comedy album out, Mike Kaplan. It's called Mike Kaplan, a.k.a., and it comes out this Friday, May 8th. He's very funny a very tight writer interesting

man an interesting funny little man that mike kaplan i don't mean little and little but he's he's short i'm not saying that in a bad way i think he would agree with me you can pre-order mike kaplan aka right now at blonde medicine.com that's B-L-O-N-D-E, blondmedicine.com. And Mike is M-Y-Q. For reasons. M-Y-Q. So, yeah, that album's going to be funny.

He's funny. And enjoy. I questioned his, like, because he sent me the promo for it. It had a cover and i said to him i said i believe that you will regret that cover eventually i learned that early on as a comic but now people don't have physical records that much they do on vinyl but not even cd cases but there was a time where you just start to realize like you know what doesn't age well almost ever comedy album covers i know you thought it was a good idea to wear that hat or to make that goofy ass thing or to be in

that goofy ass situation or to be wearing that goofy ass shirt or making that dumb face but 15 20 years from now you're gonna be like jesus christ look at that fucking idiot almost anybody go look at some comedy album covers all right here's the other thing i'm noticing about my life right now and this is very specific but um i'm i'm here with lynn shelton who is staying at my house we're not living together quit pushing don't fucking pressure me man but i don't know how you guys are doing like there was a time in my life where there seemed to be time and space to masturbate not so much anymore now i don't know if everyone everyone else is having this problem i imagine if you're alone god who knows what you're up to

i mean if you're alone you've probably you know you've probably chafed yourself or rubbed it down to a nub or over-rubbed your nub. No, I'm going to make this multi-gendered. Be careful. Don't over-rub the nub or rub it down to a nub. Those are your options. You don't want a calloused nub of either kind. But I think it's better. And again, I'm grateful to be in the position I'm in i think it's better like and again i'm gonna i'm grateful

to be in the position i'm in but uh it's been nice to lay off it and just deal with the real thing you know kind of reconfigure myself because you know i gotta be honest with you if you get too used to the hand that's who you're dating yeah but that you know we're the machine whatever whatever equipment you're using hand thing that makes noise thing you put whatever equipment you're using, hand, thing that makes noise, thing you put in, whatever you're doing. But sometimes that's okay. I'm not saying, I'm not judging anybody. I just noticed for myself. And I imagine people with wives and husbands and children that where you got to, you got to go out to the car to jerk off. Are people doing that? I bet you they are. Garage behind the house. What are you doing that i bet you they are garage behind the house what are you doing i just need some alone time you're outside i know i can't hey enough of the jerk off talk it's not okay

yet and i'm not a scientist but i'm i'm listening to the people that are smart don't go you know just use common sense. You still got to be safe. You don't want to get this fucking thing, man. It's worse than the flu. Jesus. Hey, I want my freedom to go sit with some chicken at a place where you eat chicken.

Fuck this shit, man. Finally, I can get a tattoo. Finally. Fuck, man. When was that going to end? Fucking tattoo parlor's open. I'm going to go down and get my scamdemic tattoo, said the guy who's going to have a fever in two weeks. Check out my scam scandemic tattoo i don't know the guy was wearing a mask i wonder if you could get it from the needle

scandemic tattoo oh man i'm hot i'm hot scandemic so dan levy's a very talented very funny sharp kid sharp kid this levy love his dad love schitt's creek it was nice to talk to him now you can hear me talk to him in your own fucking ears his show schitt Schitt's Creek, just ended, but you can watch seasons one through five on Netflix. The final season just ended. And here we are talking about many things, Dan Levy and me. Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need.

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An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. Will I die here? You'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's

apply. So, Dan, don't look so confused. I'm right here. I need you to relax and not look like a guy in the cockpit of a ship. That's just my face, Mark. That's just my face. They're driving a vehicle they don't understand. Exactly. That is my life in a nutshell.

Where are you? Are you here or there? I'm here. Yeah? I'm here in the heat, enjoying it very much. Yeah, I know. I have to put my... The heat, not the pandemic.

No, the pandemic's not good. The heat is okay. I don't know how long it stays okay. very much yeah i know i i have to put my heat not the pandemic no the pandemic's not good the heat is okay i don't know uh i i don't know how long it stays okay it can get pretty bad pretty quickly you got good air yeah that's the thing i do yeah until it breaks and then exactly and then or else the entire exactly section of the city goes out yeah the grid goes out that's it you there's every there's something to panic about it all turns like now out here in my garage it's like a i had it made in i had to have it made into basically an apartment so i have another kitchen out here right so i'm cooking in this one to not add extra heat into my house which i could only imagine makes that tiny room even i mean i don't even

know if it's tiny it's the first time i've used the oven, so we'll find out. Got it. I've got a lot going on, man. This is, this is, I'm balancing a lot of stuff. I mean, I've been such a fan of this, this podcast that, you know, I did not, I did not see this kind of dynamic happening. I thought I would be coming to you. Well, you know, you could have, I would have let you, it would have been a matter of your comfort level. I didn't know how to reach out to you.

I am incredibly clean and hygienic at this point. It is gloves and masks. Yeah, me too. I'm pretty clean. But, you know, they make you feel like maybe I had it and I didn't know I have it. And I could like there's like no way to know because there's no functioning testing situation. There's no at home test. So everybody just kind of wanders through life going like, when I had that cough a couple months ago, was that it?

Did I have it? Am I a carrier? I just find myself like sort of self-identifying as a silent carrier just at all times. Right. Well, I think that's... I just assume that it has never left my body and that I will be walking the earth as a silent carrier for the end of time. I think that's sort of what they're anticipating, but I think that's also what they're trying to

promote us to think in terms of us being frightened enough of it to act appropriately. Yes. But what I'm saying is that, yes, it is. I'm easily terrified, but I have to consciously fight back against fear. And this one doesn't, this does not seem to be the fight to fight. I don't think so, but that's just my opinion. So you're not, you haven't been going out at all. No shopping,

no nothing. You have anything to deliver. Oh really? So you're no, see, I got to go out. I'm out running a few times a week. I mean,

I walk my dog. I go, I do sort of the, um, I do like a six to eight block circle around my house but that's really been it i went to my old apartment to pick up some um mail and that was the first time i had been beyond my neighborhood in two months wow and i sort of like wandered out like mr burns like radioactive mr burns like into the into the world like big-eyed and just completely

disoriented yeah it was very strange it's all very strange and i don't know where it's going to end but we do know it's weird i you know but what's going to happen when everyone's watched everything that's already been made there will come a point where people have gone through the 900 million hours of netflix content and then what unbelievable chaos so okay i talked to your father he came over to my other house it was the greatest most enjoyable conversation i had such a nice time listening to it and he was so um eloquent and he's i mean he has a mind that is constantly sort of moving and shaking so it's hard to get him to kind of focus he can talk and talk and talk yeah and i found that the conversation

that you two had was so clear and he was so focused and um and in the moment and his brain was so he's he's a daydreamer so to get him kind of really clear is a wonderfully rare and lovely thing to listen to. That's interesting. So the character in the folk singing movie. Not too far off. Right. From the real thing. Probably his biggest stretch from an outward perspective.

But from a family member perspective, but from, from a family member perspective, very close to home. What was that one called? Something wind, uh, mighty wind. Yeah.

Yeah. That's so funny. But so you grew up all in Canada mostly or what? Or here? Mainly in Canada. I mean, we'd, we'd sort of come for spring break and we'd come for,

for the summertime. Um, but he made, uh, a choice way back when to keep us in Canada and protect us from the precarious lifestyle of Hollywood. The gaping maws of this horrendous shithole. From going to crossroads or whatever. But your folks are still together yeah that's nice it's very nice are they up in Canada very nice it's a nice example to sort of set although at this point completely unrealistic right um for for me at least so far um they're here they're here now now. And they go back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm thinking like, and I think I talked about this with your father,

just in terms of politically, that it must be nice to know you can go there. Yeah. Like on some level, this isn't your problem. Yeah. But in a way, yes, there's so many different layers to it, because at the same time, I feel like being here as a Canadian who has health care and understands the benefits of it, it's almost more, I mean, you know, people in impact is to health care, on society as a whole. It has nothing to do about infringement on rights. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Well, Americans are not, for the most part, capable of really having any foresight,

or they don't know how these things apply to them. They don't even understand the paperwork. You can't get most of them to fill out the fucking census, Dan. But go ahead. It is a tough brain teaser for a Canadian to be here and hear about kind of rights associated with health care. It's just a difficult thing. You don't believe in the insurance company's rights to gouge the consumer to the point where they can't afford to go to the doctor? That's an American freedom, Dan.

It is so free. I can't think of anything freer than that. But that's a curious question. I don't think I've asked anybody this question. I mean, as a Canadian, when you go to the doctor here, do you call Canada and they cover it? How does that work? No. I'm fortunate enough to have health insurance. Oh, right. to the doctor here does do you call canada and they cover it how does that work no um you i i'm i mean i'm fortunate enough to have health insurance right because through the year yeah yeah

it covers it yeah um no it's um i don't know the actual then again you're asking the wrong person because i really have no idea you have dual citizenship or you uh all can i don't know no so you have you have like uh you you have the union coverage here. I have SAG insurance here, which is at this time a real blessing. No shit. There might be, to be perfectly honest, there might be ways of writing off your health expenses here, but I'm not really good with details. I always wondered that. I don't read the paperwork, to be honest. I don't understand anything. I don't understand

where my money is. I could barely log into this conversation. That's just an indicator of where I'm at, generally speaking. Yeah. Because I've wondered that when I was in Canada. I guess if I'm shooting in Canada on a thing and something went wrong, you know, they would somehow manage to take care of me. But I always wondered if I was just a guy in Canada with this insurance here. How does you know, not not a conversation for you. So we don't need to credit card cover a little bit of travel insurance as well. OK, well, thank you. I will call Amex after this and make sure that you're right about that for when I'm able to move to Canada next year.

I'll at least be covered for the first bit of time on my Amex. We'll go back with you and we'll all live in a nice commune in Canada. What city did you grow up in? Toronto. Well, that's like a big, nice city. But the weird thing is, and I talked about this before like and maybe you can like here's okay so i used to go to canada and i think like well this is kind of like america without the panic and and just you know ingrained fear that you know moves through the culture and i i still

think that's true but part back then i thought like it's a little slow it's a little boring but now i go back up and i'm like this is how humans are are supposed to interact. And I know that Canada has its problems, you know, clearly in terms of, you know, bigotry and mistreatment of indigenous people, like some of the same problems we have. But I think the basic underlying fact is that if people are sick, they can go to the doctor. If they're dying, they'll be taken care of. And that takes a load off societally, right? Even just getting stitches and going in to the emergency room and not having to worry about it. I got stitches here and it cost me $3,000.

Oh, my God. Because I went to the wrong emergency room that wasn't covered under my insurance company. Oh, you went to a, you went to an urgent care. I went to an urgent care with my finger like sliced open and the person behind the desk after I had obviously paid and gone through the whole thing, just said, you know, you should have just bandaged it up and gone to a walk-in clinic the next day. Cause you would have paid less. And I just kept thinking you know, you should have just bandaged it up and gone to a walk-in clinic the next day because you would have paid less. And I just kept thinking to myself, so that's how this works? We just have to like basically sever our fingers off, bandage it up temporarily for a night

and hope that the next morning everything's fine? You've got to work your own angle here, man. That's what's going on with the coronavirus. They can't even supply hospital supplies to states because they're like, let them get it on the free market. Let's make this shit work. It is wild. But my, my, my talking about Canada is like now I, you know,

what I used to think was boring, I find very comforting. And I feel that maybe I'm, maybe I'm romanticizing, but it seems like there is an element of tolerance and integration in Canada that is sort of passive and not confrontive. And people seem to cohabitate and live multi ethnicities without the same kind of tension we have here. Is that correct in your experience? I can't speak really for the country as a whole because I've come from Toronto, which I think is a very big liberal city. I'm sure that there are terrible things happening to people across the country that are just not being quite as widely publicized as what's happening in America. You mean like up in the in the rural areas with the French hillbillies? Like up in the rural areas with the French hillbillies? One never knows.

But I think to have had gay marriage passed so early on, you know, for me, I just keep thinking my high school experience was very different because when I was bullied in school or when I was feeling isolated because of the fact that I was gay, I knew when I went to bed at night that my country was on my side, that my country recognized my rights. I couldn't imagine what that high school experience would be like. And I had very open parents who I knew would be accepting of who I was. The struggle was really kind of mine at the time in terms of when and how I would tell them. But I couldn't imagine being bullied in school or having parents at home who were not supportive and then going like laying your head on your pillow, knowing that your own country doesn't think that you are deserving of love. I mean, that is a really intense reality to experience. And I feel like in a way, yeah, it only exacerbates that kind of loneliness. So even in sort of subliminal ways where you're not actively thinking about that at the time, those are the messages that are being

sent out, which I think send really damaging shockwaves to minority communities who are not feeling seen or respected. That's a it's a pretty tough thing. And then, you know, to compound, be seen or respected, then they no longer feel safe. Like there's, of course. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I think safety is a totally different thing in Canada and America, because we don't have the kind of, I don't even know how to describe the gun culture here. But safety, I mean, quite literally, the gun laws here are so horrifying that, you know, people do fear, I mean, for their safety quite literally because who knows who's holding a gun?

for their safety quite literally because who knows who's holding a gun. And it's been become, it's become very clear that people using those guns oftentimes rarely have any repercussions to face once they've used them, particularly on, you know the African American community here. But the big plan for the gun people is that they think if everyone has one, the shit will just work itself out, which is such,

which it's, it's like in Canada, I feel like there's a passivity to any kind of bigotry or intolerance. It might exist, but it's not quite as activated as it seems in America. Yeah. It happened. It seems to be happening a little bit though.

People are very angry here and very, it's like that, that, you know, walking dead picture of those protesters against the glass yeah yeah yeah in the middle of a pandemic stream screaming for their their freedom yeah i mean what do you do now with those people who will inevitably get sick and need a venting yeah we'll see i mean it does seem to be there there seems to be isolated events of massive gun

violence in canada but culturally it's not an issue recently like even just this this week there was the biggest shooting in canadian history yeah it's so what when you came out like what was like when you speak of a struggle to figure out how to you know talk about it to your parents what what is how does that work like what was going through your mind a A timing thing or how to present it? It's such a, I mean, if you think about the fact that nobody else has to proclaim who they are sexually attracted to. Nobody other than members of the LGBTQ community have to publicly proclaim who they are attracted to. Right. And when you're in your teens and you're struggling with your sexuality and you're struggling with sexuality, just generally speaking, it is such an unnatural and oddly inappropriate thing to ask a teenager to do.

So I think just generally... Declare yourself. You know, step forward. Exactly. Like it's embarrassing to, you know, to, to talk about that if you're insecure about it in the first place, let alone have it be a proclamation that others you in some way in the big sort of social world. Right. The layers are like you're, you're,

in terms of like being out in the world as a sexual being is not really happened yet. And like ask any kid if they were if they want to run up to their parents and say, hey, I'm attracted to this kid in my class. Yeah. Like no one's doing that. So then to have to say it as a teenager and not only are you saying I'm attracted to this kid in my class, but I'm also attracted to this kid in my class who is of the same sex. And that opens up a whole other can of internal concerns and oftentimes external concerns, depending on your relationship with your parents and your parents believe. I think in the back of my mind, I knew that my parents were going to be accepting. I knew that deep down, but there's still that kind of fiber of adolescent doubt, or even for adults, there's a level of doubt because you don't know how people are going to respond. And you've been almost

conditioned through what you see in the media to be met with persecution of some kind. So there's so many different layers to the experience that lead to this almost, in my case, I was overthinking the experience and fearing what if this does put a wedge in my relationship with my parents? What if it does make them think of me differently or think of me less? Not that that ever would have been the case, but those are the fears that you go through because your brain is not fully developed. And you're just trying to grapple with a reality that is slowly coming to you in little spurts and bounds. There's no there's really it's rare that there's confidence on any level, you know, let alone this. Oh, yeah. Defining. I'm still not a confident person in any regard.

So to think back of me as a teenager, I mean, my mom asked me if I was gay. Yeah. I didn't even have I couldn't even do it back then. And I was very grateful that she found that opportunity and found an opportunity to talk about it that felt open and she didn't impose it upon me. It was really the right time and I think I needed that kind of handholding through the process. A lot of people did you know, did it without that. And I really admire that kind of strength. I needed some help from my parents. I needed them to almost say, we know what's going on and we're okay with it. Just let's be out with it because I feel like it's affecting your morale. Yeah. And did it, it did it, was it a load off?

Yeah. Yeah. It was a huge, I mean, you're hiding your complete identity. Yeah, yeah. So who are you in the world? So your mom just came out of nowhere and was like, can we talk? We were having lunch and she just, yeah, she asked. And I said, yes. Over lunch. And then you finish your lunch.

Over lunch. Yeah. And, you know, she was really great about it. And she, you know, she asked if I wanted wanted her to tell my dad and I said yes. And so she did. And then my dad very emotionally, you know, told me that he loved me and that it didn't change anything. And, you know, it's it's very lucky. I'm very lucky to have that kind of support around me oh yeah for sure they i couldn't imagine it especially having talked to him that it would be anything different than that you know what i mean that would be a strange 180 for eugene levy i think

to come out was just a giant homophobe that would not no that does not track with him yeah he he he seems to be processing you know every moment of his existence as something surprising. Agreed. He's a remarkable creature. He really is. And it takes those kinds of wonderfully strange minds to come up with the kind of work that I think he has. Right. And, you know, you seem to have some genetically and also natural proclivities yourself in the comedic way that like I can't, you know, I mean, I can't imagine, though, like in my mind, which is usually wrong. I mean, were you as a child?

Are you you have sisters, brothers? I have a sister. Yeah. A younger sister. Were you guys, you know, was the SCTV gang sort of, you know, family to you in any way? Like, yeah. Even the I mean, even the the the members of that group that were not around us all the time, even just the conversations were so just around. I mean, these people lived in our home.

We watched episodes of SCTV. My dad would kind of put them on for us. They lived in your home? Who lived in your home? Well, I mean, lived in the sense that they were, you know, we have, you know, back in my parents' house, my dad has just a rose upon rose upon rose of every single VHS, SCTV episode. So, you know, some nights my sister and I would ask my dad to kind of pick an episode that he liked and we'd put it on and watch it. So by in our homes, I mean that these faces and these personalities sort of existed all around us. And, you know, I think Marty Short has been friends with my dad since before they were when they were living in Hamilton.

Hamilton! Hamilton! I got in trouble in Hamilton with the people of Canada. Uh-oh. What happened? Well, nothing. I was shooting there, and I explained, I think, on Twitter, on Instagram, exactly what Hamilton is without being even nasty. And somehow it became clickbait at CBC somewhere.

And then it became like, who is this outsider speaking negatively about this shithole? Wow. Hamilton has— I had to learn about the beautiful history of Hamilton and that it's trying beautiful, rich history. Hamilton has certainly over the past, I would say 15 years come up as a place where young families are now living because I think it's a slightly more affordable lifestyle. I understand exactly what's happening there. But my observation was there is a a type of of of, you know, poverty and derelict and drug addict sort of culture that is very parades in a way that I hadn't seen in a long time. It's sad, but it is what it is. You know, there is. Right. It is. That is definitely a side of Hamilton. You're driving through some stuff. Every hour. For sure. When we would visit my dad's great aunts, we would

take the trip. Oh, so you had that thing. So there was like a Jewish kind of community. You'd go see the Jewish great aunts in Hamilton? Yeah. We would go like once a month or once every couple months to visit my dad's great aunts. They lived in a very classic sort of 60s,

50s, 60s, 70s kind of apartment complex. Right, right, right. That smelled like weird food. Yeah, and a little bit like mothballs and someone's cooking. Oh, it's so nice. So nice that you had that. Yeah, and we would go and they used to live very close to each other both

aunts lived around the corner from one another and uh and we would go and and spend the afternoon and um oh it's so nice yeah it's so nice that you had very what were their names auntie ray and auntie mary i just love that the notion of that because you know i have the you know when i was growing up the older jewish relatives that live in these places that have a certain smell to them and there are other old you know jews living there and it was just you know, when I was growing up, the older Jewish relatives that live in these places that have a certain smell to them. And there are other old Jews living there. And it was just, you know, it was this other generation. And it was sort of strangely comforting and timeless.

But, you know, it definitely does something to your character to be able to engage. Of course. something to your character to be able to engage. Of course. And they would, I mean, my auntie Ray would cook these sort of Jewish delicacies that only she could cook. Like my aunt has tried to recreate the recipes. And for some reason it just, I mean, she's done it well, but it's not quite the same. There's a magic to that, to world the legacy there is my aunt my mother's sister can make my grandmother's chopped liver pretty well but and i don't even know if these people are generally great cooks but there is something comforting about it because you grow up eating that stuff only at their house so exactly that it does it's's not about how, how skillful they are. It's about, you know, what they put into it and the entire environment of that.

It's such a sensory experience, too. I can remember everything about it. I can remember the taste of the food. I can remember what her apartment looked like. I can remember the kind of plastic on the couches and the just how kind of warm and inviting that space was and and then you get this window into you know who your father is yeah you know like you know this you know these are the people that when he was a boy these were the people that you know they all lived near each other right back then so there's this like community thing that doesn't exist anymore like everybody lived you know five miles from everybody else not even and that's what Hamilton used to be, huh? Yeah. I mean, he and Marty, I guess, were living in Hamilton

when Godspell first came to Toronto. And my dad convinced Marty to audition. And they both got the job. And then that production of Godspell in Toronto became this kind of legendary production. Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, Paul Schaeffer.

So it's amazing to think back to that time, especially in the early days where he was just a cool kid in Toronto, just lighting the comedy scene on fire with all of his friends who just happened to be world-class legendary comedic voices that wild and it's happened in Canada before I mean you know it happened again kind of I mean comedy in Canada that's why it's kind of looking at and where I was sort of going with my slightly condescending statements about Canada's boringness is that the the interesting thing even looking at you know how you came up in show business that there is a canadian show business you know and it oh yeah and i used to say that like because of like

the the state run the run networks that you know if you are a comedian or an actor in canada eventually you'll get your turn you know sure right if you work hard enough you will you will find your place for a couple of years at least. The amazing thing about Canada is that the industry is not quite as polished as it is in America. So what you are able to do in Canada is try your hand at everything and you have to try your hand at it. And what did you start with? I started as a host on mtv but before like when you were a kid now like now who were the people that so you brought your father and marty are tight but i mean like i mean katherine who i've also talked to i've not talked to marty i don't know why uh but i

talked to katherine who i love a lot um are is she someone that you grew up knowing well she was in los angeles for a lot of it so i would see her sort of sporadically and obviously know of her i think once i became a teenager and you know my dad and chris guest started writing their did you know him pretty movies chris i i mean i i've met him over the years and um, you know, once my dad and Catherine started to work together on those movies, I saw more of her. But it was always peripherally and it was always in the context of work or potentially, you know, at a group gathering, some kind of social gathering. But it was never it um, it was never like the shorts, the shorts are essentially extended family. That's what, that's, that's what I sort of was wondering. Cause I always want, like, you know, it's still this weird thing I hold onto in some kind of, um, you know, fan-ish kind of way that when these groups of people who have done such great work together, I always kind of want or imagine them hanging out together, but they never do. They never do.

Well, I think Catherine, my dad and Marty hang out a lot. Marty, you know, lives around the corner from my parents' house and is just, I mean, it's like a sitcom. They're either over at his place or he's over at theirs. They walk in the back door, look in the fridge, that kind of shit it's really lovely to think about because i in my in my mind i always go back to just the the time that they've had together and the years that they've spent together and the fact that they have ended up blocks apart it's just very cute to me oh yeah it's great it's like we were talking about it's like your aunts yeah there's comfort oh no for sure so but like for you it was not starting out you you didn't you weren't thinking in terms of comedy or were you

no I uh no I was I did theater a lot like I was always kind of putting plays together I put my elementary school play produced it and wrote it and adapted it and put it on yeah so I was always kind of making things um in the theater world and in high school, I, you know, we didn't have a drama program because our teachers were on strike. So my friends and I produced all the theater in our high school and adapted, you know, Clue for the stage and did these really kind of fun productions. You were a theater guy. You were a theater kid. I was a theater kid in high school. Yeah. I was a theater kid in high school, yeah. And then had such crippling anxiety about auditioning for acting in university that I just went into film production instead, thinking it was close enough to the theater program. Probably more practical. And eventually ended up dropping out for a job on MTV. But yeah, it's amazing how confident you can be in chapters of your life and then how completely anxiety ridden and in unsure you could be in other chapters.

It's quite amazing. has really kind of clawed it out in show business. Was there any sort of concern or warnings from your father about pursuing that? No. God, they really are supportive. They are very supportive. I think to an extent that I was not wanting to necessarily associate with, I think growing up, especially in high school, in the plays that I was doing, my dad would always ask if I wanted help and I would always say no. Because I think when you have a parent who is well-known,

you try your best to separate and to be identified as something other than Eugene Levy's son, which I know is sort of an easy thing to put a label on you know on someone and and hey just judge them accordingly you know just be happy that it's you're you're in the world you're in and you're not jacob dylan or or sean sean lennon saying like you know i'm just gonna be a singer songwriter i'm gonna be my own guy i you know i think you got i had the freedom to do that you got a little easier go of it exactly um so you know for years i would just keep saying to my dad

no i don't i don't want your help no offense but no and uh and then you know after eight years on mtv well let's talk about that a minute yeah before we get to you approaching him like sure i remember the first time i went to canada to work for the festival or whatever and i you know i did some stuff on canadian mtv i'm like oh my god this is just like ours but not as exciting like they have everything that we have only i don't know who these people are and they seem to be a lot nicer here you know it was always yes it was always that's exactly what it was yeah and a lot scrappier right because i remember where the building was the the mtv building was like on a main street and they had on the on young street in the masonic temple it was an old mason's and they had like a studio right in like right when

you walked in it was a whole kind of vibe thing roundabout yeah it was in the round right so yeah so how do you get that gig and do you was that satisfying to you um in in ways yeah i mean if i'm kind of connecting the dots of my life yeah i think it was a pretty crucial chapter i never felt comfortable interviewing celebrities. I didn't quite, I was better at the talk part of it. I liked, you know, we had a little talk show for a while. And that was really nice. I got the job. A friend of mine was auditioning for it. I had just gotten back from six months living in London, where I had kind of moved to get over a bad relationship and try and find myself because I was you know I was not a very confident person and I came back from this

kind of eat pray love situation in London and had a little bit more confidence than when I left. What did you do in London? I worked for a talent agency. I worked for ICM in London for a bit, which was just, you know, a job that happened to come to me while I was out there and very quickly learned that I did not want to be an agent. That's good. That was, learned that the first day. You have to have a slightly compromised conscience to be an agent. But it was really fun. You have to have a slightly compromised conscience to be an agent. You have to be something.

But answering phones and, you know, working in the office and those offices are intense. And, you know, it's it takes a type of personality to succeed in that kind of environment. So it really, in a way, forced me out of my own, you know, self-consciousness. And by the time I got back to toronto had some kind of you know fiber of confidence to walk into this audition and uh at the time i think they were they were putting together a reality show for finding the next mtv host so we were all given a hundred dollars and told to go out and spend it and come back and you know to talk about what you spent your money on and so people came back with like you know sarah mclaughlin cds and a yoga mat and i had nothing but a receipt

in my hand and the producer said well where you don't you don't have anything and i said well i paid my cable bill for the next two months so thank thank you for that. Because if this goes south, I wanted to come out of it with something. And someone there seemed to think that that was a ballsy move. And I ended up getting the job. But to your point, it was a young upstart network. We were producing our own material. We were writing our own material. We were editing our own material we were writing our own material we were editing our own material and that kind of freedom doesn't necessarily happen on american television and i think in talking about you know canadian comics i think it can be applied for for a lot of people in canadian entertainment well i think it's you are like i've talked to guys i think a lot of it has to do with the fact that that there is a factor the state-run element to the media there that enables creators to just you know a lot of there's no kind of

capitalistic hierarchy that says you know this has to be a hit they're sort of like well this seems interesting you guys go ahead and make try it yeah right and that you know it lends itself to a kind of like practical experience that a lot of people don't necessarily have here because you're only doing one specific job. So if you're a host on television, you're reading copy. You're not necessarily in the edit bays cutting your own tape. I know that it happens in news quite a lot yeah um but that kind of hands-on-ness yeah i think really leads to a scrappiness when canadians end up end up making their way to america because they've really done everything yeah yeah a lot of yeah and it's a it's a hands-on education that you wouldn't get

if you were working in hollywood you'd have to be a PA forever. Exactly. But also, you were coming up a little before it was real easy with technology, right? It was before you could make an entire feature on your phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But so, okay, so you become like a – so you're the host guy. You're getting confidence. I think it's funny that you were working at a talent agency answering phones and that somehow or another you came out of that more confident as opposed to less confident it's a you mean like just pummeled to the ground right right emotionally speaking i think it was it speaks to your your character

that you were like fuck this i gotta you know i'm not gonna do i have a very practical mind yeah mark yeah i like if there's something that i don't, you know, for me, it was like I was not able to pick up a phone. That was the level of my social anxiety. I got very scared about picking up a phone. Right. So for me, I have to fix that if I want to get to where I need to be. Cognitively. And so I'm very practical about fixing kind of problems that I see for myself as being hindrances to getting me closer

to where I need to be. Well, I guess that's the point, right, is that, you know, it's practical, but it's also courageous in the sense that if you realize the obstacle and then you choose to take it on, on your own volition, yeah, that's practical, but that's also, you know, like, if I don't get over this, I'm going to be crippled by it. Yeah. I mean, I'm a firm believer that most experiences are worthwhile experiences. And I think that's what I went into that, that, you know, um, chapter of my life hoping. Um, and I also think, you know, when you are in, in your early twenties and in a weird kind of relationship that's not making you feel very good right you also kind of have this fire to change your life yeah um you know i feel like everyone in their early 20s has gotten that spark to just like i need to shave my head and move to

morocco oh yeah i did that i did that through my 30s. You know, there's a lot of attempts at identity, you know? Yeah. So, you know, good or bad, they tend to shape us in one way or another. Do you now have the anxiety now? You all right? Did you have to medicate or? No, I didn't like it was I didn't I wasn't crippled to the point where I felt like I needed medication medication um and I think it really came down to just some people find their footing later in life um and I think the more that I learned and the more that I put myself out there, the more confident I got. And then I think when you experience a level of success doing something, in my case, those first,

you know, eight years at MTV built me into eight, eight years of, of talking about the hills. So, you know, you are forced to really examine your life. You definitely know how to improvise then, you know. Exactly. And I think from the confidence and the marginal level of notoriety that I had received at my job at MTV, I slowly realized, OK, I do have something to say. And people seem to be responding to that. Were you acting too? No.

I mean, other than just the sort of inevitable stint on Degrassi. What is that? I don't know what that is. Degrassi is a Canadian franchise beloved by a lot of Americans, which is kind of like...

How would you describe it? It's like the quiet, slightly less polished step-cous cousin of 90210 oh so it's just ongoing although i think the it's ongoing and i think the early degrassi degrassi street or whatever the first iteration of this franchise was actually inspired 90210 i think in some capacity because it was on in the 80s. And then they just kept doing, you know, Degrassi, The Next Generation. So if you are an actor working in Canada, inevitably, over the past 30 years, you have done either a day or a couple days on Degrassi.

It's a rite of passage. It's a rite of passage. It's a Canadian rite of passage. I mean, Drake is a prime example of someone who came out of the Degrassi world and really skyrocketed to success. I think that's what makes Canadian actors so great in the same way that I think, you know, a lot of British actors across the board are just great actors. It's why British TV, you can, you know, the day players are extraordinary because it's a country that prides itself in the skill and the craft of acting. You know, if you are staying in Canada as an actor, you are not, you know, driving to Toronto with the hopes of becoming, you know, Nicole Kidman. Right. It is an industry that is very much self-sustaining and you work in it and there's people have a wonderful experience in the Canadian film and television industry. Did you do any training? I did when I came out to Los Angeles for the first

little while. So what was your interest level in in in sort of as Schitt's Creek sort of before it evolved. I mean, were you a comedy fan? Did you have heroes or sort of people you looked up to? No. No, not really, huh? I mean, the funny thing is I don't really consider myself being in comedy, really. I think we wrote a comedy, and I i appreciate comedy but i've never been a comedy

guy i think a lot of like writers in in la have come from stand-up backgrounds and are really sort of embedded in the comedy scene i think for me i mean my dad and i always considered schitt's creek to be a drama that just happened to have very funny circumstances. So wait, all right. So now let's get around to, so you do, you do eight years on MTV and, and, and what is there, is there a, an existential crisis or you realize that's behind you? There was actually, I have the exact moment too. I was on the MTV movie awards, red carpet, hosting the carpet for MTV and had a full-blown panic attack.

Because when you host these red carpets, they give you just a binder of names of actors and what they're doing and the jobs that they're working on. And you have to memorize it all so that if, you know, Sienna Miller comes walking down the carpet, you have to know what she's working on why she's here what she's promoting what she's nominated for and I was so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of of information combined with an intimidation factor of just meeting all these actors and people that I had respected that the at the end of that experience, the cameras turned off and I burst into tears. And I had no idea why. I've become a more emotional person as I've gone on. But back then, I was certainly not a crier. And I just had such a cathartic release. And in that moment, I realized that I was tired of asking people questions about work that I really admired. I wanted to start doing work that someone one day might want to ask me a

question about. That was really the shift in my brain. That was your telephone moment from the agency. It is that moment where you're like i'm i'm done here that was the turning point and i i just realized like i didn't have the i did it didn't bring me joy asking people about their lives didn't bring me joy i wanted to go out there and start making something for myself that that you know might might intrigue other people yeah i don't know that people, uh, working people like this is, this is our industry. This is our job,

but you know, to, to sort of service, uh, the machine in that way where you're, you just sort of have to pretend to be interested. You're limited in what you can ask. Uh,

they're rehearsed in what they're responding with. Yeah. Yeah. Spontaneity is happens, but it's, it's, it's fleeting that, that like, it's a fascinating side of the industry to have worked in. And then now to be on the other side,

I have such a respect for the process. And I know that so many actors see junkets and see interviews as kind of, you know, as work. But I think what a lot of them aren't understanding is that it's also work for the people who are asking those questions. Right. And they, you know, you look at them and you're like, I know what's going on. We know what's happening here. Let's try it out. Nobody wants to ask a celebrity about their personal life.

That is what a producer is forcing you to ask because the show gets a headline out of it. But the person asking those questions is not waking up in the morning saying, gosh, I want to put this person on the spot and make them feel uncomfortable by asking them. I mean, it is it's just part of the job. And, you know, I. Is that what they ask you to do? It's very tricky. Because there are some. Oh, yeah.

I think in entertainment reporting, there's a lot of questions that are, you know, I was even asked at times to just slip questions in that might not have been approved by the public. You're constantly trying to get those moments, particularly now, that can live on the on the Internet where an actor is sort of caught off guard. And then you suddenly get that moment of tension that becomes something that the news outlet can then put out into the world and i'm so naive used by i mean i know they do that yeah i know that happens i know they kind of kind of um poach my interviews to find moments like that uh sure but like i don't know that like i i think i was naive because i but now i realized like i was a victim of that and you know and i don't assume that people are doing that and i certainly don't assume that you know when i meet an individual that that's their agenda it's weird maybe i'm

too trusting but i did that guy andy cohen show is that that guy's oh yeah and that's what all that show is about is is generating awkward moments for bravo and for clickbait you know and i mean you have to sort of go into that show knowing that it is intentionally uh provocative yeah i didn't i didn't really know that and i found it very assaultive you know i thought okay you know i was just sort of like it's like it's all happening so quickly. Yeah. It's a very quick show. I was just, I was, I was, I was disappointed in the whole thing, you know, cause it's just because I can say no to things. It's like, that's not my fucking world.

You know, what do I need to, you know, I don't know anything about the housewives of anything. So like, you know, now I got to get up to speed or just be the idiot that's sort of like, I don't know. Like, fuck it. Well, I feel like someone who you were working with should have given you a heads up about that. Yeah, well, they felt bad after. You know, they thought that it would be like,

you know, a lot of people watch this. You know, it might be weird, but you can do it. And then they're like, they're asking me weird kind of half personal questions about people I know. And I'm like, what the fuck? What is it? And you're in a live situation. So there's no protection.

So I think that was the thing that bothered me it's like i'm pretty good at improvising but i'm not going to sit there and throw other people under the bus when you're put on the spot yeah yeah but uh anyways that's enough about me so you have the existential moment and that's when you approach your father and go okay i'm ready to to for your help a little bit i mean i you know i walked away from it and i had a kind of philosophical you know uh awakening where i realized that so much of what i was um clinging to with the job at mtv was ego-based like i was really enjoying the perks of getting into you know bars and restaurants and and having a kind of,

it's great notoriety that got me stuff. And it's a nice thing to have. I know. I just feel like it just today, I just got like these boots sent to me and I was so excited about it. And I've bought boots from this place before. I love the company and I Instagrammed them. And then all of a sudden some assholes like shill much.

I'm like, go fuck yourself. This is barter baby i fucking yeah you know what do you think we're listening if it's gonna land on your doorstep what are you gonna do i like presents shoes fit i like presents on yeah man you know so but i realized that that is not a way to necessarily live your life it's one thing if it's happening while you're working but if this work has stopped bringing you joy i had to get boots aren't enough boots aren't enough yeah and i really said to myself like i have to be okay to get a restaurant job or to work in a bookstore or to start you know to start a company that's small and new that is and not be afraid of what people are going to ask right you know the

inevitable what happens next which people love to ask, what are you working on next? And also the fear of failure, dude. I mean. Failure. Especially when you've been, you know, in my case, it was within Canada. But still, you know, you're known for a certain thing. There are expectations. And I think when you walk away from something on camera, the, you know, the presumption is that you are destined for something greater.

Right. It was realizing that the something greater for me didn't have to be more television. It could be something completely different. Did you really think that, though? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I think you had to you had to give up. I had to give over that ego bullshit in order to be OK with the fact that I might not ever work again. You have to you have to let it go. You have to let the expectations because there's nothing more desperate than someone who's really just trying their best. And it leads you down strange paths. You end up taking weird jobs that you don't want because it just so happens to be on television tv is not the be all and end all and

fame is certainly not something to live your life by so you know i started a glasses company in that time no where i started yeah oh yeah we're coming back baby too coming back in a few months um yeah started started made designing eyewear are you wearing them now i'm not wearing them now i should have i should be who's making those no we're not going to be no one's going to see this who makes the ones listen you'll get a case of them on your doorstep in the coming weeks thank you um but you know it was about trying new things i am i quest for i have a thirst for new experiences and and new and to me starting a company from the ground up sourcing the production company sourcing the people who are going to facilitate the eyewear how are we going to sell it what are

we going to do that to me is like valuable skills in one way or another like i couldn't imagine doing that it brought me so much joy which is why you know once the show happened i had to put it on the back burner but now we're coming now we're coming back with some some new frames so it would have known that yeah that that that uh schitt's creek was sort of a placeholder until you got your eyeglass company back exactly in the big grand scheme of my life schitt's creek was nothing more than just some time taken up before the glasses came back. So, OK, how long do you do the glasses?

And how do you hit a wall with that and go like, wait, maybe I can write television? What happened to that dream? Well, I was writing simultaneously. I think a lot of my actor friends, they have other jobs on the side to take their mind off of the pressure of constantly having to book jobs. That really was ultimately what this started out as. I was really giving a lot of my time and effort into building a business so that I didn't have to confront the terror of the reality that I was not booking jobs in the audition rooms. I am a terrible auditioner. Terrible. Yeah, I can't do it.

Rattling with fear. At one point, a casting director told me to take a step outside, take a couple deep breaths, and come back in. That's how bad it got. So at the same time, I was – That's so funny. So they sent you had to do that i just pictured you going out and you're like okay you go you take a couple deep breaths and

walk back in and they go thank you thank you very much we've seen enough um which let's be honest they probably had it was not good um so you know i i needed something to distract from that and at the same time i also knew that i needed to start writing something for myself to showcase what I could or potentially couldn't do as an actor. But I wasn't getting it in an audition. So I had to get it somewhere else. So it became this kind of simultaneously building the show and my, my eyewear company. And then when the show got picked up and it became this kind of all consuming, um,

experience, I had to say, well, I'm not going to let the glasses quality drop. So let's just put that on hold. There's nothing binding us to, to a timeline. What was the company called?

DL eyewear. Okay. They're just glasses that I wear every day. And I think, you know, for, for me coming off of MTV, a lot of people were asking me where I got my glasses because I wear these kind of slightly more statement plastic frames. And I felt a little uncomfortable telling a 13-year-old in Saskatchewan to go out and spend 400 bucks on a pair of Tom Ford glasses. Yeah. So there had to be a middle ground. you know, for me, it was,

let's try and find that. All right. So how does like, how do you, you and your father, Eugene start, you know, the, the process of creating the show? I had in a way, I think, I attribute this now, I didn't at the time, but I attribute it in a way to working on the hills. I think for so many years, I had been immersed in a culture of wealth and access and access that had penetrated my brain in a way that I felt like I needed to explore from a slightly more analytical standpoint. So the show became an exploration of what would it look like now that culturally we have the housewives and the Kardashians and, you know, it was the Hills

at the time. What would it look like if these families, these people that we have become so intimately acquainted with, the kind of wealth that we had never really known before outside of a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, what would happen if one of these families were to lose their money? What would that look like? What would the satirical approach to that be? And I didn't want it done in a kind of sitcom format. I didn't want to go too slapstick or broad with it. I wanted it to feel grounded and real and nurtured in a way that was, you know, sensitive and, and funny, but in a way that that really had guts to it. So I went to my dad knowing that I, you know, he, his, his genre of comedy is so caring, so realized that I felt like he could be a really valuable

asset to this concept. And so we started talking and for the first time I had come to him with an idea. And I think he was just so taken aback by it that he said yes without thinking. And so over the course of three weekends, i would go over to uh to my parents place and my dad and i would sit in the living room and hash out these characters and figure out what the story really was and what would give it life and what would give it a heartbeat and and sooner than we knew it it was a show and um and it was a show that just steadily season after season continued to grow, which I think is such a rare experience. Well, the interesting thing about the show is like, you know, they you had this, you know, a very kind of dedicated viewership right from the get go. Like there was some like almost cultish kind of like you know have you watched Schitt's

Creek and I'm like no I haven't like oh you gotta watch like there was those people out there right you know like really championing the show as true fans of it and it did its entire run on on CBC yeah CBC in Canada and then pop TV in America and then after the first two seasons on pop, it was also introduced to the Netflix world internationally, I believe, or at least in a handful of international countries. And so it, I think the combination of having the show premiere on pop and then six months later premiere on Netflix allowed for,

for us to constantly be around the water cooler, I guess. Because you had your audience who had found it way back when watching it in real time. And then you have the people who are loyal Netflix viewers catching on and really championing it six months later. And we couldn't have asked for a better rollout, particularly because we didn't have huge marketing budgets and we had there's no money in this show like it's not a it's not a hugely profitable venture right so we we in a way this the success of this show is so tied to so closely tied to the enthusiasm uh of the fan base and the fact that people told their friends and made it a thing, because without it, we wouldn't I mean, you know, we don't have that kind of budget.

We don't you know, we're not Maisel. Right. Right. But but it's amazing that the sort of structure of it, that you have this incredibly wealthy family and this incredibly compromised position at this hotel in a small town with weirdos around you know you you would think like yeah it's it's almost a classic television structure you know like fish out of water weirdness but it's such a simple pitch yeah it is i mean it is and then i think it's i think it was the choice to never make it too trendy yeah um there's a timelessness that we really wanted with the show we never wanted that's why you'll never see a ton of cell phones people are not on their phones a lot obviously if there's a joke built in sure but we really tried i think you know my dad um was a huge fan of the honeymooners and when we

were you know originally talking about the show a lot of the Honeymooners and when we were originally talking about the show a lot of the references were not contemporary references a lot of the references were Beverly Hillbillies and the Honeymooners and Mayberry and all of these kind of timeless worlds that were so insular and specific and yet the sentiment of those worlds was so loving

and open and caring that there's a timelessness to watching it obviously it's you know oh so that's interesting that you hate itself a bit but there was definitely a deliberate choice to to try and err on the side of classic television versus... Right. Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad. No, no. And it also gives you the opportunity to kind of have that, to create an ensemble that is really working together almost every episode, right?

And you develop that vibe. And there's a sense of theater to it because the sort of expanse of it is very limited, you know, like, you know, there, and, and, and there's a way to do that where you don't, where it seems sort of seamless, you know, it's not like a joke delivery system, but the characters are so defined that you can just watch them forever. Really? I think that's part of it is, is being on networks that have really allowed for us to have that kind of freedom in the storytelling. And I'm sure you experienced that on your show as well.

My show was like a weird experiment, but I did have freedom. That is true. And that's what led to it being so special. Yeah, it's definitely special. I think that's why audiences are getting slightly more sophisticated because they've been allowed shows to get freedom. I think it's the network mentality of sort of stifling shows into what a network believes a mass audience wants that really sort of held back shows or compromised the integrity of certain shows. So I think to be aligned with a network that let us do our weird show for six years,

it just goes to show that people will find it and champion it. And I don't think our show, based on ratings, would have lasted even three episodes on a network. And why'd you stop it because i stopped my show marin after four seasons very deliberately because i was like what else are we going to do with this let's make the last season weird as fuck and and and and that's it i'm done it wasn't like i was making a fortune what was your reason i think it I mean, I think it's exactly the same reasons.

This was not, you know, it's, it's hard to say at the end of the day, we, I really respected the show. I respect the show and I respect the viewers. And I think when you have viewers that are tuning into your show for season after season, that's a lot of time that people are taking out of their lives to support something that you're making. Were you turning it out quicker than there? Because of the way you were shooting it, they didn't have to wait a year, right?

No, it was a year. Oh, it was. OK. Yeah. Every like June, January, I think it aired. Right. But then every six months it would air on Netflix. So it gave the impression that it was it was just that we were pumping out episodes,

but it was just the same season just re-airing on another platform. But I didn't ever want to get to a point where our audience was turned off of the show because the quality went down. I think that's when you lose your audience forever. All of the shows that I returned to, all of the shows that I speak so lovingly about were shows that have a legacy and that legacy was created by having really thoughtful and carefully considered seasons from front to back. Those are the shows that I returned to. All the shows that overstayed their welcome, I never go back to because why, why would you ever want to do that when you were soured on the experience?

So knowing that we had this loyal fan base, it felt, it just didn't feel right to, to squeeze more out of the show than I knew was there. That's good. That's like, yeah, I mean, you seem to be able to make these kind of decisions for yourself. I just think, I mean, it's not about the, I mean, in a way it's, it's afforded me a nice life, but it's not, that's not what's keeping us going. I mean, for my dad and I, the most important thing in our first season was making sure that the show was as direct a reflection of the show that we wanted to make

as possible. Because closure comes when you know that you've done exactly what you wanted to do. And it's the audience that's deciding, I don't like it, or maybe I do. But you as the creator deciding, no, I don't like it, or maybe I do, but you as the creator know that you've done everything you can. It's only once, once the, once I think the art gets tampered with that you end up struggling with, if only things had been done differently. No, no, absolutely. You know, having the control and having, you know, the sense of clarity around, you know, knowing that it's, you don't want it to be tapped out, um, or, or ridiculous. I mean, that was really for me, but for me, it also became about the money, just like, it wasn't about me making money, but we couldn't really grow the show in a creative

direction because they weren't giving us any more real, really much more production money. And then it becomes sort of like well if we really can't do these things to expand the creativity of the show even just to get a song um why do it you know like right uh and also like i don't i didn't set out to make a refillable format you know did you yeah so yeah and and i i think that almost any tv show i think you know four to six seasons is plenty well i also think i don't know when unless it's the grassy grassy needs to keep going the grassy needs 55 seasons but i i don't know when it became the norm to have a 10 season run that profit it's just just like how much, if we're still making money,

why stop this thing? I get exactly. But I think a lot of people get like glamored by the potential of, you know, what 10 seasons of a show could bring. I think that shit. And oftentimes I think it's overdue. I think that's over.

I do too. I mean, I think like now that the, the, the marketplace is so fragmented, you know, the, the,

I think the, the, it's like, who's know that i think the the it's like who's holding their audience even if it's small and you know and how exactly i mean i had a really lovely conversation with phoebe waller bridge uh a few months back and you know she was we were talking about tv and making tv and how hard it is when you you know are the person who's really behind it and trying to get it all, put all the pieces in place. And she was just talking about length. Her Fleabag, I think, was six and then eight episodes.

Yeah. And that's always been something that, not to speak on her behalf, but she just had said that that's a length that she was comfortable with. Right. A two- season run, maybe 11 episodes total or 12. And that is how she tells her stories and what a magnificent story

she was able to tell without that kind of fire to tell 9 million episodes. And as an artist, you're like, that's it. That's done. I did that. Now we did. And now what's, what, what are we doing now? Yeah. And it was really formative for me to have that conversation too, because I think you go into these pitch meetings and people want to know that your show has the potential to be a huge cash cow that can go nine seasons deep. But to have that conversation and be to be assured just from from a peer that i really respected to just say like you know do whatever you want to make yeah tv does not have to be yeah 700 episodes it can be as as little or as much as you want it to be and that was uh it was a much needed kind of reassurance well that's nice so how did it change your relationship with your dad over all these years?

Well, we started working together. Right. So that changes things almost instantly because you go from kind of a parent dynamic to a business partnership, which is which you can never really see coming. And I think like anything, you try your best to navigate the waters of, of respectful business partnerships while also trying to sort of put the, the personal intimate reaction that you would normally have from a father and son dynamic, keep that out of the room for the most part as best you can and try and really bring your most professional selves. And I feel like we really tried to do that. And obviously it, you, you know, it takes a minute to find that footing. But I think for the reason why it worked so well for us is that at the end of the day, no matter what conflict we had, the show always was at the root of it. It was always about the quality of the show and what's the best decision for the show. So when it came to conflict resolution, inevitably the best idea, the one that serviced the show would be the one that was chosen. So it really never got bad, bad because we were both fighting

the same fight. Right. And, and, and ultimately it seems like you are actually the more business minded person. Yeah. I'm a bit more cutthroat when it comes to sort of just getting to the root of why are we doing this and is it worth our time you know and my dad is is is much kinder yeah um to sort of reduce it to a an emotion when you discussed stopping the show everybody was good with that he was good with that yeah i mean i was ready to stop after five and then after our fourth season we were given the option of doing two seasons and i thought okay um 28 episodes feels doable in terms of i get to to hang out with my friends for two more years because the biggest you know the biggest hold

up for me in terms of walking away was not getting to work with these people again right we had the most extraordinary experience working on this show we are so close it is such a family dynamic at this point between all the actors and our crew for three months of the year we just had the best time and that was really hard to walk away from, especially when you know that chemistry like that doesn't necessarily happen every day. Right. And that the next job might not be quite as loving or supportive. But I do hope that in a way we'll find our way back to each other. Yeah.

Even if I have to just write another show. And he's working on the show that my girlfriend is directing. Oh, great. Yeah. Kevin can go fuck himself. Yeah. That's going to be so great. I can't just write another show. And he's working on the show that my girlfriend is directing. Oh, great. Yeah, Kevin can go fuck himself. That's going to be so great. I can't wait to see it. When everyone gets back to work. Absolutely brilliant.

Yeah, exactly. And so is your dad going to be your partner in the glasses business as well? No, although he does wear them exclusively. He is my proudest, biggest supporter. All of his glasses, every single pair of sunglasses are mine. In Toronto, he goes to all the baseball games and would give my glasses to the baseball players. So that was very fun. He's just the spokesperson.

So I guess in a way, he is working for the company. So now are you really going to exclusively focus on your glasses company now? Are you going to? No, I have a couple, I have a couple of shows that I'm developing right now. And, um, it looks like a feature, um, which is kind of exciting. And, you know, at this point, everything is a big question mark as this industry as a whole, you can never really proclaim anything until you're actually shooting it and even then who knows but i have managed to put a team together and you know the the glasses are something that i've always really been passionate about i love

design i love the the business side of things and i um i've managed to get a couple people together who are helping me through the process and it's been really it's been really great so we'll release them when it's time um and the great thing about what we're doing is that it's not tied to any timeline, we're going to put out a collection. And if people like it, great, we'll put out another one. But there's no real expectation associated with it other than just, you know, given given the pandemic, I mean, that that might be the primary business, we don't know yet. It seems like, you know, people are still buying things to wear that they can see through. Exactly.

Because they can do that from their house. We have not canceled eyewear yet. So, who knows? But it's been something that's been keeping me going through these days. Good, good. Well, it was great talking to you, man. Likewise. What a thrill to get to do this with you. Well, it was great talking to you, man. Likewise. What a thrill to, uh, to get to do this with you. Yeah, it was great. And I really appreciate you doing it. I'm,

I'm getting used to doing it like this. I think we're all getting used to talking like this. I'm finding that it definitely makes a difference to see you. Oh yeah. Even though we don't use it, it's still, it's very, it's good for me. Oh, no. I mean, I did a podcast a couple, about six months ago where it was just radio. Yeah. And it was, it was a weird experience. Well, yeah, I've done interviews like that, but you can't, you never know what someone's up to. At least, you know, when you're looking at somebody, you can somewhat hold them conversationally accountable.

I mean, if you're just. You mean like if a laptop and a telephone were just happening as the conversation was going yeah yeah someone was just filling up their insta card sure yeah exactly right you can do that right you know what i mean such a fan mark thank you thank you for all the great work you're doing you too man that was Dan Levy what a fine young man the final season of Schitt's Creek just ended you can watch season

one through five on Netflix I'm going to do an old riff on my guitar from the soundtrack of Sword of Trust but I added some stuff to it

I mean it's a little different like you would know I'm sorry that that soundtrack's not available because almost all but I added some stuff to it. I mean, it's a little different. Like you would know, I'm sorry that soundtrack's not available because almost all of the pieces are about a minute and a half long to two minutes. I wasn't planning on the soundtrack, but the song, though,

I should release that somehow. I guess I'm just thinking out loud. Okay, here we go. Thank you. Boomer lives. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance

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