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DAN LEVY: Wow.
SPEAKER: All right.
EUGENE LEVY: Turn my phone off.
DAN LEVY: Hi, everybody.
SPEAKER: Hello.
So I assume you know who all of these people are.
But just in case, this is Dan and Annie
and Catherine and Eugene.
ANNIE MURPHY: Hi.
SPEAKER: One of the questions that I
had as a "Schitt's Creek" viewer going into the last season
is what a happy ending looks like for these people?
DAN LEVY: We have always approached the show
from a slightly more emotional standpoint.
So the surface idea of "will they stay or will they go"
was sort of the last thing we thought about.
And what we really sat down with when
we started to brainstorm the trajectory
of this last season was, what do these characters need?
What will make them happy?
What will make the audience happy?
What will ultimately be satisfying
for both the audience's expectations
and our characters?
And that was a really tricky conversation,
because sometimes you know the audience wants one thing,
but the character might need something completely different.
And the one thing that I loved when
I was researching series finales of other shows
that I really responded to was the fact
that all of the ones that I loved
presented me with something that I didn't expect,
but that I was pleasantly surprised by.
ANNIE MURPHY: I think Alexis is the one of the family
to kind of make the best of any shitty--
I didn't mean, I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it.
SPEAKER: It's the name of the show.
ANNIE MURPHY: Whatever kind of miserable scenario
she's put into, she can find a silver lining.
SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANNIE MURPHY: Do I think it would be the best for her?
I don't know.
SPEAKER: What it has felt like to watch the response grow
for the last several years?
EUGENE LEVY: Well, it's been pretty nice.
You know, we did, we started out doing this show in Canada.
And we got an American broadcaster, Pop,
who picked up the show.
And yet at that time, it was a kind
of a young network trying to get its feet off the ground.
And we did feel like we were in a kind
of a cultish kind of situation.
SPEAKER: Yeah, but not in a bad way.
Cultish in a warm, happy way.
DAN LEVY: Kind of the best kind of cult.
SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANNIE MURPHY: The fun ones.
DAN LEVY: The best moments of your time in a cult.
CATHERINE O'HARA: Small, happy--
SPEAKER: Yeah, sure.
Where they actually serve Kool-Aid.
EUGENE LEVY: I actually meant in a bad way,
but anyway, we'll go your route.
And then the audience just seemed to take,
our fans just seemed to take to the show.
Social media, at least, when we started in Canada,
was pretty strong kind of right out of the gate.
So that kind of moved us along.
And then the show, we just focused on the work.
And from season to season, the show's
just kind of elevated itself.
And now people are watching and critics are writing about it.
DAN LEVY: It's a tricky thing from a writing standpoint,
in terms of the growing sort of fanbase.
And it's interesting, because often I've been asked, like,
have you considered your fans in the process
of writing the show?
And the answer is no.
And that's not a disrespectful no.
But I think when you're creating something,
it's always important to realize why people are watching.
And it's interesting, because I've
watched TV shows where I've become aware,
oh, the people making this show are now playing
to me as an audience member.
And it's becoming aware of itself, which in a way
distances me from what I was watching,
because the authenticity of the show's gone.
SPEAKER: I had read that you look
for ways to really throw in some extra SAT words in there.
CATHERINE O'HARA: Yes?
SPEAKER: Oh, yes, yes, sorry.
CATHERINE O'HARA: Are those on SATs?
No, these are words that nobody else
has heard of for 100 years.
SPEAKER: Where did Moira get these words?
CATHERINE O'HARA: Same place.
SPEAKER: She looks at--
CATHERINE O'HARA: We are one.
SPEAKER: She lives with books of arcane words?
CATHERINE O'HARA: "Foyle's Philavery".
Our makeup artist, Lucky, gave me
this book, "Foyle's Philavery".
Because I had the idea I wanted to do this.
So I was going through the thesaurus
all the time, as were you and the writers--
you, writer, and the writers--
to try to floralize Moira's dialogue
from the very beginning.
But then Lucky gave me this great book,
"Foyle's Philavery", and then I found
"Foyle's Further Philavery".
And a friend gave me "Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary".
DAN LEVY: Then she gifted me the books.
And we still couldn't do it.
I would say the greatest, like, humbling experience was writing
something for Catherine, and then
having Catherine elevate what we've
written to a level that was way beyond anything we could do.
And we're thinking, like, we're being paid for this?
And she just threw in a word that I
have scoured "Foyle's Philant--
Philavery" for-- can't even say it.
That's probably an example of how much I struggled.
CATHERINE O'HARA: The best thing in the world
is having the creative freedom to do that, thank you.
And other people I know will take care of it, thank you.
No, but I have these books and I want to do this.
I know how she speaks.
DAN LEVY: No, say it as is!
CATHERINE O'HARA: I'll tell you what's fun!
SPEAKER: Has it felt different to be making this show now
than it did when you started?
Because the world feels like it's shifted.
I don't know if you noticed.
DAN LEVY: What?
CATHERINE O'HARA: It's good timing.
DAN LEVY: I think I noticed the shift happen
more from an emotional standpoint
than from a satirical standpoint.
I mean, obviously it's a satire.
Obviously, we're commenting on sort
of the disillusion of money, and how that can actually
separate people instead of bringing them together,
despite what those people think.
But for us, it was the emotional response shifted.
The show, sort of the fan reaction
went from, oh, this is a funny show.
I love the way Moira speaks, or I love the way
that David and Alexis bicker with each other.
And then once that happened, politically speaking,
the response changed from observational reactions
to more of an emotional reaction.
And that's when we started realizing,
oh, people need this.
Not necessarily our show per se, but people need joy.
People need safe places in their days,
where they can turn on the television
and feel safe for 21 minutes, and seen.
And you know, I think you could really tell.
You could see a pendulum shift, in terms of just seeing it
for one thing, and then needing it for something completely
different.
And I think that's both lovely and totally heartbreaking
at the same time.
SPEAKER: Who do you think they would vote for?
EUGENE LEVY: Johnny would be a Mayor Pete guy?
SPEAKER: Really?
EUGENE LEVY: Yeah.
SPEAKER: Ah, interesting.
OK.
CATHERINE O'HARA: He might have originally
been a Republican, but not now?
You think?
Being a businessman?
A successful businessman?
EUGENE LEVY: I think in his time,
yes, he dabbled in Republicanism.
DAN LEVY: This is interesting backstory we haven't explored.
EUGENE LEVY: Well, it could come out next season-- oh,
wait a minute.
DAN LEVY: Oh, ow.
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