How Catherine O'Hara's Moira Rose set the general philosophy of Schitt's Creek

Vulture

Eugene Levy was the first to suggest that he and son Dan Levy cast his longtime collaborator O'Hara as Moira Rose. But O'Hara insisted that her character not be a snob or mean-spirited -- she didn't want Moira Rose to have a "hardened bitterness." “In the pilot, Moira was full of insults — to anyone, especially townsfolk. I think their idea was to have her be very dry and funny and caustic,” O’Hara said, adding that she successfully pushed for her charcter to “show that I loved and supported my husband, and that I always held hope, right to the last second, that he was going to work out a way to get us out of here.” The key to Moira, she believes, is “that self-delusion that we all have, especially in hard times, when we think we’re holding it together. Instead of a futile bitterness, I wanted there to be a weird optimism.” As Dan Levy says: "It’s about kindness, and the power of love and acceptance. There’s nobody that is mean on our show.”

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