Eugene Levy: ‘Funnily enough, women ran the show in American Pie – which was something’

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Tlisted here are two issues everyone is aware of about the actor Eugene Levy – however solely one among them is true. The first is that he has glorious eyebrows, and the second is that he’s a jokey man. Upon seeing Levy on digicam this afternoon, I can affirm that his eyebrows – or “brows” as he calls them – are on brilliantly bushy type: two caterpillars of hair as distinctive as Charlie Chaplin’s moustache. But regardless of being a really humorous actor, he’s not a person who likes to joke. Unless you might be asking him about his eyebrow maintenance. “I hire only the best landscapers,” he says, gesturing to his face with a mock-reverential wave. “It’s very expensive, but I think it helps.”

It is straightforward to conflate Levy along with his huge array of characters. After his six many years in the biz, they cram his CV like sardines in a can. At 77, Levy nonetheless has the similar semi-nasal voice as his singing dentist in his and Christopher Guest’s improvised 1996 mockumentary Waiting for Guffman; the similar endearing chin dimple as his ruined businessman in the 2015-2020 Emmy-winning sitcom Schitt’s Creek; the similar coif as Steve Martin’s wolfishly clean finest pal in the 2003 comedy Bringing Down the House; and the similar chunky spectacles as his hapless dad in the raunchy 1999 teen flick American Pie. But in particular person, Levy has a particular Canadian humility about him. He’s a much more critical man than his work lets on.

His newest mission, the Apple TV+ journey sequence The Reluctant Traveller, which is out with a second season this month, reveals extra of Levy than ever – greater than he was comfy with, frankly. “Any time I’m myself, I feel exposed – like now,” he says. “It was a concern, because I am always more comfortable in character than I am just being me.” The sequence – in which Levy jetsets round Europe, attempting his hand at beekeeping in Provence, Ceilidh dancing in Scotland, and baking bread in Scandinavia – has helped considerably with that lifelong shyness. “I think it’s actually helping me as a person,” Levy says, apparently shocked at his personal realisation.

The show has helped in different methods, too. For one factor, Levy (the reluctant traveller of its title; his aversion to something new is the show’s primary premise) is rather less reluctant the second time spherical. “A little,” he reiterates now. “To enjoy travelling, you’ve got to be a curious person with a sense of adventure… that ain’t me, but I am better off than I was a year ago.” But make no mistake, that is nonetheless a person whose first response to seeing floor-to-ceiling home windows looking onto the most unbelievable snow-dusted vistas in northern Sweden is: “Are there blinds?”

Levy has no want to stray farther from his home in the Pacific Palisades – the place he lives along with his spouse, the producer Deborah Devine – than the close by golf course; he performs each week, with the similar coterie of buddies every time. All the similar, it’s a sure type of superstar that’s requested to host a journey show, and Levy has entered a rarefied stratum of nationwide treasures resembling Stanley Tucci and Joanna Lumley. For Levy, it was the Noughties teen franchise American Pie that solidified his gold-member standing, his facet of the pond a minimum of, however a youthful technology will doubtless know him for Schitt’s Creek, the eight-time Emmy-winning sitcom a few wealthy household newly poor and compelled to dwell at a motel in a city they purchased in 1991 for a joke due to its title.

The sequence, which he made along with his son Dan, ranks amongst the finest comedies in current reminiscence. Word of mouth turned the show right into a sleeper hit, and by the finish of its sixth season, Schitt’s Creek had gained 9 Emmys, together with a Lead Actor award for Levy.

Being the supportive dad he’s, Levy mentioned sure to his son’s proposition earlier than checking to see if he had the chops to drag it off. “We started working on it and then I had this fear, it was almost like nightmares, where I would just think, ‘Well, what if he doesn’t have it? What if he doesn’t have the talent to do this?’” remembers Levy. “What do I do? Do I sit him down and tell him, or do I say nothing and we keep working on a project that will go nowhere? It was a real dilemma.” Happily, in fact, it by no means got here to that.

Levy earned his stripes throughout the Nineteen Seventies. He graduated from faculty in his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, with a level in sociology at the begin of that decade. It was there that he met future collaborators Martin Short, Dave Thomas and Ivan Reitman. His first skilled performing position was as Jesus in a now well-known 1972 Toronto manufacturing of Godspell, which launched the careers of Levy, Short, Thomas, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, and Gilda Radner.

Two years later, he joined the Second City improv troupe in his native Toronto. Also a part of the troupe have been fellow Canadians John Candy, Rick Moranis, Dan Aykroyd, Short, and Catherine O’Hara – the final of whom performs his fabulously melodramatic spouse in Schitt’s Creek. Second City moved from stage to display screen with SCTV, primarily the bizarre Canadian sibling to Saturday Night Live. Though largely ignored at the time, SCTV has since secured comedy touchstone standing; its 2018 reunion particular was directed by huge fan Martin Scorsese.

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SCTV has aged principally nicely – though, maybe inevitably, there have been a few missteps. One sketch starred Martin as Indira Gandhi in a spoof of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s political musical Evita. “There were scenes that were really kind of out there,” says Levy now. “Would I be doing them now? No, I don’t think I would. Times have changed. Humour has taken a different course.”

It was a distinct time, is his level. “When I started in the Seventies, you could go a bit more risqué, push the envelope a little bit,” Levy says. “It was more a macho thing. That’s what was expected, so that’s what you did. In the world of comedy, there’s nothing wrong with pushing the envelope; you just have to make sure you’ve totally examined whatever premise you’re considering so you know for certain whether it is totally justified.” He pauses. “But you know, I do think there’s a certain age where pushing the envelope just doesn’t work – and I think I may be at the age where maybe it doesn’t work so well,” Levy laughs. “Something a bit more laidback is my cup of tea.”

It is smart: Levy has a laidback fame in Hollywood. Short calls him Saint Eugene. “A little Buddha” is how Devine, whom he married in 1977, as soon as described his fixed sense of zen. “Oh no, things get under my skin,” Levy says now. “Like when I’m trying to do up a shoelace and it becomes a knot. So I guess that’s a streak of insanity that runs through me, but I never lose my cool with other people. There’s not enough time in the day for that behaviour.”

It was American Pie, although, that first launched Levy to a really world viewers. Levy performed dad to Jim (Jason Biggs), a task he reprised in eight of the 9 sequels; the closing 4 have been straight to DVD. For those that got here of age round the flip of the new millennium, that raunchy, randy movie, which adopted a gaggle of youth boys attempting to lose their virginity, was a seminal piece of sex-ed – for higher or for worse. Yet the authentic script was too specific for Levy, and he hesitated earlier than taking over the position.

It’s exhausting to think about the crude humour and the manner the movie objectified women enjoying out so nicely in 2024, however Levy has solely optimistic issues to say about the franchise. “It’s true that I read the script and thought, ‘Wow, this is really… urgh. I don’t know whether I want to do this,’ but we did some work on it and redid some scenes and it turned out so well,” he says. “And funnily enough, it was the girls that ran the show. Women [characters] ran the show in those stories, they made all the big decisions, right? Which was something. A credit to the writer Adam [Hertz] on that, as well.”

The position had implications for his real-life son, Dan, who lately recalled how, to his humiliation, his buddies at college had believed the movie was primarily based on his life. Levy tells me he’s grateful to one among Dan’s buddies, who suggested Dan to not accompany his dad to the movie’s premiere. “It was absolutely the right move. I am so glad he wasn’t there,” Levy laughs. “It would have been extremely uncomfortable watching it with my 15-year-old son.”

Retirement is a unclean phrase for lots of actors, however not for Levy. “I’m not afraid of retirement,” he says bluntly. “I love it when I have nothing on the agenda, I really do. I love getting up and the only big decision is where to go for lunch. There’s nothing wrong with that.” The days of scripted reveals, he suggests, are behind him. “I’ll take on jobs that I find really interesting, and jobs that won’t be too time-consuming – but I don’t think I’d get into another series where you’re working six days a week for five months straight.”

Including, because it seems, the new Spinal Tap sequel. It was introduced by Guest in 2022, with Paul McCartney and Elton John additionally to star, and there have been rumblings that Levy, being Guest’s long-time collaborator and a really vocal Spinal Tap superfan, could also be concerned. “No, I know they’re doing a remake, but my phone hasn’t been ringing,” he laughs. “I don’t think I’m going to be involved in that one.”

But he’s not ruling the rest out? “No, not ruling anything out,” he repeats. “Including retirement, but I think there’s still a few jobs in me left.”

Seasons one and two of ‘The Reluctant Traveller’ can be found to look at now on Apple TV+