The Real Reason Catherine O'Hara Left Saturday Night Live
The early 1980s was a transitional period for "Saturday Night Live." By the beginning of the decade, heavy hitters like Dan Akroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and Bill Murray had exited the series, and Lorne Michaels had left as well. Ahead of Season 6, newcomer Jean Doumanian struggled in her role as producer. Tasked with finding a brand new cast and staff, she passed on Jim Carrey and John Goodman. Catherine O'Hara was nearly a cast member as well, but she left one week into the gig.
In an interview with PEOPLE, O'Hara cleared the air, explaining that she didn't leave "SNL" due to any ill will. "There's been BS stories about [how] I was supposedly scared by somebody," she said. In reality, the actress left out of loyalty to "Second City Television," better known as "SCTV." Born out of Toronto's Second City improv troupe, the comedy collective navigated to television in 1976 until 1984, where it launched the careers of Gilda Radner, John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Martin Short, among others.
Despite its deep bench of talent, the "SCTV" shooting schedule was intermittent. "Our producer would get a deal with a network, and we'd have a show for a season or two, and then that deal would go away," O'Hara continued. "There'd be a break, then we'd do the show again." During one of those breaks, O'Hara was asked to join the cast of "SNL." When "SCTV" was picked up again, she left Studio 8H for good. "Basically I said, 'Oh, sorry, I gotta go be with my [comedy] family.'"
O'Hara's SNL exit set her career in motion
Catherine O'Hara admitted that she might have been hasty in accepting the "Saturday Night Live" job, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. "Of course I said yes," she continued in the same PEOPLE interview. "Who doesn't want to do that?" Leaving said gig before filming a single episode was also a capricious career decision. "Yeah, not cool to take a job and leave it. You know what I mean?"
It's hard to imagine how different the comedy landscape would look had O'Hara stuck around in New York. She would have shared the "Saturday Night Live" stage with Eddie Murphy, who joined the show ahead of Season 6 in 1980, and if she stuck around for a couple years, maybe even Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
But sticking with "SCTV" put O'Hara on the path to multiple collaborations with her TV husband, Eugene Levy. The pair partnered up in several Christopher Guest mockumentaries, including "Best In Show" and "A Mighty Wind," before joining forces yet again for "Schitt's Creek." The critically acclaimed comedy series follows the once-wealthy Rose family as they decamp to a small town to run a motel. The series aired from 2015 to 2020 and swept the comedy category at the 72nd Emmy Awards.
"I'll be forever grateful to Eugene and Daniel for giving me that opportunity to develop the role with them and to collaborate," O'Hara continued. She ultimately summarized her "SNL" exit and subsequent career path, "It all worked out the way it was supposed to."