In September 2020, Schitt’s Creek swept every major comedy category at the Emmys, and the lead actress trophy went to a 66-year-old who had been doing this for more than four decades without one. Catherine O’Hara’s best roles stretch from SCTV sketches in the late 1970s to The Last of Us and The Studio in 2025. Here is how they stack up, with where you can watch each one.
Key Takeaways
- Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek is the number one pick, but her Christopher Guest work and Beetlejuice’s Delia Deetz are close behind.
- O’Hara won her first Emmy in 1982 as a writer on SCTV, nearly 40 years before the acting Emmy for Schitt’s Creek.
- Her partnership with Eugene Levy runs through SCTV, four Guest films, and six seasons of Schitt’s Creek.
- Most of the list streams on HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, or Apple TV+; the older cult titles are easiest to find as digital rentals.
- Two 2025 roles, Gail in The Last of Us and Patty Leigh in The Studio, prove she never settled into a single comic register.
How She Got Here
You cannot rank the roles without the Toronto backstory. O’Hara, born in 1954, joined Second City Toronto in 1974 as an understudy to Gilda Radner, and when Radner left for Saturday Night Live, O’Hara stepped into the main company. That stage led directly to SCTV, the sketch show she created characters for alongside Eugene Levy, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Martin Short, Joe Flaherty, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis.
The writing Emmy she shared with the SCTV staff in 1982 is the detail people forget. She was building characters on the page before Hollywood knew her face. That training in improvised, writer-driven comedy is why Christopher Guest kept casting her, and why Dan Levy wrote Moira Rose with her in mind.
The Rankings
15. Audrey Griffin in Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2019)
Richard Linklater’s adaptation of the Maria Semple novel is uneven, but O’Hara is its most reliable comic engine. She plays Audrey, the overbearing Seattle neighbor who wages a passive-aggressive turf war with Cate Blanchett’s Bernadette, and she makes a cartoon suburban villain feel like a real person you have met at a school pickup. Watch for the shift in the back half when Audrey turns out to be more than a punchline. Available to rent on Amazon, Apple TV and other digital stores.
14. Gloria Farlander in Away We Go (2009)
Sam Mendes’s road-trip comedy gives O’Hara and Jeff Daniels one extended sequence as Burt’s parents, who announce they are moving to Belgium weeks before their grandchild is born. The role is small, but it sets the tone for the whole film: parents who love you and will still let you down. O’Hara plays the self-absorption with a warmth that keeps you from hating her. Rent it on major digital platforms.
13. Justice Strauss in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Jim Carrey’s Count Olaf dominates this film, so it takes skill to register beside him. O’Hara’s Justice Strauss is the kindly, slightly oblivious neighbor who nearly becomes the Baudelaire orphans’ guardian, and she plays the character’s loneliness underneath the cheer. It is a gentler mode than most of her work and proves she can do sweetness without irony. Stream it on Paramount+ or rent digitally.
12. Mrs. Frankenstein and company in Frankenweenie (2012)
Tim Burton brought O’Hara back for his stop-motion remake of his own short, and she voices three characters: Victor’s mother, the deadpan Weird Girl, and the gym teacher. The Weird Girl, with her prophetic cat and flat delivery, is the one audiences remember. It is also the second time O’Hara lent multiple voices to a Burton production, and the range between the three parts is the point. Stream it on Disney+.
11. Patty Leigh in The Studio (2025)
Seth Rogen’s Apple TV+ satire casts O’Hara as the studio head who gets pushed out in the opening episode and then keeps reappearing as the industry veteran everyone still calls for advice. Patty is bitter, clear-eyed, and funnier than the people who replaced her. The role earned O’Hara a 2025 Emmy nomination for supporting actress in a comedy and showed she can hold her own in a cast of Hollywood cameos. Stream it on Apple TV+.
10. Gail in The Last of Us, Season 2 (2025)
Nobody expected a Catherine O’Hara role in HBO’s post-apocalyptic drama, which is why her casting as Jackson’s therapist landed so hard. Gail counsels Pedro Pascal’s Joel while quietly resenting him, and their session scenes are among the most emotionally direct in the season. There is no comic safety net here, and she does not reach for one. Stream it on HBO Max.
9. Aunt Ann in Temple Grandin (2010)
The HBO biopic belongs to Claire Danes, but O’Hara’s performance as the Arizona ranch-owning aunt who gives young Temple a summer of purpose is the film’s quiet anchor. She earned an Emmy nomination for supporting actress in a movie or miniseries. The role matters because it was one of the first times a wide audience saw her play straight dramatic material, years before Schitt’s Creek made her a household name. Stream it on HBO Max.
8. Marilyn Hack in For Your Consideration (2006)
The least loved of the Christopher Guest films still contains one of O’Hara’s bravest performances. Marilyn is an aging character actress who gets a whiff of Oscar buzz for a low-budget melodrama and watches it ruin her. The final scenes, after a round of plastic surgery she hopes will keep her relevant, are painful in a way the earlier Guest comedies never attempted. Rent it on digital stores.
7. Gail in After Hours (1985)
Martin Scorsese’s downtown nightmare comedy has a stacked cast, and O’Hara’s Mister Softee driver Gail is the one who keeps hijacking the movie. She picks up Griffin Dunne’s stranded office worker, offers him help, then turns on him with cheerful malice. It was her first major film role after SCTV, and Scorsese let her improvise the kind of unhinged turns she had been doing in sketches. Stream it on the Criterion Channel or rent digitally.
6. Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
O’Hara voices both Sally, the rag doll who loves Jack Skellington, and Shock, one of the trick-or-treating henchmen. Sally’s solo, performed by O’Hara herself, is the emotional center of Danny Elfman’s score. The character has outlasted most live-action roles from that decade, showing up on merchandise and at Disney parks every October. Stream it on Disney+.
5. Mickey Crabbe in A Mighty Wind (2003)
Guest’s folk-music mockumentary pairs O’Hara with Eugene Levy as Mitch and Mickey, a 1960s duo reuniting after Mitch’s breakdown. The two wrote and performed their own material, and “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” earned an Oscar nomination for original song. What makes it a top-five role is the restraint: O’Hara plays Mickey as a woman who moved on and is unsure whether she wants to be pulled back. Rent it on digital stores.
4. Kate McCallister in Home Alone (1990)
Every December, millions of people rewatch a mother realizing on a plane to Paris that she left her eight-year-old at home. O’Hara’s Kate is frantic, guilty and completely believable, and the airport scenes where she trades a first-class ticket for a ride with John Candy’s polka band give the slapstick its heart. She returned for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 1992. Both films stream on Disney+.
3. Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988)
Tim Burton’s ghost comedy gave O’Hara her first iconic film character: a pretentious New York sculptor who moves to a Connecticut farmhouse and immediately starts tearing it apart. The possessed dinner-party rendition of “Day-O” is the scene everyone quotes. She met her husband, production designer Bo Welch, on this set, and she came back 36 years later for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in 2024, where Delia’s grief-themed art show opens the movie. Both films stream on HBO Max.
2. Cookie Fleck in Best in Show (2000)
Cookie is the Guest film performance that most resembles what she would later do with Moira Rose. A former party girl now married to Eugene Levy’s two-left-footed Gerry, she keeps running into old flings on the way to the Mayflower Dog Show. O’Hara improvised most of her dialogue, and the scene where Gerry struggles with his feet during the Norwich terrier presentation is a clinic in reactive comedy. Rent it on digital stores.
1. Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek (2015 to 2020)
A former soap star stripped of her fortune, Moira Rose refuses to lower her standards to match her circumstances. O’Hara built the accent from scratch, sourced the vocabulary from obscure dictionaries, and insisted on the wig collection that became a running joke. She won the 2020 Emmy for lead actress in a comedy, then a Golden Globe and a SAG Award in early 2021. Moira is the role that finally fused her writing instincts, her sketch timing and her refusal to make a character likable on purpose. All six seasons stream on Hulu.
Honorable Mentions and Guest Appearances
A few roles missed the cut but deserve a sentence. Sheila Albertson in Waiting for Guffman (1996) is her first Guest collaboration and features the “Midnight at the Oasis” duet with Fred Willard. Lola Heatherton on SCTV, the desperate lounge singer who shrieks “I want to bear your children!” is the sketch character that still gets quoted by comedians, and you can find clips on YouTube since the series is not on a major streamer. She also played Texie Garcia in Dick Tracy (1990) and Jessica Wilhern in Penelope (2006).
Her television guest work is substantial. She had a recurring arc as Carol Ward on Six Feet Under in 2003, voiced Grandma Frump in the 2019 animated The Addams Family and Brook in Pixar’s Elemental in 2023. These parts are small, but they show how often directors reached for her when a scene needed a jolt.
Why the Eugene Levy Partnership Matters
Six of the fifteen roles above involve Levy in some way, and that is not an accident. The two met at Second City Toronto, wrote together on SCTV, played spouses in Best in Show and lovers in A Mighty Wind, and then spent six seasons as Johnny and Moira Rose. Levy has said in interviews that Moira was always going to be O’Hara or nobody. Few comic partnerships in North American television have lasted 45 years, and fewer have produced work at this level in multiple decades.
FAQ
What is Catherine O’Hara’s most famous role?
Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, by a wide margin. The role won her an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award between 2020 and 2021. Among film roles, Kate McCallister in Home Alone and Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice are the ones most people recognize.
Has Catherine O’Hara won an Emmy?
Yes, twice. She shared an Emmy for writing on SCTV in 1982 and won lead actress in a comedy for Schitt’s Creek in 2020. She also received nominations for Temple Grandin and, in 2025, for The Studio.
Where can I watch Schitt’s Creek right now?
In the United States, all six seasons stream on Hulu after the show left Netflix in late 2024. In Canada, it remains on CBC Gem.
Did Catherine O’Hara sing in The Nightmare Before Christmas?
She did. She performed Sally’s vocals herself, including “Sally’s Song,” and also voiced Shock, one of Oogie Boogie’s three henchmen.
Is Catherine O’Hara in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?
Yes. She returned as Delia Deetz in the 2024 sequel alongside Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder, with Jenna Ortega joining as Lydia’s daughter. It streams on HBO Max.
How did Catherine O’Hara get her start?
She joined Second City Toronto in 1974 as an understudy to Gilda Radner, moved into the main cast, and then became a founding performer and writer on SCTV, which ran in various forms from 1976 to 1984.
