Seth Rogen paid tribute to Catherine O’Hara at the Actor Awards on Sunday night as he accepted the prize for best actress in a comedy series on behalf of the late comedian.
O’Hara won the prize for her role as a sidelined executive on Rogen’s Hollywood satire “The Studio,” a month after she died of a blood clot in the lung, a complication from rectal cancer.
She received a standing ovation from the crowd when she was named as the winner at the award show, formerly known as the SAG Awards.
In an emotional acceptance speech, Rogen said O’Hara was “generous and kind and gracious, while never, ever minimizing her own talents and her own ability to contribute to the work we were doing.”
He recalled how she’d send emails to Rogen and his “The Studio” co-creator Evan Goldberg with suggestions on how to rewrite her scenes.
Rogen said “100 per cent of the time” her edits made the work better.
“She really showed that you can be a genius and be kind, and one of those things does not have to come at the expense of the other,” he said, before encouraging the audience to share O’Hara’s work with the people in their lives.
“If you have people in your lives who don’t know her work, if they’re kids in your lives or just people who are out of touch or stupid or something, just show them O’Hara dancing to Harry Belafonte in ‘Beetlejuice,’ show them O’Hara hurting her knee in ‘Best in Show’ and doing that amazing thing where she hobbles around, and tell the people as they are laughing that that’s Catherine O’Hara and we were lucky that we got to live in a world where she so generously shared her talents with us.”
“The Studio” also won best ensemble in a comedy series, and Rogen took home the prize for best actor in a comedy series.
