Seth Rogen and The Studio team dedicate DGA award to ‘utter genius’ Catherine O’Hara

The Home Alone star died after a brief illness aged 71

Seth Rogen has paid tribute to his The Studio co-star and “idol” Catherine O’Hara at the Directors Guild Awards.

O’Hara died on 20 January in Los Angeles at the age of 71 following a brief illness, her manager told Variety. A cause of death has not yet been reported.

One of the comedy icon’s last television roles was as Hollywood executive Patty Leigh in Apple TV’s The Studio, for which she earned best supporting actress nominations at the Emmys and the Golden Globes last year.

Rogen and The Studio co-director and co-writer Goldberg took home the award for best comedy series on 7 February at the DGA awards, where they dedicated the honour to O’Hara, and looked back at their experiences of working with the “utter genius”.

“Honestly, there’s no one we wish we could thank in person at this moment more than we would love to thank Catherine O’Hara,” Rogen said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“We grew up in Canada, and she is and was quite literally our idol since we were children,” Goldberg added. He referred to her role as the McCallister matriarch Kate in the first two Home Alone films.

“Home Alone, honestly, is like the movie that made me want to make movies in a lot of ways. In that movie, she’s always yelling ‘Kevin! Kevin!’ and on set we would be yelling ‘Evan! Evan!’ Every time she did, it’s like, Home Alone,” Rogen continued.

Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen accept the outstanding directorial achievement in comedy series award for 'The Studio' at the 78th Annual Directors Guild Of America Awards (Getty Images for DGA)

One of Catherine O’Hara’s (right) last television roles was as Hollywood executive Patty Leigh in Apple TV’s The Studio, alongside Seth Rogen (left) (Apple TV+)

“The best part of her is she showed that you can be an utter genius and also the nicest person in the entire world. Every day, we work very hard to make the show good enough to warrant her time and her presence. So ultimately we would like to thank the DGA for this, but we would mostly like to thank Catherine O’Hara.”

O’Hara’s Home Alone son Macaulay Culkin was among those paying tribute to his late co-star since her death, writing on Instagram: “Mama. I thought we had time. I wanted more.”

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Rogen at the time called the news of her passing “devastating”. He said in an Instagram post: “I told O’Hara when I first met her I thought she was the funniest person I’d ever had the pleasure of watching on screen.

“Home Alone was the movie that made me want to make movies. Getting to work with her was a true honour. She was hysterical, kind, intuitive, generous… she made me want to make our show good enough to be worthy of her presence in it. This is just devastating. We’re all lucky we got to live in a world with her in it.”