Catherine O'Hara on Her Most Over-The-Top Fashion From 'Schitt's Creek'
Eveningwear in the daytime is a Moira Rose staple, as are dramatic statement necklaces.
“I knew two different women who changed their hair throughout the evening when I went over for dinner,” O'Hara explains. “Neither of these women were confident women. It was just kind of a nervous thing to do. It was like, Oh, I’m not making the right impression, I’ll go change. Oh, you know, this isn’t working either. I thought that was a fun visual way to show a neurosis and lack of confidence.”
Moira sticks mainly to a stark black and white palette, but she'll occasionally deviate with a splash of color.
“She thinks she’s a people person, and she thinks she makes other people feel comfortable," O'Hara says of her character. "And she loves to entertain them. She loves to give them the thrill of being in a room with her.”
Sleep mask? Try sunglasses! Moira even goes to bed in tailored PJs, waistcoat and bejeweled broach.
Like mother, like son: David (Levy) shares his mother's penchant for statement-making ensembles.
A distinctive sense of style runs in the Rose family. From left: O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Annie Murphy, Daniel Levy.
With her role on Schitt’s Creek, Catherine O’Hara has added to the pantheon of larger-than-life female TV characters with over-the-top style that includes Carrie Bradshaw and—probably closer to the mark—Edina Monsoon.
As Moira Rose, a faded soap opera star who married well and then lost everything, O’Hara wears her character’s deep-seated insecurities on her sleeve—literally. When developing the character along with series creators Eugene and Daniel Levy—who also play her husband and son, respectively—O’Hara determined that Moira should have an understanding of serious, avant-garde fashion. “I thought, I want this woman to look different. I don’t want to look like your fancy rich lady,” she says.
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She settled on heiress and outré fashion icon Daphne Guinness as a partial inspiration for Moira’s look and decided early on that her character’s eye-catching clothes would represent an externalization of her neuroses and frustrated creative ambitions. “It made sense because Moira had been an actress and had not worked for quite a while. So it was kind of like, I can be so creative,” O’Hara explains with a laugh. “She’s a bit delusional.”
In the comedy’s fourth season, Moira's kids seem to be putting down roots and growing as people, but she's still the same delightfully kooky narcissist she's always been. And her clothes are still—to borrow a phrase—simply the best. Click through the gallery above for her best looks—and to get some inside scoop from O'Hara herself!
Schitt's Creek, Wednesdays, 8/7c, Pop TV
