Rogen cast and performed alongside O’Hara in his industry satire “The Studio,” while Ortega played her step-granddaughter in “Beetlejuice Beeltejuice.”

Seth Rogen gets choked up accepting late costar Catherine O’Hara’s Actor Awards prize, as Jenna Ortega cries in audience

Rogen cast and performed alongside O'Hara in his industry satire "The Studio," while Ortega played her step-granddaughter in "Beetlejuice Beeltejuice."

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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March 1, 2026 9:32 p.m. ET

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Seth Rogen at the 2026 Actor Awards; Catherine O'Hara in Los Angeles in 2025. Credit:

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty; Frazer Harrison/Getty

Seth Rogen reduced the audience at the 2026 SAG Actor Awards to tears while accepting an award on behalf of Catherine O'Hara.

The legendary Canadian comedienne, who died on Jan. 30 at the age of 71, won the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her work on Rogen's industry satire *The Studio *during Sunday's ceremony. Having just left the stage after winning the Male Actor counterpart of the same category, Rogen humbly ascended the steps again, already looking choked up.

"I was asked to assume the very sad honor of accepting this award on O'Haras behalf," he began. "I know she would have been honored to receive this award from her fellow performers who I know she respected so much. She was such big fans of all of yours."

Rogen continued, "I obviously have been reflecting on the time I was fortunate enough to spend with her working with her, and something I've just been marveling at over the past few weeks was really her ability to be generous and kind and gracious while never ever minimizing her own talents, and her own ability to contribute to the work that we were doing."

"She knew she could destroy, and she wanted to destroy every day on set," Rogen said. As he spoke, the live broadcast cut to various attendees in the audience who looked as grief-stricken as Rogen, including Jenna Ortega, who played O'Hara's step-granddaughter in *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice*.

Catherine O'Hara and Seth Rogen on 'The Studio'.

But a faint smile then stole over Rogen's face as he recalled, "I haven't said this to the other actors, because I haven't wanted them to get ideas, but pretty much every evening before she had a shooting day on our show, she would email me and [co-creator Evan Goldberg] an email that always was pretty similar, that said, 'Hello, I hope you'll consider the following,' and then there would be a completely rewritten version of the scene that she was in.'"

The audience laughed as he explained that her notes made the scenes and the show better "100 percent of the time."

Jenna Ortega at the 2026 Actor Awards.

"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 in any way shape or form," he said, leaving the audience with a commandment: "If you have people in your lives who don't know her work — if you have kids in your lives or people that 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're laughing that that's Catherine O'Hara, and we're lucky that we got to live in a world were she so genuinely got to share her talents with us."

O'Hara was invited to attend the ceremony after being nominated in the Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series category for her role on *The Studio*. She was also nominated alongside Seth Rogen, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Hahn, and the rest their costars for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.

See all the celebrity looks at the 2026 Actor Awards

Catherine O'Hara's cause of death revealed

The comedy icon had a critical role in the first season of the Apple TV+ entertainment industry satire as Patty Leigh, the outgoing chief of the titular film studio who serves as a mentor to Matt Remick (Rogen), her successor.

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*The Studio *was one of the most decorated comedies of the evening, picking up noms not just for O'Hara, but for Hahn, Rogen, and Barinholtz. Hahn and O'Hara faced tough competition in their category from Jenna Ortega for *Wednesday *and Kristen Wiig for *Palm Royale*. But Jean Smart, whose run on HBO's *Hacks *has become an award-generating machine, was the one to beat. But O'Hara prevailed, marking her fourth Actor Award, after two from *Schitt's Creek *and another on Sunday, when *The Studio *won Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series.

O'Hara's cause of death was revealed 10 days after her passing. Her manager initially told * *that she died following a brief illness. But her death certificate listed a pulmonary embolism as the main cause, with rectal cancer as an underlying cause.

Catherine O'Hara in Los Angeles in 2025.

Frazer Harrison/Getty

While the *Schitt's Creek *and *Best in Show *star never publicly revealed her cancer diagnosis, she was open about living with the rare medical condition cardiac inversus. Also known as dextrocarida with situs inversus, the congenital condition is diagnosed when a person's heart and other internal organs are discovered to be on the opposite side of the body from where they are in most others. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the condition can result in complications include lung and sinus infections, chronic breathing problems, and heart defects.

Patty Leigh stands as O'Hara's final role; however, she shot her role in *The Last of Us *season 2, concurrently with *The Studio *in 2024. The HBO horror series concluded its arc on May 18, three days before her final appearance on *The Studio*.

See the full list of 2026 Actor Awards winners.

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- The Actor Awards

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