Catherine O’Hara Gets A Standing Ovation After Posthumous Actor Awards Win

Catherine O’Hara touched countless lives — and a month after her death at 71, friends and fellow performers got to celebrate her with a sweet moment at the Actor Awards.

At the 2026 ceremony (previously known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards), O’Hara received the Outstanding Female Actor in a Comedy Series award for her role as Patty Leigh in The Studio. After O’Hara was announced by presenter Lisa Kudrow, audience members rose to their feet for a standing ovation.

As Seth Rogen — who co-created the show and starred alongside O’Hara — assumed the “very sad honor” of accepting the award on her behalf, many attendees could be seen listening along with tears. Jenna Ortega wiped one away, while Leslie Bibb leaned on her partner, Sam Rockwell, during the emotional speech.

A Genius At Work

Rogen used the moment to reflect on his time with O’Hara, noting her penchant for being “generous and kind and gracious” without ever downplaying her own comedic skills. “She knew she could destroy, and she wanted to destroy every day on set,” he said, recalling O’Hara’s tendency to email him and co-creator Evan Goldberg notes the evenings before her shooting days.

“There would be a completely rewritten version of the scene she was in,” Rogen said with a laugh. “And literally 100% of the time, it made not just her character better but it made the scene better and the entire show better as a whole. And 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.”

Rogen concluded his speech with a call for viewers to share O’Hara’s gifts with anyone who hasn’t yet had the privilege of witnessing them.

“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,” he said. “And tell the people as they are laughing that that’s Catherine O’Hara, that we were lucky that we got to live in a world where she so generously shared her talents with us.”

Soon after, Rogen referenced O’Hara again while accepting the Outstanding Ensemble award for The Studio.

“When I put the cast together, I was really looking for people I was excited to perform with every day, and who I knew would be able to carry the weight of this very difficult way to shoot,” he said, before acknowledging his collaborators beside him: “Kathryn [Hahn], Chase [Sui Wonders], Ike [Barinholtz], and O’Hara, this show wouldn’t be makeable without all of you guys.”