-Hi, Annie. How are you?
-Hi, Seth. I am doing just fine.
How are you doing?
-I'm doing well. It's really nice to meet you.
I wish it was in person.
But I was talking to your costar Dan Levy,
and he was saying that, really, it's the most fitting outcome
that the year "Schitt's Creek" gets 15 nominations,
it will be virtual Emmys
because we're in the middle of a pandemic.
-Precisely. I couldn't agree with him more.
-[ Laughs ]
It must have been -- You know, your show took this --
I feel like had this crazy --
"Arc" isn't even the right word because it just kept going up,
which is it was a show that not a lot of people saw,
and then there was this building sort of cult feeling about it,
and then, all of a sudden, in its final year,
it is an Emmy darling.
What a fun run that must have been for you.
-It's been so wild, because when we started out,
it was really just this little show on the CBC in Canada.
And we shot, you know, in Toronto,
and then we'd go up north 45 minutes
and shoot in this little town called Goodwood, Ontario.
-That's hilarious.
-Hold on to that for a sec.
So, yeah, it felt really small and insular,
and so, to have it be where it is now is pretty wonderful.
-Is it true that you felt nostalgic
and made a trip back to Goodwood recently?
-Yep, yep.
It is not my finest moment, I would say.
I was getting a little stir crazy and nostalgic,
and I was like, "I'm gonna take a little drive.
I'm gonna go to Goodwood."
And they have these --
There's a bakery in Goodwood called Annina's,
which is the best bakery, and they have --
Do you guys have butter tarts in America?
-No, I've never heard of a butter tart.
-Okay, a butter tart is just that --
a butter tart but with brown sugar and --
Anyway, it's delicious.
So I said, "I'm gonna go get a butter tart and walk around."
And so I did that,
and I was strolling around the streets of Goodwood,
and this car of ladies pulls up to me,
and they're like, "Alexis?"
And I was like...
And I was like, "What are you doing here?"
Like, because Goodwood, I guess,
has become a bit of a hot spot for tourists now.
-Sure.
-But they had driven three hours
to come and take pictures in Goodwood,
and there I was just wandering the streets like a maniac.
And then, literally three days later,
the show "Schitt's Creek" posted on socials,
"Please, people, stop going to Goodwood.
There is a pandemic. Everyone needs to calm" --
And I was like...
-[ Laughs ]
It is really funny because, of course, the last --
I mean, you might expect to see, like, an Annie look-alike
that the town just hired for the purposes of tourists,
but to get the real thing just wandering around...
-Now I think that they think that I just go there every day
just to wait for people to come and take my picture.
-To recognize you, sure.
This is something else that's a little bit embarrassing,
but, again, this is something that you made the mistake of sharing with the world,
which is that when you found out you were nominated for an Emmy --
this is going around -- you choked on bacon.
Which is, by the way, the way I want to imagine
all Canadian actors finding out about Emmy nominations,
is choking on bacon.
-It was one of those things that, like, as I was saying it,
I was like, "Don't say this out loud to somebody."
But, yeah, I was sitting on the floor eating pancakes,
as one does,
and got the news
and inhaled or exhaled in a poor way,
and, yeah, that's how I rung in the news,
was choking on bacon.
-What -- I can't even imagine what it was like
to have both comedy royalty and Canadian royalty
in Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara
as your parents.
What was it like when you first started working with them?
I mean, obviously, the scripts are so funny,
but, you know, they elevate it so much
by being the kind of performers they were.
Was it intimidating, or was it just amazing from the start?
-Both. I'm gonna say both.
They have been my idols for so many years,
and when I found out I got the job --
Because I hadn't worked for so long,
teemed with the fact that it was my dream job that I booked,
I was, like, floating on this high
that I had a job
and I was gonna be working with Eugene and Catherine.
But I didn't really realize until a couple of days before
when a friend was like, "Hey, you have to now act
with Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara."
And I was like, "Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no."
And it really dawned on me, and I had a bit of a moment
and was terrified going in the first day.
I was so nervous.
But, luckily, Dan Levy was equally green,
and he was nervous, too.
And so, we kind of went in trembling together
and got the first few takes out of the way.
And then Eugene and Catherine, being who they are,
it never felt like
we were the new, inexperienced kids that we were.
It was so warm and awesome,
and they couldn't have been more lovely, so...
-I was talking to Dan about this.
You know, six years ago, he and Eugene came on
to promote the premiere of "Schitt's Creek,"
and, at the time, I think the only thing anyone knew about the show
was the choice that they had made with the name.
And it was really fun.
One, they obviously --
You know, the secret's out that they have a very loving father/son relationship,
but you actually were in the city doing press,
and I've heard that you actually went --
you went to their hotel room to watch it air,
which is probably pretty late at night.
-I did, and it was.
I can stay up late.
Yeah, so that was one of my very first -- of many --
but very first moments of "what is my life right now?"
Because I was in New York City for press,
and they put us up at the Waldorf Hotel.
And we'd just gone out for this beautiful steak dinner,
and there was a snowstorm, and I was like --
I was crawling into bed,
and I got a call from Dan being like,
"We're gonna watch 'Seth Meyers.' Come on up."
And gave me a room number.
And so, I pulled on my rumpled clothes
and went up.
And it was, like, an impressive number in the hotel.
And so, I went up to the room and knocked on the door,
and Martin Short dressed in a tuxedo
opens the door with champagne and goes, "Annie Murphy."
And I was like, "What!?"
And so, I proceeded to go into Martin Short's hotel room
at the Waldorf
and watch my friends Eugene and Dan Levy
on "Seth Meyers,"
and it was a very, very --
I think it's like a "flash before my eyes while I'm dying" moment.
-It also seems very cool,
and I think one of the most special things
about all the nominations is that both Eugene and Dan
got nominated, and I can only imagine
how proud it made Eugene.
You know, he's got two kids in the cast, as well.
Is it true that he just delights
in watching his children perform?
-Couldn't be more delighted watching his kids perform.
It is --
That is actually one of the things that I'm gonna miss the very most
about shooting, is watching Eugene
watch Sarah and Dan.
Because he stands -- He goes --
First of all, he goes and gets snacks,
and then he stands behind the monitor
and just watches them act.
And he's much like a dance mom or like a stage mother.
He mouths their lines and is very sad when they're sad
and very happy when they're happy.
And it's all of us.
Like, when it's going on, all of the crew kind of nudge each other,
and we all take great pleasure in watching him watch them.
-It is fully adorable.
And I want to ask about Catherine.
She made so many wonderful choices
in her delivery and diction.
Was there a certain word of hers
that you enjoyed hearing the most
over the course of the six seasons?
-Yeah, and it's not the word you would expect
because it's not one of the flowery,
you know, pieces of vocabulary that she chooses.
But she was able to make the word "how,"
just the word "how," just H-O-W, three syllables.
So it went from how to "H-O-W."
-[ Laughs ]
-And it blew my mind. It blew my mind.
She's a miracle.
-Yeah. Well, you were very lucky.
To be that proximity to greatness
is very rare in this game.
And it's really awesome that the Emmy voters
recognized how, across the board,
wonderful you all were on that show.
And congratulations, Annie.
-Thank you. Thanks, Seth. It was really nice to meet you.
-It was the same here.