When Dan Levy co-created the seriesSchitt’s Creekwith his father Eugene in 2014, he had no idea that one day their little feel-good comedy would someday become a global sensation — or that they’d be nominated for a SAG award for best cast in a comedy, and count celebs likeNicole Kidman,Jennifer LawrenceandElton Johnas some of their most rabid fans.
Yet it did.
“I was in Japan recently, and fans came up to me,” Dan, 36, tells PEOPLE of fans discovering the show. “And Italy. I remember thinking, ‘This is absolutely insane.’ ”
His dad agrees that going to a streaming site was a game changer. “Netflix was a big turning point. You could start to feel it on the street,” says Eugene, 73. “When you were bumping into people and they would talk about the show and how much they loved it … it was starting to happen more and more.”
One thing Dan says he has definitely noticed as far as the fans go? That more and more people have been discoveringSchitt’s Creekas the world around us seems to grow bleaker with every new news story or mean tweet.
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“It’s been amazing to see how the philosophy of the show, the kind of joy of the show has found people,” Dan says. “When you can provide any kind of joy for people in a time when there is not a lot of joy to be found on the news … I noticed a shift from the ways in which people were finding it,” he says. “It went from people saying it’s a funny show, to saying, ‘Ineedthis show.’ ”
He adds, “It’s providing them with something they’re not getting when they walk outside my house. So it was interesting to track that shift with the political climate changing. I think that’s why we’re seeing a resurgence in feel good television.”
The story ofSchitt’s Creek— about a wealthy, big-city family who loses all their money and has to go live in a small town they’d once bought as a joke because of its funny name — is the opposite of what one would expect. Instead of the small-town folks being “yokels” or closed-off, the opposite is true — and Dan says that was entirely intentional.
“We never wanted it to be that the small towns people are somehow ‘less-than’ the big city folks that are coming,” says Dan. “We wanted to flip that on its head, and have the Rose family be the people that have to change, who have to learn and grow. The town itself is so progressive in its thinking and its level of acceptance that the Roses can’t help but become better people because of it.”
Eugene Levy, Daniel Levy, Annie Murphy and Catherine O’Hara.Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
Says Eugene, “We kind of accomplished what we set out to do, which is create a good character-driven comedy.”
Still, they’re very aware that the show’s fans are on the rise.
“People have been like, ‘When is the reboot coming?’ ” says Dan. “I’m like, ‘The show isn’t even finished yet!’ ”
Dan adds that he always knew it would end after six seasons. “My biggest fear is being one of those shows that people say, ‘I liked it until season 7, and then I stopped watching.’ To me, that’s so sad.”
source: people.com
