Dan Levy says stress while filming 'Schitt's Creek' put him in a neck brace
Stress can often manifest itself in the form of physical pain, and that's something Dan Levy knows all too well.
In a new interview with British GQ, the "Schitt's Creek" star reveals that he was so overwhelmed while filming the hit show that he had to wear a neck brace during the sixth season.
"The anxiety in my neck was so bad I couldn’t move it," he said.
"At one point there was an acupuncturist and a chiropractor coming to set every day at lunch to work on my neck so that I could actually perform and not, you know, look like I needed a neck brace.”
Levy, 38, was one of the hit show's lead actors but also served as a writer and showrunner, so he had a lot of responsibility during the six years of filming. He told GQ he didn't have any sort of social life during that time and would head to set at 5 a.m. to rehearse and write as well as oversee wardrobe and set decisions. During the day he would shift gears to review budgets, direct and act and get home to grab a quick dinner before writing some more until 2 a.m. in the morning.
"I didn't sleep more than eight hours," he said of his schedule during some extra busy weeks.
Things weren't always that hectic, of course, but once the show exploded in popularity, Levy's schedule intensified.
“Because the more we built the show, the more proud of it I was. And the more I wanted to create more compelling and dimensional stories, the more we wanted to expand our world,” he said.
It's something the star reflected on during the Netflix documentary "Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: A Schitt's Creek Farewell" when he talked about the pressure to keep upping the ante.
"It's funny because I feel like the show sort of took a turn in terms of the level of notoriety that it achieved within the past year, and I remember people asking me, 'Do you feel the weight of people's expectations when you're writing the last season?' And I was like, 'Well, fortunately we've already written it,'" he said. "So it couldn't have come at a better time because, you know, when The New York Times is writing about your show in such a positive way, it was like, what is going on here?"
During his chat with British GQ, Levy also discussed the dynamic of working with his father Eugene Levy and sister Sarah Levy, who were his co-stars on the series.
“It brought us professionally much closer,” he said. “But when we were doing the show, so much of the conversation was consumed by it.”
While working on the show, the actor kept a journal that he filled with his random musings from time to time and he said he's been focused on transforming one of those ideas into reality: a rom-com about a gay couple. The 38-year-old is now in the process of writing the film and also wants to direct it.
“I’ve always wanted to make (a rom-com),” he said. “I’ve always wanted to be in one. And as a gay person, you don’t ever get that kind of opportunity. You get to play the zany friend or Pepe the coworker. So I’m really excited and honoured to have that opportunity: to put a gay person front and centre in a romcom.”
