Dan Levy on 'Big Mistakes,' why women are 'far superior to men in comedy'
Dan Levy on 'Big Mistakes,' why women are 'far superior to men in comedy'
Erin Jensen, USA TODAYThu, April 9, 2026 at 1:01 PM UTC
0
In his new Netflix comedy, Dan Levy is once again up "Schitt's Creek" without a paddle.
The Toronto-born Levy, who dreamed up the fish-out-of-water show with his father Eugene Levy, is now star and cocreator of the half-hour(ish) crime comedy “Big Mistakes” (Season 1 now streaming in its entirety). Levy, 42, stars as Nicky, a pastor who plans on changing congregations once his mom Linda (Laurie Metcalf) concludes her mayoral run, so he can be open about his boyfriend. Nicky’s life is upended when his sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega) steals a necklace for their dying grandmother from a boutique with ties to a criminal organization. The siblings are then forced to become accomplices.Like “Schitt's Creek,” “Big Mistakes,” cocreated with Rachel Sennott, gives Levy a chance to cannonball into comedy while playing off strong mother and sister characters. The late Catherine O'Hara and Annie Murphy both won Emmys when the series swept the comedy categories in 2020 for their portrayals of Moira and Alexis Rose, who were forced to move to a small town after a scamming business manager made off with their fortune.
Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's TV and movie recommendations right in your inbox
Morgan (Taylor Ortega) and Nicky (Dan Levy) are recruited for a life of crime in Netflix's "Big Mistakes."
“I love writing these parts,” Levy says, seated between his costars Metcalf and Ortega, “I find women to be far superior to men in comedy. I love it. I've always been drawn to female voices in comedy. … I grew up watching Lucille Ball. I grew up watching Mary Tyler Moore, all of these incredible, funny women. It's just been a life goal to continue to tell their stories, and I've been so lucky to have these casts stacked with unbelievably talented actresses.”
Metcalf, 70, signed on for “Big Mistakes” prior to even reading the pilot, “Because I knew the script was written by Dan. So I knew that it was going to be great,” she says. Metcalf loved it “immediately,” she says, pointing to the impassioned Linda’s intensity as her favorite part of the role.
“Nobody expects you to be like Natalie,” Linda tells Nicky and Morgan in the first episode, referencing their younger sister, played by Abby Quinn. “She is an anomaly in this family. Confident, ambitious. She doesn’t have to work for that body. But could the two of you, for once, set your differences aside and make my mother’s death easy on me?”
Advertisement
Laurie Metcalf, who won three Emmys for her role of Jackie Harris on "Roseanne," loves the intensity of Linda in "Big Mistakes," co-created by Dan Levy.
Writing Linda brought great joy, Levy says. “She cares so much about her family. She cares so much about her job. She cares so much about how she's perceived,” Levy says. “And when you care so much about everything, of course, you're going to be operating at a 9 [or] 10 most of the time. But it's an endearing quality, which I think creates this soft cushioning under her, under some of the intensity that makes Linda such a lovable character, too.”
Ortega, 36, identifies Morgan as “the most close-to-self character that I've ever been asked to audition for.” Morgan once dreamed of being an actress in New York and is growing restless as a schoolteacher in a stale relationship with Max (Jack Innanen), who she’s known forever. Dabbling in crime provides the exhilaration Morgan longs for.
“The only good thing about a life of crime is that you have a thrilling life that is more exciting than other people's,” Ortega says when assessing if she’d make a good criminal. “And maybe there's a small bit of that in what we do for a living, because it is an odd career. It asks you to make certain personal sacrifices, but the payoff is, for better or worse, it is really exciting.”
Linda's three children in "Big Mistakes": Natalie (Abby Quinn), Nicky (Dan Levy) and Morgan (Taylor Ortega).
For Metcalf and Levy, careers as culprits leave a lot to be desired.
“I'm not a risk taker,” Metcalf says. “The stress level would be too high for me.”
“I would be dead in the water,” Levy says. “I'd have to have a very honest conversation with the criminal and just say, ‘Listen, we're at a crossroads. You have one of two ways through this: Let me go or do something. But either way, a decision needs to be made immediately because there's no trial and error here. I'm going to be dead weight from the minute you bring me onto your operation.’”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dan Levy talks 'Big Mistakes,' why women are 'superior' at comedy
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
