Hollywood hit pause. Sets, stages, and fans everywhere took moments of silence for Catherine O'Hara, and the quiet still kind of hangs in the air. If you loved her work even a little, you know why. So instead of sitting in that silence, let’s revisit five performances that show exactly why she mattered so much.
"I'm here with you. I will live in this hellhole. But I must express myself. If you don't let me gut out this house and make it my own, I will go insane, and I will take you with me!"
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Beetlejuice (1988)
As Delia Deetz, O'Hara comes in hot and never cools off. She’s a New York artist with a taste for surreal, goth-leaning sculpture who gets uprooted to a quiet Connecticut house once owned by the Maitlands, which to her feels like a hostage situation built out of doilies. She leans on husband Charles to let her tear the place apart and rebuild it in her image, and the campaign is relentless.
Delia is a walking mood board: stark fashion, vivid red hair, eyes that say 'I will repaint this staircase before lunch.' When she throws that dinner party and everyone involuntarily breaks into Harry Belafonte’s 'Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),' it’s an all-timer. And while Otho and the art-world crowd love to knock her work, every goth on Earth would kill to display one of those sculptures in their living room.
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Home Alone (1990)
Yes, leaving your kid home for Christmas is not ideal. And yet, Catherine O'Hara turns Kate McCallister into a mom you root for anyway. In Chris Columbus’s mega-hit, she wears the panic and guilt like a second coat, then bulldozes through every travel setback to fix it.
While the extended McCallister clan scrambles back, Kate refuses to stop moving. She hitches a ride with polka legend Gus Polinski (John Candy) and the Kenosha Kickers just to shave time off the trip. Alongside Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, and Daniel Stern, O'Hara supplies the movie’s heart: a pile of frazzled nerves who will do anything to get home.
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The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Reuniting with Tim Burton’s crew, O'Hara voices Sally, a stitched-together outsider with more sense than everyone else in Halloween Town combined. While Jack Skellington dreams up a holiday merger between Halloween and Christmas, Sally quietly sees the train wreck coming and tries to steer him away from it with patience and love.
She’s instantly iconic: the seams, the flowing hair, the detachable limbs when a plan calls for it. And the voice work is matched by the singing — O'Hara pours soul into 'Sally’s Song' and lends bite to 'Kidnap the Sandy Claws' — a lovely counterpoint to Danny Elfman’s Jack.
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A Mighty Wind (2003)
Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy are one of comedy’s most reliable duos, and Christopher Guest’s mockumentary gives them a heartbreaker. As Mickey Crabbe (opposite Levy’s Mitch Cohen), she’s half of Mitch & Mickey, a folk act that put out seven albums before imploding. Mickey moved on; Mitch never quite did.
Their signature number, 'A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow,' famously ends with a kiss on stage — something Mitch still aches to feel, even if only as a memory. O'Hara plays Mickey like someone who partied plenty but kept her head, painfully aware of how their breakup scrambled Mitch’s heart and mind. The cast does their own singing and playing, which lets O'Hara flex a whole other set of skills while keeping Mickey warm, wary, and human.
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Schitt's Creek (2015–2020)
Moira Rose might be the peak O'Hara performance. She’s a ferocious, eccentric ex-soap star with a magpie vocabulary and a closet of wigs that function as battle armor. The accent is impossible to pin down, the outfits are louder than a brass band, and the word choices — 'frippet,' 'pettifogging' — are a delight on their own.
What makes it special is the evolution. Beneath the barbed one-liners and couture, Moira wants to grow, and O'Hara makes every micro-shift feel earned. It’s a character built from a thousand precise choices, and the result is wildly funny and unexpectedly tender.
Catherine O'Hara lit up every frame, every line, every note. Rest easy, and thanks for the glow.