Seth Rogen Leads ‘The Studio’ Cast In Paying Tribute To Catherine O’Hara

Actress Catherine O’Hara sadly passed away in late January 2026 following a “brief illness,” according to previous reports. Although best known for her role in “Home Alone,” her last appearance was in the Emmy-award-winning comedy “The Studio.” Although she had a substantial role in season 1, sources have indicated that she backed out of the show’s second season for “personal” reasons.

On Friday, “The Studio” co-creator, producer, and co-director Seth Rogen paid a thoughtful tribute to his late costar.

“Really don’t know what to say… I told O’Hara when I first met her, I thought she was the funniest person I’d ever had the pleasure of watching on screen,” he wrote on Instagram on January 30. “Home Alone was the movie that made me want to make movies.”

“Getting to work with her was a true honour. She was hysterical, kind, intuitive, generous… she made me want to make our show good enough to be worthy of her presence in it,” he continued. “This is just devastating. We’re all lucky we got to live in a world with her in it.”

Ike Barinholtz, who plays the character of Sal Saperstein on the series, also posted a tribute to his late costar on Instagram.

“I never in a million years thought I would get to work with Catherine O’Hara, let alone become friends with her. So profoundly sad she’s somewhere else now,” he wrote. “So incredibly grateful I got to spend the time I did with her. Thank you, Catherine. I love you.”

Ahead of “The Studio” series premiere, Kathryn Hayn told Entertainment Weekly how much she loved working with O’Hara and highlighted her skills as a comedian.

“I didn’t get to work as much as I would’ve dreamed with O’Hara, but every time I saw her do anything, I admired her choices,” Hahn said. “Her choices were surprising and also completely right, and I just respect the sh-t out of her as a comedic performer that has such integrity to the center of who she’s playing.”

Catherine O’Hara’s last performance was in the season 1 finale of “The Studio,” which aired May 21. Following her death at age 71, an insider told The Sun that her character was supposed to appear in the early scenes of season 2, but she pulled out of filming due to “personal matters.”

“She was scheduled to film, but they reworked the schedule to focus on scenes without her character,” the source told the publication. “I don’t believe she ever filmed anything for season two.”

O’Hara had received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on the show, but she ultimately lost to “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder.

On January 30, her representative confirmed to People Magazine that she passed away following a “brief illness.” The Los Angeles Fire Department reported that emergency crews had been sent to her home in Los Angeles just before 5 AM on Friday morning after receiving a report that a woman in her early 70s was struggling to breathe.

That individual, widely believed to be O’Hara, was transported to the hospital in serious condition. LAFD dispatch records indicated that she experienced respiratory complications at the scene.

At the time of this writing, her cause of death has not been revealed. However, she did suffer from a rare heart condition known as dextrocardia with situs inversus. According to the Cleveland Clinic, this is a rare birth defect where the organs in the chest and abdomen appear on the opposite side of the body.

In a 2021 interview, O’Hara revealed that she was unaware of this birth defect until later in life, when an EKG and an X-ray later confirmed her diagnosis. “When the doctor told us that my heart was on the right side and my organs were flipped, my husband immediately said, ‘No, her head’s on backwards,” O’Hara joked at the time.

Since her tragic passing, many have taken to social media to share their condolences.