{"id":2494,"date":"2013-09-29T23:07:24","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T23:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2013\/09\/29\/levy-keeps-unique-comedic-touch-grounded-in-real-place\/"},"modified":"2013-09-29T23:07:24","modified_gmt":"2013-09-29T23:07:24","slug":"levy-keeps-unique-comedic-touch-grounded-in-real-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2013\/09\/29\/levy-keeps-unique-comedic-touch-grounded-in-real-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Levy keeps unique comedic touch grounded in ‘real place’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Glen Schaefer \/ The Province<\/em><\/p>\n

Eugene Levy is pacing the set of Package Deal between rehearsals, trying out different readings to himself of a particular line.<\/p>\n

Levy appears in the first three episodes of the new sitcom as an accused wife-killer being defended by Danny, the comically putupon lawyer played by series star Randal Edwards.<\/p>\n

The rehearsal resumes, a courtroom scene that Levy steals with low-key scripted asides and lasersharp timing, punctuated by his signature nimble eyebrows.<\/p>\n

Don’t ask him how he does it.<\/p>\n

“I don’t like putting comedy under a microscope and I don’t like talking about it.” Levy says during a break away from set.<\/p>\n

He’s dressed in a tidy sweater with a collar, neat jeans, like an accountant on his day off.<\/p>\n

“A lot of it is luck, everybody has their own way of doing comedy and I have a particular kind of comedy that I like. I like my comedy to be grounded, like it always comes out of a real place.”<\/p>\n

The producers of Package Deal wrote the character for Levy, hoping for some of the luck he brought to SCTV, the American Pie franchise and a string of improvised features Levy made with Christopher Guest.<\/p>\n

For himself, Levy was intrigued at the idea of a multi-camera sitcom filmed in front of an audience, previously a uniquely American idiom.<\/p>\n

“I assumed it was a single camera show, it’s Canada. Then I heard, ‘No, they’re actually doing this in front of an audience …’ I’m thinking, ‘Oh, OK, I guess,’ but the creator of the show Andrew Orenstein has come off some pretty good shows down there.”<\/p>\n

Levy took the patriotic view of helping to launch a sitcom in Canada decades after the last such entry, the Toronto-filmed King of Kensington, breathed its last in 1980.<\/p>\n

“If it works then this would be a fantastic thing for this country.”<\/p>\n

Levy has been involved in a couple of short-lived U.S. sitcoms over the years, and has been around long enough to have guested on King of Kensington.<\/p>\n

“I don’t usually like the sitcom form, believe it or not. I don’t think in those rhythms, but I thought the scripts for this were really good, better than I thought they would be,” he says.<\/p>\n

“Let me put it this way, if this was a show that was being done in the States somewhere, I don’t think I would have done it. If they can make this work in Canada, I’d like to be on the ground floor of that.”<\/p>\n

Levy’s Package Deal role has his accused killer giving the lawyer relationship advice over the three episodes.<\/p>\n

“He’s chiming in on what his lawyer should and shouldn’t do with his girlfriend, his relationship with his brothers, things like that.”<\/p>\n

Levy hasn’t ruled out a return to the role, should the show come back for a second season. “It’s finite until I hear something else.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glen Schaefer \/ The Province Eugene Levy is pacing the set of Package Deal between rehearsals, trying out different readings to himself of a particular line. Levy appears in the first three episodes of the new sitcom as an accused wife-killer being defended by Danny, the comically putupon lawyer played by series star Randal Edwards. … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLevy keeps unique comedic touch grounded in 'real place' - Thunderbird Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2013\/09\/29\/levy-keeps-unique-comedic-touch-grounded-in-real-place\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Levy keeps unique comedic touch grounded in 'real place' - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Glen Schaefer \/ The Province Eugene Levy is pacing the set of Package Deal between rehearsals, trying out different readings to himself of a particular line. 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