Of the many scenes TV fans expected to see this season, Eugene Levy Crying while standing in a Glasgow synagogue wearing a plaid yarmulke probably wasn't high on the list.
But there he was, searching for the place where his mother's refugee family from Eastern Europe had prayed a century ago, in one of the many insightful and slyly warm moments of The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy.
“He didn't really know what he was getting into,” said David Brindley, executive producer of the Apple TV+ series. The Hollywood Reporter.
“I think it was in him to want to do these things [kinds of] things. He just didn't know,” adds writer David Reilly.
On Friday ABC announced that Levy and his son and Schitts Creek contributor Dan Levy will co-host the Emmys on Sept. 15. The performance will cap off an unusual year that has seen Eugene Levy on screen as he hops around — reluctantly — everywhere from Sweden to Spain before taking the stage at the Peacock Theater at LA LIVE.
“The title of the show is not a joke,” he wrote in an email to THR of the “reluctant” modifier. In keeping with that theme, Levy also politely declined to answer a question about Emmys hosting when it was posed just days before the official announcement.
But if his AppleTV+ appearances are to be believed, it's likely to be a tongue-in-cheek and… semi-enthusiastic affair.
Stanley Tucci showed you the life you wished you had on his CNN travel show. Anthony Bourdain probed the mysteries of life you wanted to understand. Eugene Levy takes you into his life—a life that, like our own shabby existences, alternates between active and sedentary, curious and indifferent.
Levy — the veteran Canadian comedian and Christopher Guest collaborator — has never been one to step outside his comfort zone. So naturally, there’s a streaming show that sees him do just that, traveling the world to encounter local traditions.
In the second season, Traveler has itself received two Emmy nominations, for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Specials and Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program, the latter for its episode on Scotland. And this juxtaposition is why: the series takes you to the most wildly exotic places, with the most endearing heretic of a guide.
“You really feel like you're out with your friend,” says Reilly. This season, Levy has urged Joan Collins to show him the seedy side of St. Tropez, made sceptically disturbing moose noises in the Swedish countryside and schmendrickly received penalty cues from La Liga star Héctor Bellerín in Seville.
Reilly and Brindley are two of the people who create that everyday atmosphere. All the interactions on the show are organic; the narration is written, with input from Levy. (The writers take a quasi-documentary approach, peppering him with off-camera questions after each interaction to tease out his true feelings.) The resulting tone is philosophical with a touch of the grumpy.
But at least part of it is an act, a persona, right?
“People often ask, 'Is he really holding back?'” Brindley says. “Yes. He really, really is. You ask him now what country he wants to go to in the world after 15 episodes and he can't name one.”
That can't possibly be true.
“After two seasons of doing The reluctant traveler“I can honestly say that there is no place in the world that I would most like to go,” Levy writes.
Oh.
Still, that doesn’t mean he can’t have a good time along the way and take us along for the ride. The Scotland episode wraps up the synagogue moment with Levy doing Sean Connery impressions in an ornate castle, visiting a tailor to have a kilt made, and dancing at a ceilidh in a kilt and making jokes about the ventilation.
“He has this quality that, because of his open nature, he can adapt everywhere, while he feels a little bit left out everywhere,” says Reilly.
Levy also visited the rental home where his mother grew up, which, he emails, “affected me on a much more emotional level than I ever expected.”
After visiting dozens of locations, from Costa Rica to Finland, you might be worried that the show will soon run out of destinations. Finding places for season three, which have already been ordered, could be a challenge.
The show's staff says they still have a lot of work to do. Levy's only red line: a hot air balloon.
“The idea of going into a basket with just a balloon above him was a step too far,” Brindley says of what happened when they presented it to him this season.
But is that the only no-go? Levy has another one?
“Antarctica,” he wrote. “Too cold. Seasick. No cafes.”
A version of this story first appeared in a special August issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, Click here to subscribe.