Catherine O'hara Wins Posthumous SAG-AFTRA Actor Awards; Seth Rogen Accepts to Standing Ovation

catherine o'hara was posthumously honored at the SAG-AFTRA Actor Awards on Sunday, taking home the prize for outstanding performance by a female actor in a comedy series and sharing the ensemble award for Apple TV's The Studio. The recognition arrived weeks after her death and was met with a standing ovation as Seth Rogen accepted on her behalf.

Catherine O'Hara and The Studio wins

O'Hara won the individual award for playing former studio chief-turned-producer Patty Leigh on The Studio and was also part of the cast that won outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series. Alongside the Actor Awards, she had recently earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the same role on The Studio.

Seth Rogen's acceptance and tribute

Seth Rogen walked onstage to accept the award for O'Hara and delivered an extended tribute about their work together. He said she would have been honored to receive recognition from fellow performers and described her as generous and kind while never minimizing her own talent. Rogen recounted that, on nights before she filmed, she would email him and Evan Goldberg with rewritten versions of her scenes; he said that 100% of the time those rewrites improved her character, the scene and the show as a whole.

Role, nominations and the competition

Her nomination and win were for the part of Patty Leigh. She had been shortlisted alongside Kathryn Hahn, who plays Maya Mason on The Studio; Jenna Ortega (Wednesday Addams on "Wednesday"); Jean Smart (Deborah Vance on "Hacks"); and Kristen Wiig (Maxine Simmons on "Palm Royale").

Reactions from Jenna Ortega and Kathryn Hahn

During Rogen's remarks the broadcast cut to Jenna Ortega, described as teary-eyed; Ortega previously worked with the late actress on Tim Burton’s "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. " Kathryn Hahn was also visibly emotional when O'Hara's name was announced. The public response in the room — including the standing ovation — underscored the immediate impact of the moment.

Legacy: past awards and remembered moments

O'Hara, who died in January at 71 after a brief illness, had previously won Actor Awards in 2021, when the ceremony was still known as the SAG Awards, both for actress in a comedy series and as part of the ensemble for Schitt's Creek. Rogen closed his tribute by urging the audience to show people O'Hara's work: he referenced her dancing to Harry Belafonte in Beetlejuice and the moment she hurt her knee in Best in Show and hobbled around, saying those moments capture her talent and generosity to audiences.

Her death in January made this year’s honors posthumous, a fact that shaped the evening: the awards were presented to celebrate recent achievements on The Studio while also acknowledging a career with prior major wins. What makes this notable is how the ceremony combined contemporary recognition — Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for The Studio — with immediate visible grief from colleagues, producing a moment that connected the craft of the role to the personal memory of the performer.