Emotional Tributes at Actor Awards Honour Late Screen Legends
The 2026 Actor Awards ceremony, formerly known as the SAG Awards, delivered a poignant and heartfelt evening as it paid tribute to numerous performers who passed away in the previous year. Among those honoured were beloved actors Catherine O'Hara, James Van Der Beek and Eric Dane, whose memories were celebrated during the emotional In Memoriam segment.
In Memoriam Montage Remembers Departed Stars
The awards ceremony's traditional In Memoriam tribute began by honouring James Van Der Beek, the Dawson's Creek star who died in February at age 48 following a diagnosis of colorectal cancer. The segment continued with a clip featuring Eric Dane, the acclaimed Grey's Anatomy actor who passed away on February 19 at age 53, less than one year after publicly revealing his ALS diagnosis. In the poignant footage, Dane could be heard saying, "Don't waste one single minute."
Catherine O'Hara, celebrated for her iconic roles in Home Alone and Schitt's Creek, was among the final celebrities honoured during the memorial montage. Multiple clips from her distinguished career played in tribute, coming just weeks after her unexpected death at age 71. The trio represented just a fraction of the dozens of late celebrities remembered during the segment, which also included tributes to Diane Keaton, Gene Hackman and Rob Reiner.
Posthumous Award and Heartfelt Acceptance Speech
Earlier in the evening, Catherine O'Hara posthumously received the Actor Award for Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her performance in The Studio, the Apple TV+ Hollywood satire starring Seth Rogen. In the series, O'Hara portrayed Patty Leigh, a former studio head who mentors Rogen's character Matt Remick.
Seth Rogen accepted the award on O'Hara's behalf, delivering an emotional speech that moved many audience members to tears. "I've been given the sad honor of accepting this award on O'Hara's behalf," Rogen began. "I know she would have been honored to receive this award from her fellow performers, who I know she respected so much. She was such big fans of all of yours."
Rogen reflected on his time working with O'Hara, highlighting her unique combination of kindness and professional excellence. "Something that I've just been marveling at over the last few weeks was really her ability to be generous and kind, while never ever minimizing her own ability to contribute to the work that we were doing," he shared. "She knew she could destroy, and she wanted to destroy every day on set."
Revealing Behind-the-Scenes Insights
The actor and creator offered a remarkable glimpse into O'Hara's creative process, revealing that she would frequently propose script revisions. "Pretty much every evening before she had a shooting day on our show, she would email me and [co-creator] Evan an email that always was pretty similar," Rogen explained. "It said: 'Hello, I hope you'll consider the following...' and then there would be a completely rewritten version of the scene she was in."
Remarkably, Rogen noted that "literally, 100% of the time, it made not just her character better, but it made the scene better and the entire show better as a whole." He emphasized that O'Hara "really showed that you can be a genius and be kind, and one of those things does not have to come at the expense of the other in any way, shape or form."
Rogen concluded his tribute with a heartfelt recommendation to share O'Hara's work with future generations. "If you have people in your lives that don't know her work, if there are kids in your lives, or just people who are out of touch or stupid or something, just show them O'Hara dancing to Harry Belafonte in Beetlejuice," he urged. "Show them O'Hara hurting her knee in Best in Show, doing that amazing thing where she hobbles around, and tell the people, as they are laughing, that that's Catherine O'Hara and we were lucky that we got to live in a world where she so generously shared her talents with us."
According to reports from last month, Catherine O'Hara's immediate cause of death was a pulmonary embolism, specifically a blood clot in her heart, with rectal cancer listed as the underlying cause. The Actor Awards ceremony served as both a celebration of her remarkable career and a touching farewell to her and other departed talents from the entertainment industry.
