Catherine O’Hara gushed she was ‘lucky to be alive’ in candid interview 2 years prior to death

Catherine O’Hara felt fortunate to be alive and continuing her iconic career, she said in an interview two years before her death.

“I’m lucky [I get] to keep doing things like this at my age — I can’t believe it,” she told Elle Canada in August 2024.

“Over the past few years, when I’ve gotten scared or nervous, or if I start grousing about something, I’ve tried to really practice turning it around and being grateful. Like, ‘How lucky are you right now to be alive? And then to have this opportunity right here in this moment?’”

O’Hara confessed that she was “nervous” about doing the cover shoot for the glossy mag, noting, “How crazy is it that at my age, I’m wearing these clothes and I’m lying over this pool?”

The “Schitt’s Creek” actress, who died suddenly at age 71 on Friday, also discussed feeling like “a freak” for allowing herself to age naturally in an industry famously centered on a youthful appearance.

“I do think of age, but otherwise, I rarely look in the mirror,” she confessed.

“I feel that now, stories about people my age usually have to do with death and divorce and disease. So I’m really fortunate [to] have people around me who respect aging people and who give me new experiences. I’d like to think that the kind of roles I’m getting to play now are roles that people are getting to play in life.”

She added, “I’m playing a studio head who becomes an independent producer [in ‘The Studio’] — how beautiful is it that someone my age is doing this? It’s the way it should be.”

TMZ was first to report the news of O’Hara’s death. CAA confirmed the news on Friday in a statement to Page Six.

“We are saddened to announce the passing of Catherine O’Hara,” the statement read.

A cause of death has yet to be publicly revealed.

The Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actress starred in several classic films over the years, including “Beetlejuice” in 1988, “Home Alone” in 1990, and a string of Christopher Guest mockumentaries, including “Waiting for Guffman” (1996) and “Best in Show” (2000).

O’Hara leaves behind husband Bob Welch, to whom she was married for 33 years, and their two sons, Matthew, 31, and Luke, 29.