How Dan Levy’s Very Real Grief Inspired His New Movie: ‘I Worried I Was Not Grieving Properly’ (Exclusive)

It was little more than 15 years ago when Dan Levy debuted as a host on MTV Canada. Back then, he was a stylish guy with cool glasses known as the son of Eugene Levy, the dad in American Pie. (Also back then: He launched his own line of eyewear.) Then in 2015 came a show called Schitt’s Creek about a formerly rich family exiled to a small, rural town.

Co-created by Levy, 40, and his dad and starring Eugene, 77, his sister Sarah, 37, and Catherine O’Hara, 69, it was a pandemic juggernaut that swept the Emmys in 2020 and launched Levy as a style and meme star. The gif of his TV sister saying, “Ew, David,” is still in heavy iPhone rotation.

“Folks would even scream from passing cars, out their windows at me, ‘Ew!’” Levy says with a laugh during a recent interview at a hotel in West Hollywood. He understands he might be mistaken for his Schitt's character David Rose for years to come. “If you create something that lives with people to the point where they forget who you are, I will never take offense to that.”

In his latest project, Levy moves into a new realm. With Good Grief, now on Netflix, Levy goes beyond Schitt’s Creeks’ theatre of the absurd and deep into the shadows of the bereft.

In the film, which he wrote, directed and stars in, Levy plays an artist who is getting over the death of his husband (played by Luke Evans) via a trip to Paris with his two best friends.

“As someone who’s single a lot, your friends are the loves of your life.” Levy says. “The friends I have are lifers. I love them dearly, to the point where I wrote a movie about that love and how it can save us in the hardest of times.”

Dealing with his own grief after the 2020 death of his grandmother, Patricia Divine, was a steep learning curve that Levy drew upon when writing the script.

“Grief is not really a language that we use often," he says. "You're lucky if you don't understand grief. I was asking a lot of questions: whether I was doing it properly or if I was feeling enough or if I was honoring the loss, the people,” he recalls. “And then my dog passed away.”

(The film is dedicated to Pat and Redmond, his grandmother and dog.)

"Grief is an overwhelming feeling for the human brain. It can almost short circuit the whole board." 

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

The double loss dovetailed with his 40th birthday.

“I had this belief that I had to have my life together by 40,” he explains. “And, as I explored in the movie, that’s simply an unrealistic expectation. We can talk about it, we can write about it, we can think about it, but nobody ever has their life together. And now I believe, if you had your life together you’d be an incredibly boring person.”

He pauses. “Time time goes on. Or doesn’t, according to Mariah Carey. And she’s one of the great philosophers of our time.”

Good Grief is now streaming on Netflix.