LOS ANGELES — When producers told him he was touring Europe in the second season of “The Reluctant Traveler,” Eugene Levy thought he’d be hitting the continent’s greatest cities.
Instead, says Executive Producer David Brindley, “we actually take Eugene very much off the beaten track.”
That means he’s in a wellness facility in Germany, a rain-soaked midsummer festival in Sweden and a working-class community in Scotland — that even his Scottish mother didn’t want to revisit.
Eugene Levy checks the flora in Sweden in "The Reluctant Traveler."
“If you were to ask me, ‘In your dream, what country in the world are you just dying to get to?’ I’d say I don’t know because there isn’t one place I’m dying to get to,” Levy says. The thrill of agreeing to a series like this hinges on the adventure that it offers.
“It makes me a more enlightened person and, possibly, a more interesting person … and I love my interaction with the people. They really make these trips memorable for me.”
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The lodging? Not so much. In Germany, the “Schitt’s Creek” star stays in a wellness facility where he drank clear broth and had a piece of “very stale bread” for dinner. “I actually had to cheat and go over to the hotel where the crew was staying to get an occasional cheeseburger,” he says.
Eugene Levy travels around the world in "The Reluctant Traveler."
Because Brindley doesn’t elaborate, Levy often learns about the itinerary just before it happens.
“If I was on my own and somebody said, ‘Hey, you want to go to the Philippines or India or something?’ I’d probably say, ‘You know what? Maybe not this year,’” Levy says. “It wouldn’t get me out of the house. But the fact that the show actually gets me out of the house to kind of experience this, there’s a lot that I truly enjoy.”
The Emmy winner also found he felt sorry for residents in some parts of the world. In Sweden, for example, it was “a very thick season for mosquitoes. You really couldn’t enjoy being outside at all because you’re swatting a lot of the time.”
At a midsummer festival there, it poured and the locals who were dressed in elaborate costumes were drenched. “You would never know anything was wrong because they were as enthusiastic as they would have been if there had been no rain and the sun was shining,” Levy says.
That kind of surprise proved transformational, Brindley says.
Rain didn't dampen the enthusiasm in Sweden when Eugene Levy visit in "The Reluctant Traveler."
“Basically, you’re playing in the rain,” Levy says.
In Scotland, where his mother was born, Levy had a moment that only someone like Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. could prompt. “The connection I actually felt as soon as I got to the country was very palpable,” he says. While his mother’s home is no longer standing, he could sense the kind of life she had. “She never talked about how bad it was, how crowded it was. It really put an emotional charge in me and I’m glad I did it.”
Like “Finding Your Roots,” “The Reluctant Traveler” afforded Brindley an opportunity to tell Levy’s biographical story. “He’s not somebody who does huge amounts of interviews about his innermost thinking,” Brindley says. “To be there at that moment, it feels quite special.”
“I’ve always had a strong appreciation for family,” Levy says. “I don’t have to be away to appreciate and understand what’s going on here. I just relate to it right away.”
And the food? German broth aside, the reluctant traveler says he found haggis horrible. “It’s every part of an animal’s body that you would not want in a recipe.”
Eugene Levy tries his hand at dancing in Scotland -- and he gets a kilt.
The best? “I love Italian food and every single thing at the hotel (in Tuscany) where we were staying was exceptionally great. I really hated to leave there because you got so excited every day about a meal.”
“The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy,” season two, begins March 8 on AppleTV+.
Bruce Miller is editor of the Sioux City Journal.
