Eugene Levy Just Wants to Relax on Vacation
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By his own description, Eugene Levy is not particularly adventurous. He doesn't like to travel. He's not curious about the world. He hates airports. He jokes he's more of a "Great Indoors type of guy."
All that said, somehow, Levy is the host of The Reluctant Traveler, a brand-new travel show now streaming on Apple TV+ that sees the Canadian comedian visiting Finland, South Africa, Portugal, and Japan, among other locations. In each episode, Levy stays at a luxurious hotel, and is gently pushed out of his comfort zone by eager local guides and kind hotel managers.
Levy initially turned down a pitch to host an Apple TV+ show about hotels. But, when executive producer David Brindley and Apple executive Alison Kirkham got on the phone with him, and Levy started explaining why he's wrong for the job, a new idea blossomed. His reluctance led them to pitch him a different angle: a travel show about somebody who doesn't like to travel, to which Levy (reluctantly) agreed.
There are few activities that Levy is enthusiastic about over the course of The Reluctant Traveler—except when it comes to food he knows he likes. "Mention the word deli and I get excited," Levy tells Town & Country over Zoom.
Over the course of our conversation, Levy reveals his thoughts on what makes for a relaxing vacation, planning his trips around comfort food, and why there's nowhere in the world he really wants to go next.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
What makes you the most reluctant about travel?
I'd like to say airports. I'd love to say security. It's always the scariest thing in the world when you go into security, and you see a line that's eight miles long. Then it's off with the shoes, off with the watch, and off with your laptop and your coat. It's not a pleasant experience. The most irritating thing, especially these days, is being on the plane and having somebody behind you having a coughing fit or sneezing. I would always take my hand, and cover my water glass.
We're still in the pandemic. Any place I go, literally, my wife and I are the only ones still wearing masks. Just recently, in the last couple of weeks, we started eating in indoors, but making sure we're kind of away or in a corner or whatever. I was at the BAFTA Awards in London, and nobody was in a mask except me in the theater. What are you going to do?
What else? It's having to do things that you'd rather not be doing necessarily, like the sightseeing things. There are some things you actually like to do, but normally, there's too much on the agenda. I don't truly enjoy it. I'm doing stuff, but am I truly enjoying it and finding it exciting? No. It's something you feel you have to do. The reluctance part of it is not so much you hating to do something, it's just how much true enjoyment are you getting out of it.
When you have a list of things that you have to do to get through a day when you're on vacation, it's not as relaxing and enjoyable as, let's say, wandering around yourself and then spending as much time or as little time as you want to do it. You shouldn't have to be on a clock when you're on vacation.
How did you handle the schedule of activities you had to do on The Reluctant Traveler?
Well, that is the show, so I understand that. The show is about providing me experiences that I wouldn't normally be able to participate in if I was just traveling on my own. I get how that's special. I love being able to have conversations with people like the architects and the builders of these great hotels, and being able to talk to the chefs who operate in these places... That's interesting conversation for me. I'm getting an opportunity to try these things. Some of them I truly find enjoyable and I like a great deal. And others...I wouldn't want to do it again.
Trying it and then forming an opinion, I think, is better than not trying it and forming your opinion based on no experience. That's where I was at before, kind of. The show is doing better things for me as a person because of it. I'm coming out of the shell, a little bit. I'm still not a big traveler. Honestly, I'm not there yet. I still don't love traveling. But I think the fact that I'm trying things because of this show is actually making me a slightly more enlightened person than I was.
One of my favorite scenes in the show was when you find an egg sandwich in Tokyo. How do you navigate travel as a bit of a picky eater?
Food would dictate why I wanted to go to a place or why I wouldn't, to be honest. I was excited to go to Venice on this thing, because I love Italy because you know you can't get a bad meal. Can't get a bad meal in Italy! Tokyo, I was not looking forward to the food because I don't eat sushi. If you're going to give me some fish, grill it. But the surprise was, and I heard this from my son, the best egg salad he ever had was in Tokyo. So I had to look that up.
I wasn't looking forward to Finland because I knew there was something gamey about the diet there—reindeer mostly, which is the most popular meat that you can get in Finland. I wasn't looking forward to that.
If you know you're getting a good meal, you can get through the day a little easier—if you know that's what's waiting for you at the end of the day. When you're not too sure about what the food is going to be... I don't have an exotic palette, I gotta be honest. That's one of the things that comes out of the show. I like basic stuff. I like comfort food. I like a good steak. I like pasta. Food's a big part of it.
Travel is having a big moment on television—one that maybe began with the Rosebud Motel on Schitt’s Creek. Would you ever want to take part in a show like the White Lotus, for example, or do another show set at a fictional hotel?
It's more fun being in a real hotel and not working, rather than working in a hotel—because you're just working and you don't get to experience the hotel. But the idea of maybe doing a show on a location, like The White Lotus basically on a beach...lovely, gorgeous show, I think would be great. But again, do you have any time to truly enjoy it? While you're working, that's the thing. It always looks like fun, but you're working. I'd much rather actually be in the hotel, sleeping in.
When you're working, you can be working in a hotel or you can be working in a ball bearing factory! I mean, it doesn't matter. You still have to go to work. You don't truly get to enjoy it.
Out of all the hotels you stay at in this season, are there any that are at the top of your list to return to for a real vacation?
In the Maldives, we were at Kudadoo, fantastic resort. Just took forever to get there. So I would love to go back, if it wasn't a 22-hour trip. That was an amazing hotel. The Gritty Palace in Venice, an amazing hotel. I would love to go back there. I would go back to a lot of these places. Mostly the hotels that were in cities, because at least you're going back and you're in a city and you know you're going to have a great meal. And the food in the hotel is probably really good.
But the tented tree camp in Costa Rica [Nayara Tented Camp Hotel], as pleasant as they made that, I don't know whether I would go back. I don't know whether I go back to South Africa. I'm more city—I lean more city than country.
If you come back for a second season, what would be top of your list to go to next?
There is no place.
Nowhere in the world?!
No, there's no place that's at the top of my list because I, again, I don't have that, "I would love to see this country." I'm not there yet. I'm not there in terms of, "Well, I'd love to travel here and explore this country." There's not one place that I think I would love. Maybe something in the South Pacific, but again, we're leaning beach resort where you don't necessarily need a dozen things you have to go and see. You can truly relax in the sand on the beach. And that's a fun trip. That's a fun vacation, because you're truly relaxing, which is something you don't always get a chance to do in real life, when you're working in your everyday life. And, I'm sure it's quite beautiful. The Maldives showed me a side of the world that was absolutely gorgeous to look at. Certainly, from the air—I mean, I've seen colors that I've never seen before, on the water. So that might be a possibility, I would say.
I hope you get to take a true, real vacation on the beach soon.
I would love to. It is something I would love to do: A good real vacation where you can truly relax, do what you want when you want.
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