Eugene Levy, very gingerly, explores world for travel show
NEW YORK ( AP) — There are celebrities with TV travel shows who just can’t wait to show you where they came from or push the limits of their bodies or go out of their way to locate a perfect recipe. Then there’s Eugene Levy.
The “Schitt’s Creek” star admits he’s not really a fan of the cold or the heat. He doesn’t really like eating strange things and, well, insects freak him out. He’d rather stay home, to be honest.
“Not only do I not love traveling, I’ve got a very low sense of curiosity,” he
says during an interview. “I do not have an adventurous spirit. And I’m actually thinking, well, aren’t those things you need to host a travel show?”
Not necessarily, and so welcome, to Apple TV+’s “The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy,” the unlikely wedding of a droll and cautious host with some of the most beautiful places on Earth.
During the eight-episode series, Levy swims in a frozen lake in Finland, walks around slot canyons in Utah and explores a rainforest in Costa Rica. He also
visits Italy, Japan, the Maldives, Portugal and South Africa, even going on safari and enjoying a gin and tonic as he does.
The more uncomfortable he seems, the funnier the show becomes. “I’m the more Great Indoors type of guy,” he jokes to his guide in a forest in Costa Rica brimming with thousands of species of animals, what he calls “all those tiny threats to life.” While ice fishing in Finland, he notes drily: “Hearty and resilient are two words that have never been used to describe me.”
“I’m hoping this ap
peals to seasoned travelers that might watch this and chuckle,” he says later in the interview. “But also to people who, like me, don’t travel extensively, are not fond of traveling, don’t have that sense of adventure, so to speak — that they will see me as a kindred spirit.”
“The Reluctant Traveler” was initially a show pitched as a way to feature hotels with remarkable views that morphed into one which really shines when Levy leaves them to go into the culture he’s visiting and is changed.