Eugene Levy is ‘The Reluctant Traveler’ — but he’s working on it, from South Africa to Japan

It might surprise anyone who has spent four-plus decades watching Eugene Levy in everything from “SCTV,” to movies including “American Pie” and “Best in Show,” to “Schitt’s Creek” to hear that he is shy.

“I’m just innately a shy person, always have been,” Levy said during a Zoom Q&A for the new Apple TV Plus show he hosts, “The Reluctant Traveler,” which debuts Feb. 24. “I’ve never been comfortable being in front of a camera as myself.”

That diffidence seems to be part of why the 76-year-old Canadian comedy legend has always been — and still is, to some extent — a reluctant traveller.

“I never loved travelling. I don’t love the airport experience. I’m not a fan of sightseeing generally … I don’t have a great sense of adventure. I’m not curious by nature,” Levy said during a different Q&A at the Television Critics Association press tour last month.

And he’s never been the type to spontaneously chat up the locals when travelling, thanks to his shyness, he added.

Yet, in “The Reluctant Traveler,” Levy ventures all over the world, interacting with all sorts of people and doing some things that raise those famously bushy eyebrows.

Such as? Taking a nighttime hike in the Costa Rican rainforest to see spiders and snakes.

“Talk about luck,” Levy deadpans when his guide tells him how lucky they are to have seen a highly venomous eyelash viper. “I guess it is thrilling to see a snake on a branch that could probably kill you in 45 minutes, that’s an interesting thing.”

Over eight episodes, Levy also visits: Finland; South Africa; the Maldives; Venice, Italy; Lisbon, Portugal; Tokyo; and Utah.

For the viewer, a big part of the enjoyment — aside from seeing beautiful hotels, stunning natural vistas and other urban sights — is seeing Levy’s reactions to them. Shy, sure, but he’s also inherently funny, especially when he’s clearly not thrilled about what he’s being asked to do.

“I don’t necessarily love every experience that I’m having on the show, but at least I’m trying it,” Levy said during the Apple TV Plus Q&A, during which journalists’ questions were posed by a moderator.

“Would I go on a night hike in Costa Rica again? I don’t think I need to do that. Would I go ice fishing in the Arctic? No, don’t think I need to do that. You know, I didn’t truly in my gut love what I was doing (in those cases), but I’m glad I did it.”

Driving a dog sled in Finland, on the other hand, was probably the most fun he had making the show.

“That was an exhilarating experience. That was quite amazing,” Levy said. “I’ll tell you what else was an amazing experience … feeding black rhinos, which are one of the most dangerous if not the most dangerous animal in Africa … through a slot in a fence.”

Before making “The Reluctant Traveler,” going to South Africa wouldn’t have been on his wish list.

“I didn’t really love the idea of going on safari … to see these animals that I’d already seen on TV. I know what they look like. Do I need to see them roaming around, you know, in a big field out there somewhere?” Levy said.

But his trip to Kruger National Park gave him a keen sense of the danger the animals are in, he said. And whereas he previously thought of rhinos as “the most ugly prehistoric-looking animals on the face of the Earth, after my experience in this rhino conservancy I actually thought they were just adorable.”

He was touched, too, by the people he met, saying he loved his conversations with them.

He singled out a member of the Navajo Nation he met in Utah, spending an evening stargazing with the young man, and another with him and his family. “They were absolutely lovely … and I had an insight into Indigenous people that I haven’t really had up to this point in my life.”

Of course, you might wonder how a man who, by his own admission, “spent my life really saying no to a lot of things,” got talked into saying yes to a travel show.

Levy did say no when he was first offered a series that would focus on hotels around the world but, in explaining how his disinterest in travel made him a bad fit for a travel show, he gave executive producer David Brindley another idea.

As Levy explained it to the television critics, he got on the phone with Brindley and an Apple executive to explain why he wasn’t their guy. “Every reason I was saying, ‘I’m not the person,’ I’d get a laugh on the other end of the phone and I’m thinking, ‘Well, good, this is working.’

“What I didn’t know until later was that after that call (David said) ‘That’s the show! Somebody who is not fond of travelling doing the travelling.’ So that was pitched to me and I said, ‘OK, all right, I get that.’ Nevertheless, I still had to deal with my own issues about actually fronting the show.”

Despite that discomfort with being himself on camera, Levy said he reveals more about himself on “The Reluctant Traveler” than ever before. “I’m a very kind of private person. But, you know, I’ve been kind of opening up and revealing my inner thoughts on this show.”

It’s all part of the personal growth he said he experienced making the series.

Yet, “I’m still a reluctant traveller, quite honestly,” Levy said. “I think it wouldn’t necessarily be a capital R … I’m still at a point where there’s things that I wouldn’t even sample, so I still have a ways to go.”

Debra Yeo is a deputy editor and a contributor to the Star’s Entertainment section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo

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