Eugene Levy tries calling a moose while in Sweden during Episode 1 of the second
season of The Reluctant Traveler. The episode premieres, Friday, March 8 on Apple
TV+.
By BERNICE FOX
The second season of The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy isn’t what Levy imagined it would be.
Pacific Palisades’ most recent honorary mayor says he was told the new season would be “Europe, north to south. I mean, I thought, wow, all the great cities.
“And then I found out exactly where they were going.”
Where the producers were taking him for these seven new episodes was mostly off the beaten path. Like moose calling in rural Sweden. But it wasn’t the moose that got to Levy there.
“There were some very uncomfortable things like mosquitoes, like a lot of mosquitoes, like it was a very thick season for mosquitoes. So, you really couldn’t enjoy being outside at all because you’re swatting a lot of the time.”
And the second season took him to a wellness hotel in Germany.
“Clear broth for breakfast and those shots of wheat grass. And that’s it. And for dinner, a bowl of broth and a piece of very stale bread, and that was it. And I’m not kidding.”
“You couldn’t get a cup of coffee there. You couldn’t get a glass of wine. You have to fast for three days, and it’s kind of a detox thing where people go and torture themselves and walk out of there feeling better.”
Levy found a different way to feel better.
“I actually had to cheat and go over to the hotel where the crew was staying to get an occasional cheeseburger.”
He also goes to France, Italy, Greece and Spain for the show’s second season.
But the location that brought out Levy’s emotions was Scotland.
“My mom was born in Glasgow and was born in a section of Glasgow called the Gorbals. And that was a very, very kind of tough working-class tenement situation.
“And I would ask her when I was kid, and she was talking about life was like when she was a kid because she left for Canada when she was 12. And I’d say, do you ever want to go back? You ever want to go back to Glasgow? And she’d say “no. No.” Because the Glasgow she knew was the Gorbals. She never saw the rest of the country. So, I never really had any desire to go back to Scotland even though that’s where my mom was from.”
Levy was glad he finally decided to visit his mom’s Scottish birthplace.
“The connection I actually felt as soon as I got to the country was very palpable, the connection to my family, to my mom and my mom’s family.
“She grew up in kind of a three-room apartment I guess where one of the rooms was a kitchen, small kitchen where they actually put beds. There were 11 people in that apartment where she grew up. She had nine brothers and sisters, parents, and a boarder, which was quite common to have a boarder to help cut the rent down. It was amazing. And I just made such a connection to that and to her being there that it was much more meaningful to me than I really ever thought it would be.
“It really put an emotional charge in me.”
As Levy says, that charge is deep.
“Family’s always been kind of a private thing, you know. Actually, doing it and being able to do this on-camera I think was good, you know? It was like a catharsis or something.”
In that Scotland episode, Levy dances while wearing a kilt with an official Jewish tartan.
“I didn’t know, honestly, there was such a thing. I didn’t know Jews had tartans, had their own tartan.”
That kilt came home with him.
“I do have the kilt. I haven’t worn it since I’ve been home. But, you know, I’m trying to figure out how to kind of put it in some kind of presentation or frame or whatever else that, that would kind of make it stand out. I really don’t want it sitting in a drawer. But if I put it in a glass case somewhere, when am I going to wear it? I don’t know. It’s, it’s a dilemma for me.”
Season two of The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy premieres Friday, March 8 on Apple TV+. The Sweden and Scotland episodes will play back-to-back on this first night. Single new episodes run each Friday after that until all seven have run.
Tied in with the new season, Levy will receive his previously announced star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March 8.
And Levy has another TV project in front of him. He’s joining his longtime pal, Palisadian Martin Short, in a recurring role on the upcoming fourth season of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building.
While in Scotland during Episode 2 of the second season of The Reluctant Traveler,
Eugene Levy dances in a kilt with the official Jewish tartan. The episode premieres
Friday, March 8 on Apple TV+.
My name is jeff. I live in Brentwood. My wife and I do Scottish country dancing. If Eugene likes, he could come to a class with us one night, and if he likes it there will be numerous opportunities for him to wear his kilt. He can reach me at
jeffaltmanpers@gmail.com
PS my wife and are also Jewish.