Befitting a comedienne of her talents, Catherine O’Hara is many different things to fans of different generations. To most in her peer set and perhaps six or seven years in either direction, she’s best known as an award-winning writer and performer on SCTV, the influential sketch comedy show which started north of the border and eventually migrated to NBC. To plenty of younger fans, she’s Kate McCallister, the beleaguered matriarch of the Home Alone films. Urban cineastes and others probably know her best, meanwhile, from her four ensemble collaborations with multi-hyphenate Christopher Guest. And then, of course, family film fans will recognize her distinctive voice, from animated movies like Chicken Little, Over the Hedge, Monster House and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

That last title is also related to another thread or ribbon running through O’Hara’s filmography — her relationship with Tim Burton. She first worked with him on 1988’s groundbreaking Beetlejuice (and also met her husband, production designer Bo Welch, on the project), and then Nightmare, which was produced by Burton. Now, in Burton’s new stop motion-animated Frankenweenie, about a misunderstood boy who uses his love of science to re-animate his beloved, recently deceased dog, O’Hara voices three different characters. I recently had the chance to speak to the Canadian-born actress one-on-one, about Burton, Beetlejuice, Frankenweenie, how she muffed an audition to play Robert De Niro’s wife and, yes, even her thoughts on health care. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.