In 2020, Dan Levy appeared in HBO's Coastal Elites, a film made up of five direct-to-camera monologues filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Levy played Mark, a young gay actor who found himself constantly hiding his identity for his job. Levy explained to TV Guide that the role felt very close to home.

From a practical point of view, as Levy explained to Collider, this project was new territory. "I had never tackled anything quite like this," he confessed, referring to the five and a half page monologue. As he went on to explain, the project was "something that I instantly said yes to" because of the stellar cast and the "incredible challenge."

At first, Levy was daunted by the prospect of memorizing the mammoth speech. So, he took a pragmatic approach. "I sat down and I thought, 'Okay, how many days do I have? When do I want to actually be totally versed in this monologue by? Then, let's count back from that date.'" He ended up breaking the speech up into chunks and learning a section each day. Pretty smart if you ask us!