‘What if this doesn't work?' The ‘Severance' cast reflects on Season 2's biggest swings

Los Angeles Times

2 days ago

On Feb. 18, 2022, Apple TV+ unveiled 'Severance,' a striking new series set at Lumon Industries, a mysterious biotech company whose employees in the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) division have undergone a procedure in which their at-work consciousness (known as their 'innie') is 'severed' from their personal-life consciousness (their 'outie'). Over the next two months, audiences obsessed over the show's seductive examination of work-life balance and the different guises we wear throughout the day. Then the series went on an agonizingly long hiatus — and not just for fans.
'Our No. 1 concern was people sticking with us after a three-year break,' admits star and producer Adam Scott. 'We stopped shooting about a year ago — I've been spending all of that time either watching cuts of the show or discussing the show with [executive producer] Ben [Stiller] and [creator] Dan [Erickson]. 'Severance' is a constant in all of our lives. Whether we're shooting or not, we're always in close contact talking about it.'
That angst is apparent when I speak to Patricia Arquette, who plays Lumon's icy, menacing Harmony Cobel, the day of the shocking Season 2 finale. 'How's it going?' she asks excitedly about the online response. Relieved that fans hail 'Severance's' sophomore run as more provocative and moving than ever, she confesses, 'I was scared of some of the risks [the creative team] were taking: 'What if this doesn't work?' They really didn't sit on their laurels from the first year's success — they took a lot more chances in the second year.'
Because of the outsize anticipation, initial reports of delays and extensive rewrites on Season 2 created worries that the series' intricate narrative puzzle might implode. Scott dismisses those reports now that audiences have seen the finished product. 'It's a unique show,' he says, 'and in Season 1 we were figuring out what it was as we were doing it. In Season 2, the show was changing and expanding — we were figuring out what it was all over again because it was important to all of us that it not feel the same. Sometimes it takes a while.'
Certainly, the show's emotional stakes are raised. Dichen Lachman, who plays Ms. Casey/Gemma, is especially proud of this season's heartbreaking seventh episode, 'Chikhai Bardo,' which flashes back to Mark and Gemma's once-blissful time as husband and wife, their relationship affected by miscarriages and IVF treatments. Lachman felt responsible for ensuring 'Severance' properly conveyed the anguish of infertility issues.
'I have not been through the process of IVF, but I just know [from] speaking to my friends how difficult that is,' she says. Without getting into specifics, she says, 'I've had things happen. It is very shocking — you do think that there's something wrong with you. It's a difficult thing to talk about — and it's very difficult, I think, for a man to understand it on the same level as a woman.'
The actors' personal experiences informed the season in other ways. John Turturro's older brother, Ralph, died in December 2022. 'It was hard to go back to work,' says the actor, who plays Mark's Lumon co-worker Irving. But something shifted once the cast headed into the freezing wilderness for 'Woe's Hollow,' an episode that finds the MDR division engaged in a bizarre team-building exercise.
'When I was up in the mountains, it just felt like I was invigorated,' Turturro recalls. 'It was also arduous, being in the snow — [my character] had a lot to do and I was very active. But along the way, I felt myself being able to incorporate it. You're surrounded by trees and snow, and it was beautiful. You could contemplate a little bit and look out at the sky. I was appreciative of that.'
For Tramell Tillman, whose breakthrough performance as the eerily formal Lumon manager Mr. Milchick was among the first season's revelations, the series' central themes — especially the unknowability of one's 'true' self — continue to hit home.
Reflecting on his journey to come out as gay — he was raised Baptist — Tillman says, 'I've always admired people that were consistently the same, no matter the circumstance. I think me being able to become a chameleon is just a condition of growing up and who I am — that kind of malleability has afforded me a lot of opportunities. But I never as an adult walked away from the true essence of who I am — I never wanted to step away from my values. That took a while for me to learn: What is it that I believe in?'
Living multiple lives is also something Zach Cherry, who provides both comic relief and pathos as fellow data refiner Dylan, understands. The actor long knew he wanted to be a performer, but initially he had to get a day job.
'I was an office manager,' he says. 'It wasn't quite as distinct as the innie/outie, but they didn't know that I was doing comedy every night. I wasn't that version of myself [at work] — I was compartmentalized in that sense, so that informed what I did on this show.' Cherry was at the job 'for quite a few years,' but where other actors are quick to dismiss their earlier 9-to-5 gigs, he proudly declares, 'It was a job that I did enjoy. I was good at it! But it very much was not my passion.'
Since this season's finale, which sees Mark abandon his outie's wife, Gemma, to run away with the anarchic Helly, Britt Lower, who plays the character, has observed fans' impassioned response to that cliffhanger. But she won't answer a question many viewers have: What, exactly, is Helly thinking when she looks at Gemma just before she and Mark escape? Does she feel bad for Gemma? Or is she feeling triumphant that Mark chose her?
'It's a Rorschach test of how it resonates with a viewer based on their own experience,' Lower says of her character's neutral expression. 'I would never want to rob someone of their interpretation. I will say that a woman simply looking across the hall at another woman can be interpreted in so many ways.'
As for what awaits viewers in Season 3, the 'Severance' castmates are uniform in revealing nothing. 'I'm just excited to see where they go,' Lower says. 'For the time being, it's really fun to let my imagination run wild.' Throughout her career, she has taken to drawing to help enter the headspace of the characters she's played — has she done any sketches about what Helly's future might look like?
Lower sparks to that suggestion. 'Not yet,' she replies, 'but maybe next time we talk, I'll have some drawings to show you.'