What is Adam Scott thinking?
Adam Scott is of two minds in Apple TV+'s new office thriller Severance: His character has undergone a surgical procedure that blocks him from remembering his home life at work — and vice versa. "I think of it as sort of a workplace sci-fi dramedy," he tells EW. "But it's also suspenseful and, similarly to the characters, bifurcated in a way between genres."
Thief and anchor of scenes, the Parks and Recreation alum stars as Mark Scout, a former history professor whose wife died a few years ago in a car accident, prompting him to seek refuge/denial in an ill-defined job at an oblique corporation named Lumon Industries. "He's endured tragedy and has not handled it particularly well," says Scott. "By choice, he doesn't want to move on. He's angry that this happened and doesn't see a way out. Rather than sit in his circumstances, he's chosen to check out for eight to 10 hours a day and just not be there, and he's found that that works for him. And hasn't really given it much thought beyond that, as far as the potential moral implications or ethical implications of doing this."
What exactly are these severed employees working on? The audience is as clueless as Lumon's workers. "These people know absolutely nothing else other than these tasks they're given by the company," says Scott. "But if they really stop, and if the question is asked, 'What is it do you think you are doing?' all they have are their own theories. As far as why the company is doing this, if they have a bigger a plan for all of this and their ability to do this to people, that's kind of a question that is just left hanging for those first few episodes."
And this kind of trippy crypto-corpo mystery that manufactures question marks in bulk registered a big fat exclamation point in Scott's mind. "I'm a sucker for big, mind-twisty ideas," he says. "And this was a new idea, something I hadn't seen explored before — and [it was] a chance to play a character that ends up getting split in half. If you could start over from scratch, what would you be like without any of the crap that's been thrown on top of you? How much of the crap that has gathered through your years would you carry with you no matter what? What would your personality be like if you had no knowledge of your circumstances? The big sci-fi world that Dan [Erickson] has created was super interesting. Also, I love working with Ben [Stiller, executive producer/director], and I would do anything with him."
That do-anything spirit had us wondering: What if we simulated a severance procedure on Scott himself, minus the surgery? Below, Scott reveals his own bifurcated thought process.
Wilson Webb/Apple TV +
Adam's work-life brain is thinking about…
BE PUNCTUAL!
"Gotta be on time! Being late costs someone money, but more importantly, it stresses everybody out. I learned early on that punctuality is key. Keeping the train running on time is incredibly important. When I was starting out, I had a guest spot on a show, and I woke up two hours late and it was like a fever dream. Everyone hated my guts. Maybe it's just post-traumatic stress disorder having to do with that early memory, but now if I'm late at all, I start sweating and feeling like the biggest asshole."
HAVE GOOD POSTURE!
"My posture is something I've always been self-conscious about and am trying to watch. Once the cameras are rolling, I forget about it; then I watch it and I'm like, 'Jesus Christ, I look like I'm hunching over to grab something!' I was finally able to let go of that and just let that happen with the outie. and with the innie, I was trying to get rid of all of that — take something that annoys me about myself and I kind of hate about myself and just erase it."
PUT AWAY WARDROBE!
"I'm fastidious about hanging my wardrobe up at the end of the day. I've seen wardrobe thrown onto the floor, but there's someone in the wardrobe department who's exactly as, if not more, tired than you are who's going to have to pick it up. That's not fun."
"FACE" YOUR COWORKERS!
"Working during COVID is weird, because you're on the set for nine months with a group of people and you've never seen the lower half of their face. I found myself creating the bottom half of people's faces and approximating what they must look like. Then I would see someone in the parking lot without their mask, and it was like, 'Ulllchhh.' It was seeing their genitalia or something. It was like this wet opening on their face."
LOCATE SNACKS
"Where's my next snack coming from? What is it going to be? And what's the quality level of that snack? If I just have a gently constant supply of snacks, I'm good to go for 15 hours. Apples and peanut butter [are ideal]. If the apples are cold and crisp, I'm all in. If they're warm and mealy, I may as well just starve myself."
Adam's home-life brain is thinking about…
GET THE FAMILY OUTSIDE!
"Are we spending enough time outside? I have this guilt left over from being a kid and all I wanted to do was watch television, but my parents were always like, 'Go outside.' I'm constantly telling my kids, 'You gotta get outside.' And if they ask me why, I wouldn't have an answer, because I'd rather be inside watching TV as well. We go around on electric bikes and we're like the world's most embarrassing biker gang."
LOCATE AIRPODS!
"I listen to a s---load of audio books, and I have AirPods in my pocket at all times. If one's not in my ear, it's close by, so I can just get back into one more book that's telling me how terrible Trump was. They have to be charged and they have to be nearby, or a cold sweat will start dripping down my face."
TALK TO PASSERS-BY!
"I'm just constantly baffled that fans are able to recognize me with a mask on. Since the pandemic, I have been a little more starved for human contact, whereas before, by a certain time of day, I'd have enough human contact for a day now. But now if someone comes up to me, I'm like, 'Oh, I can have a chat with another person! How novel!' The tables have turned, and it ends up being me accosting them."
FIGURE OUT WHAT YOUR KIDS ARE DOING!
"My kids are both teenagers now, so it's a whole new weird world where we eat dinner and watch a Stranger Things episode, and then they're like, 'Later,' and they go into their rooms and we do not see them until we have to yell at them to go to bed four hours later. They go into those rooms and they're in there for hours just happy as clams. And to us, it's just this mystery as to: 'What the hell are they doing in there?' "
CLEAN UP RABBIT DROPPINGS!
"Rabbits poop all over my lawn. Our two dogs eat this poop and it makes them sick. I go out a couple times a week with a hand vac, hunching over for half an hour, vacuuming up rabbit poop. I look like an insane person. My family does literally think I'm insane. But our dogs aren't getting sick anymore. If I even think of the shape of rabbit poop, it makes me Pavlovianly want to reach for a hand vac. I even have a hand vac just to keep in the backyard, to have ready anytime to get the rabbit poop. It's an obsession. And it's terrible for my posture."
Apple TV +
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