Why Patricia Arquette feels 'out of control' on Severance , and Adam Scott thinks the finale 'was the right spot'
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Patricia Arquette says there's a lot of "blind faith" at play as an actor on the Apple TV+ drama Severance — not just because she "[does] not really know where we're going with this… I've intentionally not wanted to know," she tells EW on the latest episode of The Awardist podcast, but also because she doesn't want to "spill the beans accidentally" during interviews.
But Arquette and her costar Adam Scott do get into the nuts and bolts of their acclaimed and mysterious series from creator Dan Erickson and executive producer/director Ben Stiller. All is not as it seems on the show, which explores the inner (and outer) workings of a company where employees sever their connection to their personal life when they enter work, and vice versa when they leave. "I feel, as an actor on this project, I'm very out of control," Arquette admits.
And the season left viewers wanting more. But that twisted ending wasn't always the end. "It shifted around a bit. I don't know what I should or shouldn't say," Scott says. "I know that at one point it ended further along than where it ends. I think this was the perfect place to end it. I think Dan and Ben went back and forth [with] a few different ideas, a few different places. But I think this was the right spot."
HBO; Apple TV + (2) Jon Bernthal, Adam Scott, and Patricia Arquette join EW's 'The Awardist' podcast
And if that's not enough drama for you, Jon Bernthal is our other guest, discussing his new series We Own This City, based on the true story about corruption within Baltimore PD's Gun Trace Task Force. The HBO limited series hails from George Pelecanos and David Simon, the latter of whom created The Wire, another Baltimore-set series (this one fictional) examining the police department and its interactions with the city at large.
In We Own This City, Bernthal (The Walking Dead, The Punisher) plays Wayne Jenkins, a sergeant and task force member whose institutional and moral corruption caught up with him.
"What I think influenced me more and was most helpful was really getting to know the people that knew him really well," Bernthal says of Jenkins, whom he met in federal prison. "I often think there's that age-old adage, you really find out about a character, about a human being, by what everybody says about them, not by what they say about themselves. Look, my conversations with Wayne, if I'm being completely honest, were very manipulative. I felt like he was always playing me, always trying to find… which was super informative. But he is actively… there's something about Wayne that never shuts off. He's always playing an angle. Even from prison he was trying to convince me of his innocence and then convince me of other people's guilt. And then he was explaining why he did what he did."
You can hear the full interviews with Bernthal, Scott, and Arquette in the podcast below. EW's head of audio and social, Chanelle Johnson, is guest host, and we also discuss how social media plays an integral part of Emmy campaigns. Plus, Chanelle shares her dream pick for a nomination.
Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV.
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