17 "Severance" Behind-The-Scenes Facts That Adam Scott And The Rest Of The Cast Just Revealed
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
To celebrate Severance and their 14 Emmy Award nominations for Season 1, we sat down with Adam Scott (Mark), Britt Lower (Helly), Jen Tullock (Devon), Tramell Tillman (Milchick), Dichen Lachman (Ms. Casey), creator Dan Erickson, and director and executive producer Ben Stiller to chat about what went into crafting this incredible season of television.
Here's everything we learned:
🚨There are MASSIVE spoilers ahead for Season 1, so if you haven't finished, you might want to come back later.🚨
1.First, the cast and crew spent a year and a half filming Season 1, and they often wondered if the biggest plot twists would land with an audience. So, once the show started airing, they were incredibly excited that fans loved it as much as they did.
Ben Stiller explained to BuzzFeed that they hoped audiences would think "this is cool" when they finally got to see the show, but they really had no idea if the series would even strike a chord with viewers. Adam recalled calling Ben after the show started airing and being so excited that people cared about the characters and the stories.
2.Ben Stiller recalled that he realized the show had found an audience when he overheard someone in real life saying "innie and outie" to one of their friends while explaining Severance.
"I was saying 'innie and outie' for two years, and nobody knew what I meant," Ben joked. "The first time I heard somebody say, 'His innie,' I was like, Oh my god, they're saying innie!"
3.The casting process for Severance was "long," and prior to auditioning actors, Dan Erickson and Ben Stiller had discussed each character so in depth that they had "some very specific ideas" going into the process. However, they also wanted to be "surprised" and discover new things based on what the performers brought to the roles.
Dan described the casting process for the show as "wild and vulnerable and beautiful." He continued, saying, "To have somebody who's lived in your head for years suddenly become real and become fleshed out, this improved version of this character that you've been thinking of, was pretty surreal."
4.Severance has a ton of mind-blowing twists in its first season, and Jen Tullock, who plays Devon, made the decision not to know any of the big surprises since her character only exists outside of Lumon.
"My character is on the outside world the entire time, so I thought I didn't need to be privy to what was happening on the inside if she wasn't. So, I kind of intentionally kept myself away from the buttons on some of the storylines towards the end of the season," Jen said. "I watched it with friends for the first time and there were a couple of twists where I was like, 'OH!' because I didn't know."
5.When it came to playing both the innie and outie versions of their characters, Britt Lower, who plays Helly, explained that she approached it as showcasing "the duality of a single person."
"The innie is kind of this raw material that hasn't been affected by years of memories and the stories that we tell ourselves. And my outie is much more seen in a presentational scenario, so she's much more aware that people are looking at her," Britt began. "Whereas innie Helly doesn't really care what anybody thinks, so she's got that teenage angst. I sort of tapped into the rebellion of being a teenager."
6.Britt Lower revealed that she has a Helly "graphic novel" where she drew pictures on her wall so she could keep track of Helly's storyline throughout Season 1, since they filmed out of order.
She said, "I drew little pictures of Helly's action scenes, so I could go, Oh, I've smashed through a window here, and then I ran down a hallway."
7.For Adam Scott, he always thought about playing Mark's innie and outie selves as two different characters. In fact, what helped Adam navigate playing these two roles that are different but still connected was when Ben Stiller told him a story about how Michael Keaton approached playing the duplicates of his character in the 1996 film Multiplicity.
Adam recalled, "I remember Ben telling me a story about visiting Michael Keaton on the set of Multiplicity and seeing that he had a whiteboard or something like charts because he played like seven different versions of the same character in that movie. So, he had a chart with a diagram of where each version of the character was at a different point."
8.The cast and crew filmed Season 1 out of order like a movie. So, instead of filming episode by episode, which is usually standard for TV productions, they filmed pieces of episodes each day. Ben Stiller explained that this made it even more challenging for the actors to keep track of where their characters were in this complex story.
He elaborated, saying, "They had to sometimes, on one day, do parts of episodes from like three or four different episodes and have to be jumping around and [know] where they were and if they were an innie or an outie. It was really, really very challenging [for them]."
9.The cast felt very lucky to have Ben Stiller as a director on the series because of his experience as an actor. Dichen Lachman, who plays Ms. Casey, explained that Ben really took his time and wanted to try as many different options when it came to developing the characters, which is different than how some other directors work.
Dichen elaborated, saying, "It just felt like a different experience. Usually when you work, it's just like go, go, go. And obviously they had days like that, but to really have the liberties and take so much time and try so many things to get Ms. Casey right was such a blessing."
10.Dichen Lachman said that she found out the big Ms. Casey/Gemma twist right at the beginning. Not only was she "fortunate" enough to read all the scripts at once, but during the audition process, Ben Stiller actually told her about the twist.
"He was very reluctant to tell me because when we met, it was still up in the air whether I was going to be able to do it or not," Dichen said.
11.Britt Lower explained that it was wild to film the Lumon gala in the Season 1 finale, where we learn that Helly's outie is actually an Eagan, mostly because the set was filled with just massive pictures of herself. She said she used the "shock" of being on that set to help inform her performance.
She joked, "I can't quite describe what it's like to walk into a room where there's like 54 images of you spinning on giant cubes. I actually felt a bit nauseous when I walked into the room that morning. We were joking that's it's either an actress's greatest fantasy or their worst nightmare, or both at the same time. I was kind of using that shock, that literal shock of seeing myself so much, because that's what's happening with Helly as well. That whole scene was choreographed so beautifully with the camera movement, and just literally all the moving pieces of the set design."
12.Jen Tullock revealed that filming her scenes in Season 1 opposite Patricia Arquette were some of the best moments for her. She was incredibly nervous and was just in awe of getting to work with Patricia.
![<div><p>"I think I was physically trembling to the point where I was trying to steady my own leg under the table in [one] scene. I was like, <i>Just use it Tullock, don't be weird,</i>" Jen joked. "She's just such a brilliant artist, no two takes felt the same. She's incredibly generous. She listens. She's such a badass gal. I really felt very lucky that I get to be in any scenes with her at all."</p></div><span> Apple TV+</span>](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/6Fi.1TfC___SSy.arcTgfg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTgyMw--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/buzzfeed_articles_778/9ad3e8f15755f3e20e505ced78c55e0a)
"I think I was physically trembling to the point where I was trying to steady my own leg under the table in [one] scene. I was like, Just use it Tullock, don't be weird," Jen joked. "She's just such a brilliant artist, no two takes felt the same. She's incredibly generous. She listens. She's such a badass gal. I really felt very lucky that I get to be in any scenes with her at all."
13.When it came to filming the huge cliffhanger at the end of Season 1, Adam Scott said they filmed Mark's run and screaming moment "quite a bit" to ensure that they got it just right.
"It was just a matter of trying to go for it and turn it up to 11 every time. It was really fun," Adam said.
14.Britt Lower's favorite behind-the-scenes memory from filming Season 1 involved a chicken randomly walking onto their set in the Bronx. Even better was a lot of the cast didn't know this happened.
Britt joked that the chicken walked onto set and "spent the afternoon hanging in the office" and that the chicken was so "friendly" it spent some time "sitting on the sound guy's shoulder."
15.Meanwhile, Tramell Tillman's favorite behind-the-scenes memory was when he filmed "the kind eyes scene" opposite Adam, because "it was the first time that season that [he] broke character."
Tramell explained that Adam got him to start laughing and once that happened, he couldn't stop.
16.One of Jen Tullock and Dan Erickson's favorite scenes to film in Season 1 was the "non-dinner dinner party." It took "a night and a half" to film the whole moment and it was just an experience to watch those actors act "this ridiculous event," according to Dan.
"It's such an incredible group of actors," Jen added. "They were rad."
17.And finally, looking back at Season 1, a scene that creator Dan Erickson is most proud of is the music dance experience.
"It was just glorious in every single way," Dan said.
Check out our full video with Adam, Ben, Britt, Jen, Dan, Tramell, and Dichen below!
Severance is streaming now on Apple TV+.
More on Severance:
Severance "Severance" Season 1 Was Filmed Out Of Order, Like A Movie, Plus 24 More Facts You Might Not Know, But ShouldNora Dominick · July 22, 2022
9 "Severance" Questions I Need Answered In Season 2JakeFarrington · April 16, 2022
