It’s been a looooong time since season one of the beloved drama series Severance premiered on Apple TV+. Ever since the mind-boggling finale of the first season, fans have been eagerly waiting for a second season. Now, three years later, Severance season two is just days away from dropping, but after such a gruelling wait for audiences, director Ben Stiller and lead actor Adam Scott admit they’re feeling the pressure to give the fans what they want after the immense success of season one.
When Severance first premiered in January 2022, viewers were instantly drawn in by the unique premise, incredible set design and the very human need to know what the fuck was actually going on. Little did fans of the hit series know that after the season one finale, they’d have to wait three whole years for an update on our beloved Innies.
For Stiller, who is one of two directors on the show, the most stressful thing wasn’t the wait, but creating a season worthy of the audience who have been waiting so patiently for season two.
“There was more pressure I think in terms of the idea of an audience waiting for the show that really loved the first season,” Stiller told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
“I think that was also kind of exciting, too, because it was just knowing there was an audience out there waiting to see the show, which you don’t always have.”
According to Scott, who plays the lead character Mark S, they’ve been pretty fortunate for the audiences’ faith in the show.
“We’re really, really lucky in that way,” Scott added.
“The audience has remained engaged and been very very patient over all this time.”
In case you’ve missed it, Severance follows a man named Mark S (Adam Scott) who lands a job with Lumon Industries, a world-leading biotech company which offers their staff the opportunity to have a procedure called severance, which surgically separates his memories from his outside life, from the life he leads when he’s at work.
After the death of his wife, Mark has been trapped in a cycle of grief and is looking for an escape. He opts in for the procedure, and now, every time he steps through the Lumon Industries doors, he has no memory of his outside life, only what is inside.
Without giving any spoilers, in season one, we discover that Lumon Industries is hiding a whole heap of sinister shit. In season two, we finally start to get some answers.
For Scott, playing Mark S has been a particularly challenging role because, well, he’s almost playing two characters in one.
“The biggest challenge has been figuring out and finding each side of the character. From the very beginning, it was important to all of us, to [screenwriter Dan Erickson] and Ben and I that it feels like the same guy, and have Mark S feel like two vastly different people, which could be an instinct for an actor to kind of go after and try and make them wildly different,” Scott explains.
“We were looking for kind of subtle differences, like how you behave differently if you’re with your family, or if you’re at a party with strangers like you. Everyone has a few different personas they work with out in the world. So we wanted it to be sort of an extreme version of that, where one of them has 40-odd years of life experience, and the other one is like, for all intents and purposes, like two and a half years old.”
As we wade into the uncertain waters of season two, audiences have a whole heap of questions, but one of the best things about Severance is how it doesn’t give us the answers on a silver platter. Instead, it gives us the clues and allows us to interpret it in our own way.
However, if you’re the type of person who just neeeeeeds to know what the creators, actors and directors were thinking, Stiller and Scott have you sorted.
The dynamic duo have launched The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott, a podcast which dissects each episode of the detailed show while adding fascinating behind-the-scenes tidbits with the cast, creators and crew who helped make the series come to life.
“We just thought it would be fun for us to be able to have something that we could talk about the process of making the show without spoiling it,” Stiller said.
“But also to have people from the show on, fans of the show on, and talk about what the experience of making the show, and trying to figure out the show is and just kind of connect with each other.
“I love podcasts and I think this is hopefully going to be a fun thing for people who are into the show, to be able to have another resource and place to go to share the experience.”
Severance season two premieres this Friday on Apple TV+. To get up to speed, you can watch season one of Severance on Apple TV+ now.
