Transcript of S1E1: Good News About Hell (with Dan Erickson and Jackie Cohn)

This episode of the Severance podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott is brought to you by Confluence by Atlassian, the connected workspace where teams can create, organize, and deliver work like never before. Set knowledge free with Confluence.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Severance podcast, a breakdown of every episode of Severance. This is episode one where we're going to talk about the pilot of Severance, Good News About Hell.

I'm just so excited we're doing this. Me, too.

You are Ben Stiller. You are the executive producer and director of Severance.

And you are Adam Scott, the star and one of the producers also, and the living heartbeat of the show. You are. Okay. Here we are talking about this thing that we've been working on for a long time.

It's so weird because we've been talking about it and working so hard on this for so long and to be standing back and actually getting some perspective on the show like this. It's really actually great to do this.

Yeah. It's really interesting also to go back and actually have to think about what we have done from the beginning and how it's progressed because it's been a long time. It's been a sizable chunk of our lives.

Yes, because you first reached out to me about it in January of 2017.

That's right. To actually go back and check emails and talk to people who worked on the show and to look at the progression of it, it's been... Since 2016 was when we became aware of it at Red Hour, our production company. And here we are about to have season 2 premiere. Yeah. And so it's a great opportunity to go back over season 1 and refresh my memory because I didn't go back and look at this stuff for a while.

No, me neither. It's January 17th on Apple TV Plus, season 2 of Severance will premiere. We're going to do a full rewatch of season 1 and thought it could be fun for people who haven't seen the show for people who have seen the show to maybe go through the show right along with us.

I think we're going to... I've never done this before, but it's really interesting to just go beat by beat through the show and the memories that come up and talk about how certain things came about and the creative process, I think a little bit, which was very different than the process of making it the second season. I think one of the main things was just that we were in this bubble, literally and figuratively with the show, and nobody really knew what we were doing and had any opinion on it because nobody knew what it was. At all. We were figuring it out as we went along.

Yeah. Making Season 1, we started the day after election day in 2020. We were in the midst of It was a hardcore lockdown in New York City. It was a wild environment to be shooting in.

We can talk a little bit about that when we get into talking about the episode. Also, there's going to be spoilers, but on each episode, there'll only be spoilers for the episode we're discussing. Anything that's a spoiler that's about anything coming up, we will not say or will be edited out judicious. That's right. By our producers. That's right.

By our judicious producers. But before we get into episode One, we wanted to talk about how this show came to be in the first place, a lot of which totally predates me. So I'm excited to hear about all of this. So we're going to bring in our friends and coworkers, the creator of the show, the big brain behind everything, Dan Erickson, the great Dan Erickson, and executive producer of the show who first brought the project to you, if I'm not mistaken. And Ben, Jackie Cohen. Yes.

They're bringing Dan's brain in in a jar right now.

And then his body 10 minutes later. Yes.

And there'll be some a technology hooked up directly to his medula oblongata. That's right. And there'll be a synthesized AI voice.

That's right. Everything you hear coming from Dan is an AI voice coming from a brain in a jar is what we're trying to- He's so ahead of the curve because we've been doing it for the last five years with him like this. He writes scripts by We just put a brain next to a computer and then the scripts get written. Jackie, Dan, welcome to the studio. Hello. Hi.

Hey.

So excited to have you here.

I'm excited to be here, although I do have to say I'm not thrilled with the voice you guys have picked for me, for my brain, my jar brain. I was told that John Tutturo's voice would be representing me.

It's It's so cool if you could just see Dan's brain just glowing whenever he speaks. Yeah. He's throbbing.

And when he's upset, it just vibrates in the water.

Yeah.

Seriously, though, Dan, great to see you. So good to see you. Thank you for being here. And Jackie, you're the best. We've worked together over the years. Maybe Dan, you should start out by just talking about when you first decided to send the script to Red Hour. And I'm sure Red Hour is the name of my production company. I'm sure you didn't send it anywhere else. That was the only place you sent it.

Oh, I would never. I would never. Only to me, right? Absolutely not. When you were writing it, you were like, Jackie Kong, Ben Stiller.

Jackie might like this.

Yeah. No, it was obviously the only place that I sent it. No, I had been working on the script for a while. As I was writing the initial pilot, I was literally working a series of office jobs. I had just gotten to LA and found on Craigslist the first office job that I could find, which was at this door factory, just a factory that makes and repairs and ships doors and gates throughout the greater Los Angeles area. And so I was in this small window list.

Sorry. I mean, party time, right?

It was- That sounds wild. I remember very little of that time just because of all of the partying that we did there.

Those door The door people.

The door people, yeah.

The pure thrills.

But you'd come from New York?

Yeah. I had graduated NYU in 2012. So, yeah, moved out here with a lot of debt and not a single contact to my name. So came here, though, assuming that this degree was going to open every door, and it did bring me two doors, but not in the way that I thought.

It opened the doors to the door factory.

It opened the door to the door factory.

You were like, Wait, hold on. No. No, it's not what I meant. This isn't what I meant. Then you're at the door factory, and is that where you first put pen to paper and started thinking about severance?

Yeah. I always hesitate a little bit to tell this story because I don't want to throw anyone under the bus because I was very grateful for that job. The people there were very nice and treated me very kindly. But it was the last thing in the world I wanted to be doing, and I think everybody there knew that. I was walking into work one day, it was 9:00 AM, and I literally just had the thought like, God, what if I could jump ahead and suddenly it would be five, and I would have done the day's work, but I wouldn't have to experience it. I could just cut out that eight hours.

That's not throwing anybody under the bus at work at all.

Yeah, no. I think everybody there, including the bosses, probably had had the same thoughts. They were like, If only we didn't have to deal with Dan all day.

Can Can I just ask really quick, what is it exactly you did? Just so we know how mundane and shitty it was.

It was a lot of... Sorry. It was literally cataloging different hinges because they had this big inventory of different door parts, like hinges and knobs, but it wasn't all super organized. And they were like, We need somebody to come in and just make sure that we have an ironclad log of what all we have. And so it was mostly that.

And didn't you have a basement office?

It was in the basement, so there was no windows. And so I think that's where a lot of the lumen-Basement themes come from?

Yeah. That actually sounds great.

Does that actually make you, when you open a door now, do you think about, Oh, this is like a Jackson 238 now?

Yeah. Honestly, a little bit. I mean, I've forgotten most of my door knowledge by now, but there was a while where I knew all the terminology for everything. Just from the vibration I feel opening it, I'm like, Oh, that's an X19 Omega.

Maybe we can have an episode that's just all door hinges. Sure. Okay, let's make a note on that. We're going to make to that episode. Great. So, Jackie, when did you find the script? How did it come to you, and what did you think?

Yeah, so I was a TV exec at Red Hour at the time. I actually got the initial script in 2015. It was a version of the script that Dan and I were actually talking about that is very whimsical and a little bit less grounded than the one we ended up moving forward with. Oh, really? Yeah.

Can I just say something? I read that script last night for the first time. I'd never seen that version of it. It is crazy.

This is before it became the extremely straightforward show that it is today.

Yeah, the totally normal.

The very normal.

I've never read this. Can you describe it a little bit?

Well, so There's a number of differences. The biggest difference is that in that original version, it's actually Mark waking up on the table. I believe that he is birthed out of a giant sphincter in the ceiling. And so he's plopped down naked onto the table. But he wakes up and we go through his first day.

You would love this. Adam would love this version.

He's being trained by this snarky young a woman named Heli. Interesting. And comes in and meets Irving and Dylan. But we go through the day, but it's a much more Terry Gilliam, Brazil vibe. I would say also more overtly comedic at times. Where it was this silly, heightened magical realism world where he's crawling. There's at one point where he's crawling up through these different levels, and it's this endless column.

It's It's a closet, right?

Yeah, it's a storage closet that never ends, and he climbs up to an upper hallway.

That's fun. But in that version, we go through his first day, and he's waking up, and he's confused, and he gets the input survey and everything, and It ends, I believe, with his welcome video from himself. But then in the second half of the episode, we cut back to three days earlier, and we get to see how his Audi came to be at the He's the depressed guy.

Did he lose his wife?

No, he's divorced. Yes, right. He's divorced in this version.

He's divorced. Doesn't he go on a job interview somewhere?

He needs it like a blockbuster.

It's a Crazy Eagle video, I think. But yeah, he goes to interview to be a video store employee, and on his way there, he hits a cat. He hits and kills a cat with his car. Sure. And then at the interview, he's so guilt ridden that he leaves the interview, and he goes back to find the cat, and it's gone. I think he knocks on the door, and Cobell opens the door. Oh, interesting. And he's like, I'm sorry, I killed your cat. And she's like, Come in. And then there's a sequence where There's a sequence of her showing him her pet rat who she then tortures, but then she switches, and the rat, it turns out, is severed. And so she switches, and suddenly the rat is snuggling her. And That's how she explains to him what severance is. Interesting. She's like, You could do this.

Then the next day, he tells the police about hitting the cat?

About hitting the cat. I guess the rat torture?

The rat torture.

That would be the crime in question.

He takes them back to the house and the house is gone.

Yeah, the house is gone.

There's just a porta-potty there. Yeah.

Interesting. This sounds like a really fun but exhausting version of severance.

Jack She texted me last night. She was like, I feel like I'm reading the cartoon version of something.

Yeah, it's like so crazy. I'm not kidding. He gets in the Porta Potty at the end. And then she talks to him, Cobel, and he says, Hello. And she goes, Hello, Mark. And she's talking to him from the Porta the body.

Oh, that's so wild. It sounds influenced by eternal sunshine, a little more directly. Yeah.

But it was more fantastical, and some of the characters were a little more heightened.

But there are elements of that script that survived into the pilot in terms of the input survey and things like that.

Yeah, like direct passages from the input survey that stayed.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like that tone is not where we ended up landing, but it sounds like in order to find the tone that we did land on, you had to reach that far and experiment out on those outer edges of this wild tone in order to really zero in on what we ultimately found. Does that make sense?

Absolutely, yeah. And by the time that the script got to Red Hour, it was already a bit more subdued from that. And that had happened from me talking to my manager and various other people about the script and zeroing in on the emotional core of it, which was the loneliness of this main character. It came down from there. But yeah, I think we did need to go there first. We had to go to 11 first and then like, okay, let's retain that same spirit and that same soul, but take it to a more recognizable human place.

Yeah. It was almost like it was the origin story of how Mark came to be severed.

Eventually, there was a version of severance that you then passed along to be.

Yeah. After that, the For the first scripts that we got in 2015, I met with Dan. We went to Breakfast, La Brea Bakery. And I just thought Dan was... He had just the strangest brain, and everything was unique and funny and offbeat. For me, at least, I'm always trying to find things that feel like there's no way there's anything out there like this, but it also has a deeper meaning in some way. When I read that revised version of the script, I really responded to the idea of compartmentalizing your pain in this way, but also using a work-life balance as a way into that. I just felt like it was funny, slightly left of center, but very human at the core. I brought it to the team at Red Hour, and we just started diving in and developing it and figuring out a version that was maybe slightly more commercial than the previous one that we had gotten.

The one where Mark drops out of a giant sphincter in the ceiling. Yeah, that one.

Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about.

And figuring out the exact right amount of rat torture to have it stripped.

And there was just something about it to me that tonally reminded me of shows that I loved but felt very, very unique. And we sat down, I guess at Red Hour.

It was. I remember specifically because the Red Hour office in LA at that time had this spiral staircase going down into this basement area. And I remember, I showed up, and I don't know if it was Jackie or who was there, but they were like, Ben is waiting at the base of the staircase for you. That's what I always do. And I descended the staircase to this-That's how Ben starts every meeting.this darkened space.

Hello. I used to have a psychological advantage.

I mean, my memory of it is that I came down the stairs and you were just standing there like Hannibal Lector. And it's only-It's lit from below.

Yeah, we do a spotlight thing. Yeah. Yeah.

And I was nervous. Again, and this is true, I was driving for Postmates at the time. I was not working in the industry in any way.

I do actually remember one story you told me because you were driving Postmates and you were coming to meet us to talk about a version of the script, and you said that you had dropped an entire order that afternoon, but you got to have the chicken nuggets anyway?

Yeah. No, it was after. It was after we had a meeting. I was driving around and I was driving a little Vespa-style scooter at the time, and the food flew off the back and got run over by a truck. I went over to my friend's house and just, sadly, ate this roadkill chicken. And look at where Dan is now. But imagine I'm in that. That's the overall emotional state I'm in in life. Then suddenly I'm told, Ben Stiller wants to talk about producing this thing. I was very nervous going into that meeting, but then Ben could not have been lovelier and was immediately We started talking about all of the things that I loved about the script in a very similar way and really put me at ease. Within about five minutes of the meeting, I no longer felt like I was in Silence of the Lambs. I felt like I was starting work on something really cool.

And Dan, for you, I just know starting out in show business is so difficult. And like you're saying, a meeting like that with someone like Ben, even if nothing ever came of it, just having this meeting where someone's telling you what you did is interesting and good, that must have been a huge shift for you.

No, that day started off this period of my life that actually continues to this day, which is every day I have the thought of like, okay, if this is as far as it goes, awesome. If this is as far as it goes, that's already really cool.

And meanwhile, I was thinking, this isn't just a sample, this is a show. This is a show. Because there's that attitude like, well, it's just a sample. Why can't it actually be a show? That was, yeah, 2017. And I immediately, when I read the script, thought of Adam because I just thought there's a tone here that was based in the... First of all, I was a fan of Adam's You know I'm a fan of yours. Likewise. I obsessed over Step Brothers is when I really first was introduced to Adam's work.

I remember the first time I met you was at a premiere for... I don't remember what it was, but you and Christine walked to me and you started talking about Step Brothers with me, and I was like, wait. I had the moment that you had, Dan, where I was like, wait, Ben Stiller is talking to me about Step... This is crazy.

I had the same reaction to your performance as Step Brothers that I did to Dan's script. It was just like, this is genius. This is so funny. When something really hits you and makes you laugh and makes you... Anyway, I was very excited. And then we worked together in Secret Life of Walter Mitty and had that relationship from that and had a great time working on that. Then immediately reading Mark Scout, I was like, this is Adam Scott because the tone of the show is based... For all the weirdness of the show, it's based in a workplace comedy, and I've always felt that. It's almost like that genre, and it's subverted and twisted around. I also knew that Adam was really interested as an actor in going beyond this certain things that he'd done before, as all actors are interested in doing different kinds of things. But I thought this was an amazing fit because Adam could take that other element, which is what the show had, and add that in and go much deeper with it. I immediately called you up a couple of days later.

Yeah. I remember what I had in my mind for the next several months, however long it was, was just the big hooky idea of the show, of this world where this technology exists. And that was something that for me was unshakable. It's just such a good idea.

Well, and I remember, Ben, the first time that you came up to me and asked, Hey, what do you think about Adam Scott for Mark. It was so surreal and exciting because when I was writing it, I had had the thought. I was like, Yeah, it's like the version of Adam Scott that we could get, is who will eventually play this role. When Ben brought up Adam Scott, I tried to be cool. I was like, Yeah, sure. That'd be good. But I was so excited.

Yeah, which I was very happy about, too, because we'd never worked together before, too. And just seeing that we were in sync that way. Yeah.

I just remember you saying, at the core of this is a man who wants to disassociate from huge parts of his life and himself, and that's so sad and haunting. So let's make sure that that's our North Star, wherever else this goes, that that's the North Star. But then at the same time, we were trying to figure out how to pitch it to distributors, and we're bringing it to Apple. And so we worked with Ben and worked with Jackie on this pitch document, where I got it in my head. I was like, What this needs to have is a bloody coffee mug print on it, as though someone took a bloody coffee mug and laid it down on the page. Yeah. And so I was working on that for a while, and this was all just me in my house at this point, trying to figure this out. And so I tried a bunch of different things. I tried food coloring and everything. And guys, I've never told you this, so I hope you still like me after I tell you this. But eventually, I was like, It doesn't look like blood.

And so I was like, Well, it needs to be blood.

And so...

What?

So the ring that ended up on the document- That we have here, we each have a copy of. That we're all looking at right now. I bought a little like Lansing needle that you get to draw blood. I literally poured my own lifeblood out in order to make this. When you look at the document, you are looking at my literal blood.

Fun fact, we made no copies of it, so each of them are originals.

That's not true. But I didn't tell you guys that because I thought, if I tell them this, they're going to think I'm crazy and they're not going to make the show, and they're going call the police. And so I have never told the soul about this, actually, until this moment. Until today.

That's incredible. It does look like real blood.

I will tell you, though, we went through probably 30 iterations of just the coffee stain on this. We were done with the document that we were using to pitch it, and then Dan would just come in every day with new little blood stain circles.

If you guys want to know why I looked so gaunt during that time, that's why.

You used seven pints of blood trying to get this perfect. I was legally dead. Okay, right after this break, we'll get into the pilot titled Good News About Hell right after this. At Lumen, things are not always what they seem. Mark, Dylan, Heli, and Irving in MDR make a great team. But what else lies beyond the four white walls of their department? There seem to be more questions than answers as the secrets of Lumen are slowly revealed.

There's definitely a lot more going on than you see. It's a little bit creepy.

I agree. There are more Qs than As in this place.

Yeah, for sure.

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Set knowledge free with Confluence. Learn more at atlassian. Com/confluence. That's atlassian. Com/confluence. Okay, Okay. Episode one. So going back and rewatching episode one, I was like, this show's crazy.

Yes.

It had been a while since I'd watched the pilot, and it's really good. It's crazy.

It's weird to look at it now a few years later because I feel like we were all so in it when we were making it. And because you didn't know what it was going to be, and I had that experience for the whole season, really, the just of hoping this whole thing would work. But the ability that we had within the bubble of COVID and all of that really was, I think, something that helped us just not think about the outside world that much and just go for it. Totally.

Yeah. No, I totally agree. So let's get into the episode. I first want to talk about that opening shot. Heli, Brit Lauer, who we're going to talk to for episode 3, she's just lying there on the conference table. And there's this disembodied voice, which is me, asking her questions. Ben, what was the visual idea there?

Yeah, it was just the idea of the conference room, this claustrophobic, weird room that has one door and no windows. And I think from the beginning, we had an idea of what the visual style of the show was going to be, that to me was really informed by Dan's writing. And that image, which was so striking to me on the page. There's so many layers to that, and it's disconcerting.

There's something embryonic about it as well.

Yes, embryonic, and I think disturbing, too. So the scene just lent itself to, okay, figuring out how do we show this graphically, and then trying to have these shots that kept us with the claustrophobia of Haley's experience.

Yeah. And we should also mention our incredible director of photography Jessica Lee Gagne.

Yes, Jessica, who I had been working with on Escape at Danamara, and then we went over onto this, and Jeremy Hindle, our production designer, who came up with all these sets. But then there's just like, Peppy, Mark Scout, who are you? Who are you? And it has to work retroactively because one of the great things in the structure of the pilot is that we later see Mark and Irving side of the scene. So it has a different context when you see it later in the show. And also the first line, who are you? The thesis of the show.

For sure, the broadest of themes for the show. And Haley can't really answer any questions. One of the questions is, name a state to which she replies, Delaware. And that's about all she can do. But that does earn her a perfect score on the test.

Yeah. And this gets into something that we still talk about to this day, which is exactly what does and doesn't transcend the severance barrier, Because, of course, these characters can speak, they can walk, they have some retention of the skills or memories, or at least the skills that they've accrued on the outside. We talked about that they probably have some sense that there is a place called America, that there are states, and all these vague things that they're aware of, but they can't name any specifics about their own lives.

That's right. Like, later They talk about the movies. Irving thinks we're cutting bad words out of movies. So they know what movies are. They know what movies are.

And I think the idea is if she knew the answer to any of the other questions, that would mean too much had gotten through. If she couldn't name a state, that would mean not enough had gotten through. That's right.

Yeah. No, that scene became about Haley's realization that she doesn't know who she is. And then we went straight to title card. And then the polar opposite From the sterile environment to you in your car crying. We see Mark on the outside for the first time. So the Lumen building is the Bell Labs building that was built in the late '50s, early '60s and designed by Eero Sarn. And Jessica, our cinematographer, found it googling, we were looking for office buildings.

I didn't notice, yes.

Yeah. And she found this shot, this overhead shot of labs in Holmdel, New Jersey, that had this insane egg-shaped parking lot around the building that was so huge. Looking at it from above, it's just the scale of it was massive. We went down there and checked it out, and that was, I think, the first location we found, and it dictated so much for us. The biggest thing when we got there that we realized was that nobody had filmed anything there.

That is crazy to me.

Because when you're making something, the big question you ask when you get to a cool location. It's like, well, what else did they film here? How many episodes of Law and Order did they do here, especially in New York?

I feel like it's something that's always on your mind, something that I think is great is locations, even actors. Can we find new stuff to put on that people haven't seen before?

Yeah, I feel like that, particularly for me with music sometimes and definitely with locations. And in New York, it's hard because there's so many things that are filmed there. But this was a little bit out of the zone as they call it, which is like a 25 miles on. You can drive out of the city to get somewhere without being on location. Oh, interesting. This was further away, but it was so perfect. And when we walked in and saw the scale and the design elements that were still there from the original time it was built, it was like, no question, this is the place. And so, yeah, we did that scene. And I remember thinking, oh, this is like a tough scene for an actor to do. And you just were just so available with that. And at that moment, this was the reason I knew why you were so right for this role?

Well, I remember it being challenging and something that I was dreading. When you have a big emotional scene coming up, it's always in the back of your mind, like, here it comes. And it was a really emotional, obviously, day, and it was heavy. But you were right there with me on the walkie. I had lost my mom less than a year before. You knew that, and we dove into that scene together. So that's what that scene is.

And I think it's so important in the show because it just gives you a root and a grounding in who Mark is and really what this is all about. This guy is going to do this because he doesn't want to feel this pain.

I think it really contextualizes everything because he is, especially, Audiemark is often so guarded throughout the rest of the show that to start with that moment of solitary vulnerability really just told us so much about him.

Then as he walks into Lumen through the parking lot, that's the first time we hear the theme of the show.

Are you ready for Mr. Scott?

Teddy Shapiro.

Yeah, Teddy Shapiro. The best. Theodore Shapiro, who is a wonderful composer who I go back to dodgeball with, probably pre-Dodgeball. I've known him for years. He's just amazing, a great person and a really, I think, brilliant composer. Sure is. He actually wrote most of the music for the show before we ever started filming the show.Wow. So we had this long run-up time when we were prepping, and COVID affected us because we actually were going to start shooting the show in March of 2020. And then, of course, COVID hit and everything shut down. We continued to prep remotely for a while. Nobody knew what was going on, but we didn't actually start shooting or prepping in real life, again, till October of 2020, and then started shooting in November. So during that time, Teddy was able to write a bunch of music, and we were trying to figure What's the theme song for the show? And I asked him, What do you think? And he just sent me a file with three different pieces on it. And he said, Each one of these could be the theme of the show. And they were all good. But there was one that I listened to.

I was like, I love this. It's creepy and weird, and it builds out.

And catchy, too.

It's catchy. I thought it was amazing. And so I said, I think this is the one. And he's like, Great. I like that one, too. And that That was it. So then we decided to play it as you're walking into the building for the first time. Yeah.

And that's rewatching it and hearing that title for the first time. It's really amazing. So Mark walks into the building, gets in the elevator, and this is where we first see the transition.

Yes. And that was written in the script, really not as anything visual as I recall.

Yeah. No, I was thinking of it more as just a performance thing, and that we would eventually figure what had happened. I remember that we had those discussions, and I felt like we needed to do something, just something to indicate that there was some a change.

One of the things I love about the show is that it's so simple. It's not really science fiction. The only science fiction part of it is that there's this chip, really. Maybe there's an ethereal, mystical quality that we don't know about. But I think the idea that this guy just has a chip in his head You're just going down an elevator and something's triggering the chip. But it's the same guy. It's the same building. Nothing else is changing. But I thought it would be important to have some visual indicator. And so Jessica and I were talking about it a lot, and the idea came up. I honestly don't remember when we came up with it, but it was just basically the idea of doing the old Zolley thing, which has been around for a very long time, going Hitchcock, probably. Hitchcock was the most... Vertigo was the most famous. And then Spielberg. Jaws. Yeah, the Jaws. And Jaws is probably my maybe top two movies or one, maybe. And I thought, well, if we can do a subtle Zolley, which... Now, a Zolley is the camera is dollying in, which means it's on wheels pushing towards the actor.

And at the same time, you're zooming out on the lens. So you have a zoom lens that can zoom in and out and make things bigger or smaller. But then the camera itself is coming in. So the lens is zooming out while the camera is going in. And so it gives this effect where you get this parallex on the background that makes you feel like something's going on, that the background is coming closer. But the other thing it does is it changes the shape of an actor's face, because if you go from a long lens, like a telephoto lens, which compresses the image, and you zoom out to a wide lens, it literally makes a face look different because the way that the glass works, if you put a lens right up to the face of someone that's wide, they'll look a little bit distorted when you see those crazy, distorted images of people is what creates that effect.

And I remember that we had the three walls of the elevator set up with the dolly track and the camera, but it was movable. So depending on which stage we were on, before We figured out exactly what we were going to settle on, what I was going to do when you guys were zauleying into me, when we were just experimenting and figuring it out. You would always have that nearby, depending on what we were shooting. And when we had time, we would go over and try and figure it out.

Right. We did a lot of tests on it. We always do a lot of tests to figure out what stuff looks like. But the main essential element of making it work, I think, is the acting, because Because Adam would have to... We figured out, let's do something that changes your consciousness.

Or you had the idea to, let's maybe flutter the eyes. That could be a signal that something's happening.

And I still don't know how you do that as well as you do, by the way. I've literally filmed myself seeing if I can do it, and I can't even get close.

Well, we did a lot that didn't work. And as soon as we're doing one that feels wrong, it's like, now let's try. We did it a lot.

We did a Actually, looking back at the first episode, the first one is very subtle. Yes. And we got a little less subtle as we went along.

By the end, it's going to be like...

Mark's head falls off when he severs.

We're going to have a slide whistle sound effect.

But honestly, it's your change in demeanor. And you did a lot of work to create Any Mark and Outny Mark. That was incredible. And there's just so many differences in those two characters. Or technical things that you do.

Yeah. And doing the Zolley really helped with that because you would have to go from one to the other super fat, like in an instant. So it helped just frame up like, okay, super quick, what's the difference between these two? And so it actually helped because often in season one, we were jumping between Audi and any... During the day, we would go back and forth a bunch.

Yeah. I think it ended up being like From an average of, I'd say about 12 to 13 takes per Zolley to get one right. Yeah, probably. That sounds right. That's where we ended up at. So you go down to the separate floor.

Then we have the long walk in the hallway, the infamous long walk in the hallway. How long is it, really? Do we know?

45 minutes?

Yeah, 45, 50 minutes.

Is it like a minute and 30 seconds or a minute and 45 seconds? I think so. Something like that. I remember on take three, you were like, You know what?

How About halfway through, you check your watch. Yes.

This is what I love about this shot is, first of all, it came up because we just wanted to use all the hallways we had on our set. It was just like almost a lark. We said, Hey, why can't we just try doing... And we don't use a Steadicam in the show, usually. So it's a dolly camera, like on a rig with wheels. And we had this team pulling you through these hallways. And we said, Let's just go use every turn we have in every hall on set that Jeremy Hindle built that takes up the whole stage. And so we did it, and it happened to be like, Oh, wow, this is actually really interesting. And there's a certain point in the shot where you, I think as a viewer, are going, This is going on a really long time. And that's exactly when Adam checks his watch. And there's a little meta moment there that always makes me laugh. And then just-It keeps going.

So then Mark walks in to MDR, walks into the office, and we meet Dylan and Irv, Zack Cherry and John Toturo. And we immediately jump into their rapport.

Yeah. I have to just say this is the scene that made me want to do the show because it was just so specific and so fun. Should we take a look at it?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Hi, kids.

What's for dinner?

God damn it, Earth. We warned you.

About the greeting? You were kidding. No, we sincerely hate it. How many reasons did we come up with?

Eight.

Eight reasons.

She Leave among them the latent condescension. It's confusing. Did the kids make you dinner in this scenario? Yeah. What a shit dad are you?

I think what stands out and still in the episode now is how human they all are on the inside and how it feels like just banter from Office Space or one of those office comedies, but also the innocence of those characters.

Yeah. The other thing that's going on there When we were cutting the scene together, it's also we're showing what refining is. Yeah, that's right. So we're setting up these files and the numbers. And I always love that about the show, too. It's like, what is this? What is this stuff?

But also they don't know what it is. It's like such a great metaphor for so many corporate jobs where you're doing a very small job that turns into something else once it goes beyond you. Right.

Yeah. Just moving widgets around.

Yeah, exactly.

So then we pretty quickly meet Mr. Miltrick, Tramell Tillman, the great Tramell Tillman, who walks in and pulls Mark out and brings him over to Ms. Cobell's office. And this is where we meet Ms. Cobell, Patricia Arquette. And Cobell's first... The first thing she says to Mark is, You look awful. You look hungover.

What is that? I don't know where that Where did it came from? I've certainly never been told that by an employer.

No, no, no, no, no, You don't even notice necessarily.

It's not like Mark says, Well, I don't know if I'm hung over. How would I know if I'm hung over? But you rewatch it later and your reaction makes perfect sense.

Maybe it's because he was crying out in his car. And he's probably hung over, honestly.

He's probably hung over.

And of particular note for me watching at this time was when she says, A handshake is available upon request. So I say, I would like her to handshake, and her reaction to me requesting the handshake. Right after she told me it's available upon request, her reaction is just like, How dare you?

Yeah. That little reaction of hers when she's taken aback is one of my favorite little moments. It's great. And then the changing of the key cards. Yes. And they look- The ceremonial exchange.

They look essentially exactly the same, but there was a slight color difference. Yes. So Mark is informed that he's going to be taking Pee Dee's place because Pee Dee is no longer with the company. And his first duty as Department Chief is to train a new recruit, Heli R. And we cut to Mark and Irv.

One of my favorite things about the pilot in the structure of it, that all of a sudden we're back where we started the show, and yet we're seeing it from a completely different perspective. And we realized that everything that Mark was saying, that sounded stilted and prepackaged Which is actually stilted in pre-pand for a reason. And then this moment that leads up to you finally opening the door, right? Yeah.

So we start a conversation, and Brit is just incredible right off the bat. You can tell this is just going to be a wrench thrown into the works here.

Yeah. This is one of my favorite little exchanges when she decides to rebel against you. Yeah. Should I watch that? Yeah.

Okay, my name's Mark. And... So a few years back, I woke up on this table in this room, and a disembodied voice asked me 19 times who I was. And when I realized I couldn't answer, I told that voice I would find him and kill him. I I don't know why I said that. I was scared, too. Did you kill the voice? No. No, that voice's name was Petey, and he became my best friend. Look, there is a life to be had here, Haley.

A life to be had? It's just the innocence of Mark in these early episodes. Yes.

I was just going to say the same thing. And also just how much of a company he is at this point, ready to read from the binder verbatim. Yeah.

And also I like how it shows the dynamic between you two in the beginning, where there's some a connection, but you are so in the drinking the Kool-Aid there. But then you decide to go off book again and just talk to her and tell her about your experience where we learn about Petey. But then you have to go back to the book again. And so it's The beginning of where we're going to be going, which is like, Haley is going to be pulling Mark out of his comfort zone.

Challenging him to the edges of what he's able to do. Then he just has to keep going back to the book, back to Lumen, until eventually she pushes him further and further out. The orientation here does not go well. She says she wants to leave three times, which means they have to let her try and leave. We go out to the stairwell. That, I remember, was a really tricky sequence to conceive and figure out and do.

Yeah, that was just another one where it was written in that she goes out and she comes back in and she goes out and she comes back in. We had to figure out how to show the audience what this actual experience is.

How it feels.

It always made me laugh. You say, Yeah, you laughed, and you came back. Yeah.

Just how frustrating and claustrophobic it is to walk out of a door and just immediately walk back in.

Well, it's also the constant tension between the Innie and the Outie. Yeah. Yeah, that was a very involved situation that involved a lot of cameras. At one point, we had the Helle POV cam that Jessica, our cinematographer, who was basically around the same size as Brit, wore her costume. That's right. And is her POV when you see it. It's like a helmet cam that she's wearing so she can look down and see her arms. But that's actually, Jessica or a cinema title.

That's amazing. It was a weird day. And it totally works, too. So then what happens next?

Basically, when she doesn't leave, you take her to Cobell's office. Right. And you bring her in, and you've got your cut on your head. That's right. And are getting the bandaid put on by Mr. Milchick, like a little child. That's right.

A blue bandaid.

The single slanted bandaid was amazing.

Yeah.

I feel like We need to do a tie-in with Johnson & Johnson. Yeah.

I know. There's a brand partnership.

How have we not done that?

And then while you're getting your first aid, then Cobell meets Haley and tells her, Mark can't screw this up. We get a sense of your dynamic with Ms. Cobell, because here's a video that you're going to watch that explains everything.

That's right. That's how we get the video. And then Mark goes in and asks Cobell if she's mad at him, and she gives him some pretty emotionally, emotionally confusing answers.

Which was this little speech about hell, and was also in the very early draft of the script, too, this idea that anything a human can imagine they can create.

Yeah. I love how Patricia delivers that line of, You know what makes the difference? The people, which on its face is such a kind and optimistic line. But of course, there's a threat behind everything.

100%. Then, Heli watches the video of herself, which is quite strange. Let's listen. My name is Heli R. I'm making this video roughly two hours before it will be shown to me. I have, of my own free accord, elected to undergo the procedure, colloquially known as severance.

It's very, to me, again, like one of these things in the show where it's just like, what a weird thing to have your the Audi talking to you. And that's always been something that the show, to me, is always exploring in different ways this connection between the Audi and the any, and what seeps through and what doesn't seep through. But in this moment with you, which I think is so good, too, where she says, I'll never leave here. And you say, No, you'll leave at five. Yeah.

And every time you find yourself here, it's because you chose to come back, which is also ominous. And then she gets a single word from Irving, which is maybe the greatest He just says, Hello.

Hello.

John Tuttereau. Okay, so Mark is leaving work, and there is a gift card from Pips on his windshield as an apology for the injury on his head, which was sustained when, of course, Haley threw the little speaker at him in their confrontation in the conference room.

Pips, for me, resonated because as a kid, I lived in New York. But in the '70s, my dad's brother lived in Beverly Hills, and we would come out to visit him in LA, and there was a back gammon club called Pips on La Cienica Boulevard in the '70s.

Where you would literally go and play back gammon? Yeah.

My uncle Arnie would, and it was super cool. And I was like, Oh, that's where the grownups go and play back gammon at Pips.

I would love to have a place to go play back gammon with other grownups. Yeah.

Can you imagine? We should have been alive in the '70s. I should have been.

You guys want to start a club right now? Yeah, right now.

Let's get out of here.

But I did love the idea of Pips in the show, too, because just the idea of getting a gift card and they're trying to gloss over his injury, lying about the injury, too.

Yes, it's a total lie how he sustained it. It makes no sense.

Yeah. Also, before he goes to Pips, there's that moment where he's pulling out and he almost hits Heli. Yeah, that's right. I just love that moment of these two people who don't know each other in the outside world, but yet have just had this whole interaction. It's just one of those fun moments.

A really important moment for the audience. So Mark goes home and we see that his home life is a bit drab. And as he's in the midst of his lonely routine at home, there's a knock at the door. It's his sister, Devon, played by the luminous Jen Tollec, just the most incredible Dan, can you explain this as a non-dinner dinner party?

I don't know that I can. Okay. But yeah, no. I'm honestly not sure where this idea came from, except that it felt like a pretentious, contrarian thing that people in this world might choose to do, to focus on the social element of dinner by foregoing the actual food.

It is so stupid. The These fucking people. Are the worst. It is perfect for the character of Rickon. Oh, yeah. Which is Michael Churnis.

Michael Churnis. So perfect.

Yeah. And something, just one little detail of how hilarious Michael Churnis is, is when they're talking about... They keep bringing up food and the absence of it and how great it is during the scene. And at one point, Donald Webber's character, Patty, is talking about Donald Webber's incredible as well. Him pretentiously pontificating about food and why we don't need it. And you can see Churnis as Rick and looking at him. Rick and still doesn't quite get why they're doing this. He's our concept. He's agreeing with how great it is, but you can tell he's like, Ah, okay. Oh, right.

It's also possible they're all starving.

Oh, 100 %.

All of them are sneaking off to the kitchen to sneak Dude.

Yeah.

I remember one of the first conversations I had with Michael was about this scene, and I came to him and I was like, Listen, I know that this probably seems really crazy and heightened. He was like, No, I know people just like this. He was like, I actually don't think this is that heightened.

Why don't we take a look at that?

You walk in at 9:00 AM, and then suddenly it's 5:00, and believing. Well, they stagrify us a little.

So then, conversely, when you're at work, you can't access outside memories. So in effect, that version of you is trapped there. Well...

I mean, not trapped, but... But what? No, no, I'm curious. What were you going to say? But... Not trapped, but... But what? What were you going to say?

So I suppose we know where you fall in the Congressional goings on. Okay, I think we may be missing the point here. The point is that Mark made a decision, and that decision was controversial.

Ethically, socially, morally, scientifically.

But Mark, I stand behind you without reservation.So well said.Thank you. Absolutely.

I definitely stand behind Mark.

Rickon coming in with the most grading defense of Severance.

The fact that he just keeps going with scientifically. It gets worse and worse.

He ends up somehow turning it back and making himself heroic for standing behind Martin. This scene, I think, was really indebted in the writing of it to Eternal Sunshine, because there's that scene where I think he gets the card saying, this person has forgotten you, and he's with his and one of them is like, Oh, yeah, I've heard of that.

That's a new thing. I love moments like that where you put the central concept of the show in the context of the world, and you're like, Okay, so this is something that people know about. It's not a secret, but it is controversial to get that through the voices of these just fucking morons.

Yes. That scene really accomplishes a lot in terms of just orienting the audience to what this world is. Also, I'm feeling how Audi marks sense of isolation, too, which leads right into the cut to the sandwich of actually eating. And it's Mark and Devon eating together. Like I said, you guys had such an amazing chemistry from the beginning as a brother and sister. I think you see that in that scene. It's one of my favorite scenes in the show, actually.Oh, really?

This one?Yeah.

It is. I love how it looks, and I love how understated you both are, and there's just so much lived history between the two of you. I remember seeing that scene thinking, Okay, this is the feeling of what the show should be.

Well, I do remember loving playing that scene because when she says, Forgetting about her eight hours a day is not the same as healing, that's roughly what she says. And Mark's response is, The work thing has helped. I've so many times had to play the version of that scene where it's, yes, but my wife died and just digging in on all of the... The thing that really struck me about this scene is this is how this conversation would actually go. You wouldn't be recontextualizing everything for the audience and digging in again and again. You're talking like a brother and sister who have already had a bunch of conversations about this, and this ends up cutting so much deeper than those other versions. So that night, Mark is trying to sleep. He can't, so he gets up to get a glass of water.

May I? Can we go back, please?

To the beds.

The bed scene.

Oh, did we skip the beds?

Oh my God.

The bed scene is so one of my favorites also. Oh, yeah. I guess I have a lot of favorites.

The beds, we have to talk about it. Okay, because that's really funny. Where did that come from?

Again, a lot of the stuff with Rick I honestly can't tell you. I think it was just trying to put myself in the headspace of that pretentious, quote-unquote, forward-thinking person who assumes that their new way is the way.

But is that an actual psychological theory that if you don't move a baby out of... Let the baby evolve from the crib to the small bed to the bigger bed?

To the race car bed.

As I'm saying, and I'm realizingThere's no way that's actually open.It.

Might be now.It's so dumb.Not prior to this. The room is filled with beds.

And you're in the speed racer bed. Right.

Yeah, you're in the one that the kid is going to be in from 6:00 to 11:00.

It's a bed they don't need for another six years.

It's going to be ridiculous. It has to be them getting used to it.

The other moment that I really enjoy in that scene is when Ricky just comes and touches your foot. Yeah.

I think that might be my favorite moment of the show.

That's 100% Michael Churnis.

Just a really uncomfortable foot-touching moment that you both endure.

I think people really enjoyed you tonight, Mark.

Everything Rick and does is just so condescending. Okay, so now Mark gets up in the middle of the night because he can't sleep in the race car bed and goes to pour himself a glass of water. While he's doing so, he looks out the window of the kitchen and sees and standing in the backyard staring at him with an unusual look on his face, right? Like a familiar look on his face.

Yeah. And he's wearing a suit. Yeah. This was always one of... I'm not going to say this again. He looks like a businessman.

There's a businessman in the yard.

The next morning, yeah. It's the first time that we're seeing who we know is going to be Petey.

Yeah. Later that day, Mark is at Pips using his gift card in the VIP section. And Ms. Selvig calls, who at this point is just someone who we've heard him talk on the phone to a couple of times about moving her trash cans out of the way. It's just some neighborhood nuisance he's dealing with. Yeah.

By the way, I had to completely rethink the rules of trash pickup to make this work because- I never understood what she was doing.

That was so bad. You should have just talked to me because I know them all.

You do? Ben knows all trash rules.

No, My wife makes fun of me for not understanding Recycling. What do you mean? So that's another podcast.

What do you not understand?

You don't know which one goes where?

I just have questions about how it all really goes down.

Maybe you and my kids could have a conversation because they don't seem to understand it either.

But yeah, that's really the biggest story hole in the whole show is that in this town, recycling and trash are picked up on different nights, and each house only has one spot. So you can't have them both out once.

I also just want to say before we gloss over that the VIP section of Pips was for me, something that I angsted over.

What do you mean? Is it your favorite scene, by the way?

It's also my favorite scene. No, this is actually not my favorite scene.Me neither.Okay.I.

Hate this scene.Yeah..

But the idea... I really was thinking, Can we get away with the VIP sign in this diner? It's going to be so ridiculous.It's so It's so funny. And there's a little stanchion, which is the little rope. But it really makes me laugh because it's just there. And it's like for those who choose to enjoy it, the sign is there.

Yes. It's almost like Lumen is trying much harder on the inside of their company. And out in the world, they're doing just the bare minimum to get by. The bare minimum. Yeah.

Pee Dee storms the VIP section. Yeah.

Pee Dee just shows up and interrupts Mark's call with his neighbor about recycling. And he sits down and tells Mark that he's his friend from work.

Yeah. Also, at this point in the episode, I'm always surprised at how much has actually happened in this episode. We do a lot of stuff in this episode. There's just so many things that are being introduced to the audience.

Me too. Rewatching it, I was like, oh, my God, we're already here?

Yeah. Yeah. But I'd have to say that in the writing of it, what this sets up really is this is setting up the trajectory of where we're going to go. This was a tough scene for you guys as actors because there is a lot of exposition in it, and it's also asking the audience to buy a lot of stuff. I always felt like if we could make it through this scene with the tone of the show, that people will buy this, then we'll be on our way. But I think by you continuing to ask him. And also he looks a little crazy, too. But you have to take a little bit of what he says at face value.

That's right. It was challenging because I had to think this guy, the stuff he says is absurd. So like you said, I have to take that with a grain of salt. But it has to be compelling enough for me to end up going after it.

Yeah. And of course, Yul is incredible.

The best.

The great Yul Vázquez. I've known Yul. How long have you known Jules?

I met him on Severance.

I've known Jules for probably 25 years.Oh, you have?Yeah.He's.

In New York.He's.

A New York theater actor and film and television actor, too, and just really has so much intensity and is also very funny, too.

He's fantastic. Yeah. Lovely, lovely guy, too.

The best. And so then he gives you that note that lays out where The series is going, right? Yep.

A red card, which is just a great little visual cue because it becomes important that we are able to keep track of this card through the next few episodes.

To my favorite niece.

That's right. Yeah.

The other thing in the PD scene, reintegrated PD, says, I'm your best friend. You're my very good friend. Yeah.

Great line.

Yeah.

Yeah. And his delivery on that is just spot on.

It's perfect.

Because Because, again, that's another one that could have been overplayed, but you feel in that moment that this was their dynamic, and he's actually really happy to see his work friend again and be messing around with his work friend again.

From there, we go out in the parking lot. Mark reads the card that Petey gave him, and under the Yule reading out the card from Petey, we see Mark back at home moving the recycling can. And then Mrs. Selvig appears and starts talking to him. Now, this is a big reveal in the show. So there must have been a really specific way you wanted to shoot and reveal this.

To shoot it, yeah. Basically, the idea was like, let's not show Patricia until we have to. But I think you know her voice. But we basically just held on you for as long as we could until we had to cut to her. And I always felt like, okay, the audience is probably going to get it or they're getting it as it goes along. Yeah. But you also get a sense of your funny relationship with her, but you also have a little bit of a sense of just something's off and weird with her.

Yeah, she's just weird.

Yeah. I love Patricia's Ms. Selvig. Me, too. Well, we could talk about it more in two, but she just created a whole funny, weird, but yet still connected to Cobell.

I just have one question about this, Ben. Is this your favorite scene?

This actually is my favorite scene.

Okay. All right. Well, that is the end of our first episode of The Severance podcast. Thank you to Dan Erickson and Jackie Cohn. Well, thank you. For being here. It was so fun having you guys.

So glad you were here for the first one. So I also just want to say before we go away, just Just to shout out and credit to all the Severance podcasts that are out there, the rewatch podcast, the ones that are breaking down each episode. They're so much fun for us to check out and to listen to. I just so appreciate how invested you are in the show and also how well-produced your podcasts are. It's great to be another Severance podcast out there, joining some of these amazing fan podcasts.

Yeah, it's super flattering. And like you said, they do such a great job and so smart.

Yeah, it might be fun to cross-pollinate at some point with some of those podcasts. Totally. Having you guys on, and we could go on one or something like that. It could be really fun. That'd be great.

The Severance podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott is a presentation of Odyssey, Pineapple Street Studios, Red Hour Productions, and Great Scott Productions.

If you like the show, be sure to rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, The Odyssey app, or your other podcast platform of choice. Our executive producers are Barry Finkl, Henry Malowski, Jenna Weis-Burman, and Leah Reece Dennis. The show is produced by Zandra Ellen and Naomi Scott. This episode was mixed and mastered by Chris Baisal. We have additional engineering from Javi Kruisis and Davie Sumner.

Show clips are courtesy of Fifth Season. Music by Theodore Shapiro. Special thanks to the team at Odyssey, Maura Curran, Eric Donnelly, Michael Michael LeVay, Melissa Wester, Matt Casey, Kate Rose, Kirek Courtney, and Hilary Shuff.

And the team at Red Hour, John Lesher, Carolina Pessacoff, Jean Pablo Antanetti, Martin Valdaruten, Ashwin Ramesh, Maria Noto, John Baker, and Oliver Agger.

And at Great Scott, Kevin Cotter, Josh Martin, and Christie Smith at Rise Management.

We also had additional production help from Gabriele Lewis, Ben Goldberg, Stephen Key, Kristen Torres, Emmanuel Hapsis, Maria Alexa Cavenagh, and Melissa Slaater.

I'm Adam Scott.

I'm Ben Stiller.

We will see you next time.

Hey, Adam. Yeah. Is your experience at work a bit dysfunctional lately? I don't know.

I think it's...

Okay, I'll take that as a yes. Your team could undergo a highly controversial surgical procedure that would mercifully sever any and all memories of that work experience from your home lives. Or you could try Confluence by Atlassian.

Oh, my God. Well, if it's a choice between those two things, I think I would 100% choose Confluence by Atlassian.

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That would equal out, if we're playing with, let's just say 100%, 5.2 of those percentage points, that's the improvement.

I mean, I'm not great at math, but that sounds very close.

Well, I'm doing the math in my head right now as we speak, and I think that's great.

Why not keep your team unsevered? In Confluence, the connected workspace where teams can do it all? Set knowledge free with Confluence. Learn more at atlassian. Com/confluence. That's atlassian. Com/confluencie.