Transcript of S1E3: In Perpetuity (with Britt Lower)

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.

I'm Adam Scott.

I'm Ben Stiller, and this is the Severance podcast with Ben and Adam, where we break down every episode of Severance.

And today, we'll be recapping Season 1, Episode 3, In Perpetuity, written by Andrew Colville and directed by Ben Stiller. Ben, speaking of, how are you doing?

I'm doing well. I live in the New York area, so it's always nice this time of year when you get to actually feel the chill of winter. Sure.

You get the sweaters out.

Yeah, and it's very festive. It's festive all the way through New Year's, right? Sure. Then there's four months of just pain.

Yeah. Then I've noticed this living on the East Coast now for two full falls and winters making severance. I had never spent that chunk of the year on the East Coast exclusively. And so I've noticed the wonderful fall. And then after New Year's, by the end of January, you hit a wall of hard weather-wise that just pushes through all the way till what?

In March? No, I'd say end of April.

End of April?

Definitely. Yeah. That's when the leaves start to come on the trees. And I always now am aware of the leaves coming back on the trees because we're always in a race to try to finish filming the season before the leaves come back, and we never make it. We always end up having to then shoot until the very last wintery moment, and then we go inside and shoot some more. Then sometimes we to figure out ways to make the leaves go away in different ways. That's right.

It's usually the springtime when off in the distance, I see giant plastic sheets of white covering nearby hillsides and blank spaces to make it look like it's still snowing because Severance is a winter show. Yeah.

Even when we're not filming the show because we've gone through it a couple of times now, I have this Pavlovian reaction to when are the leaves, when are the Buds. I'm like, looking at the branches, waiting for the buds to come out and feeling stressed because I think we're not going to be able to get our winter shots done.

That'll be with you for the rest of your life.

Yes. One of the gifts of making the show.

One of the many gifts. That's right.

Also, I just have to say it's the daylight savings time or the going back to standard time or whatever it is. It's just awful. And I know this is not a political show, and I don't want to get political at all. But can we please She's have daylight savings time all the time.

Can we have our hour back?

Is that what you're- Yeah. And I don't know why that's controversial. Maybe we can ask Brit Lauer when she's here.

Yeah. Our guest today is Brit Lauer, our own Hell-E-R. We talked about her the last couple of episodes. I think it was touch and go there if she was going to do the podcast or not. Deep in negotiation.

Was it tough to get her for this?

Oh, man. You have no I mean, I wasn't involved, but I heard.

I'm curious. I'm curious what her resistance was.

Well, we can ask her about it. Can I just say about daylight savings time? I believe it was invented for farming. Am I right about that?

Are you asking me? Because I am not the person to ask.

Ben, was it invented for farming?

What I know is that whenever you say we should have permanent daylight savings time, I hear anecdotally farmer Farmers won't like that. I'm pro-farming, and I don't want to make farmers' lives tougher. But I also feel like just for our mental health, it's sometimes just seeing it get dark at four o'clock or one day it's dark at 5:30, and that's already tough. And then all of a sudden the next day it's dark at 4:30.

Yeah. But I will say I hate losing the hour of sleep, but I do like it when it gets dark earlier. I think it's cool. Really? Really? Yeah, I like five o'clock. It's nighttime.

I'm completely diametrically opposed to you on this issue.

If it were up to you, it would be full daylight, 24 hours a day. That's what you're saying?

No, I'm not like a strange... No, I want to have darkness, and I love sleeping, too. I just- Sounded to me like you were a fan of daytime all the time. No, I like daytime It's better than nighttime when I'm awake, if that makes sense.

Sure. You hate the night. You hate darkness.

No, I like the night, too. It's just, you know. All right.

I think we've settled it. I feel good. Good.

I'm glad. That's why people listen to this podcast.

100 %.

Just to hear the daylight savings time debate.

But we'll make it a weekly feature. Don't worry. We will be talking about daylight savings time for at least 15 minutes per episode.

Or maybe like a farmer's almanac, of- Yes. Section where we just talk about something that's in the almanac for this day. Should we move on?

Should we get to our guest?

Yes. Okay. Here she is, Brit Lauer. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello.

Brit.

I knew that it took me a long time to decide whether I was going to do this podcast because I come from a long line of farmers on both sides of my family. I I heard there was some shade being thrown on daylight savings time on this podcast.

Not by me. No. I guess some people, Brit, just between you and I, I don't know if Ben can hear this part. Some people don't care where their strawberries come from. Some people don't care where their broccoli comes from. They just want the daylight to come and go as they please.

Wow. Brit, seriously, though. Farmers? Seriously?

Yeah, yeah. Apple farmers on my mom's side of the family, and corn and soybeans, and regular stuff on the other side.

And what town are you from?

I am from a very small farm town with one blinking red traffic light. And it was 20 minutes south of a town called Normal, Illinois, which is a real place.

And you grew up there all the way up until you graduated high school and went off to school. You were in this small town.

Yeah, that's right. It's where you know everyone's middle name. Sure.

Yeah.

Can I just say, you are so perfect in the show that when you auditioned, what I felt when I saw your audition was this is the person that I didn't know in my imagination that I had imagined, and this is Haley.

Wow. Thank you, Ben. That's so kind.

It's 100% true. Brit, do you want to just tell us how you first heard about the show, and then we can talk about how you auditioned and all that stuff?

Yeah. I mean, first of all, thank you, Ben. I think that was really apparent to me, season one, when we were filming because I think you exclusively called me Helley. And then in season two, I individuated and became Brett.

You reminded me that you had a real name.

I was like, Hey, I'm Brett. But, yeah, I... You know, it was one of those things where your agents call you and they're like, Hey, we've read this really special script, and there's a role we think you write for, and it's a real long shot. I was working in relative obscurity for long enough to believe them when they said that. This was prior to COVID, so you were still doing in-person auditions at that time. Initially, you guys just had so many people signed up to audition that there was no slot available. My agents were like, Can you just make a really good self tape in your house? I read the script, and it was that moment where you're falling in love with the characters and the story and the whole world that Dan created. My heart is breaking because I'm just hearing like, Oh, it's a long shot in my head. I was thinking, Man, it's going to really break my heart when I don't get to play Helley.

You made a tape. Ben, do you want to talk about that tape a little bit? Because I remember hearing about the tape before Brit came in the room.

Yeah, you made this tape. It's the first scene on the table. And I think you shot it. Were you in your bathroom?

I was in my bathroom. It's good lighting.

Yeah, you're on the floor of your bathroom. And you did this whole scene where you have to wake up and figure out where you are. And it was so cinematic, and you really took your time. And as I was watching, and I was just thinking, oh, wow. You just get that feeling went right off the bag. I go, Well, this is somehow in my mind what I had imagined.

It was really unusually good. Oh, thanks, guys. Well-directed. It just looked great, and it just felt like Ben said earlier, it just felt right.

Thank you. You know, I have to give probably two things credit. First, probably the courage that you get from thinking you're never going to get the job.

Right.

I was like, Well, I get to be Heli today, and so I might as well just enjoy this character in the comfort of my bathroom. The other thing was that I had just directed my first film a couple of months prior in which I acted in that film, too. I was in the rhythm of watching myself and having a critical eye and not taking anything too personally.

What was it that you connected with when you first read her?

She is just... She's so unapologetic. She's brave and defiant, and she has this feral quality, but she also has a sense of humor about it, which was in Dan's writing. I was like, How fun is this to play the rebel who knows exactly what she wants and how to go getting it.

That strength of her character, that's what I always loved from the beginning, was just that she really was a force. For me, it always felt like Mark and Heli were these dual protagonists. Actually watching these early episodes, that tension between Mark's company man, Innocent, and Heli's strength of her will It's just such a great tension.

Yeah. It's so great watching these first three episodes and seeing the collision course that begins from the moment Haley arrives and Mark just trying to maintain some semblance of order and consistency, but her just awakening this thing in him that he just keeps trying to resist. Haley doesn't give up.

Yeah, she's this catalyst for asking questions. I think 80% of my dialog in season one were questions like, What the hell is going on here? What is this? Why? Is very much that teenage energy of just like, But why? Why? Have you tried it? Then it slowly starts to dawn on... I think the other characters probably also had their moments of rebellion when they first entered the office, but they've been beat down and brainwashed, and they've tried and tried, but they've come into this status quo. I think we talked about this a little, Adam, that the currency between Helly and Mark finally coming into an alliance is that exchange of breaking the rules. Mark, I think it's in the red ball scene, whatever that's called.

That's what I was just about to say. Yeah.

We call it the red ball scene. The red ball scene when he breaks protocol, that's in the previous episode. But there's just a little glimmer of his rule-following cracking there.

Yeah. Well, the funny thing is that he broke the rules, and I don't know if the actual breaking of the rules that he did in secret when no one was around, if that was because of Haley. But him telling everyone was certainly because of Ellie. He wanted her to hear that. And that's almost more important than him actually doing it, is that he was willing to put it out there in front of Milchick just because he wanted her to know that he can do it, too.

Yeah, she totally is the influence on Mark. But it's also interesting, too, that the first few episodes, I feel like the audience is seeing this world through Ellie's eyes. Even though Mark is his story, supposedly in the beginning, Heli is the person that we are identifying with. And I think advocating in a way for what you think you might do in this situation. Like you said, with a great sense of humor and with style, and she's just cool.

Yeah. Okay, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll get into episode three. At Lumen, things are not always what they seem. Mark, Dylan, Heli, and serving 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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We're going to dig into episode three, which is one of my favorite episodes, actually.

Tell me why that is.

Just because there's so much stuff we did to set up the world and looking back on it, having not looked at it for a while, I feel like there's just so many fun little severancy moments in terms of the hallucinations and funny Rick and stuff, and there's some action, and then there's animatrons, and there's just all the weird fun stuff of the world of the show.

Yeah, and we get a lot of the really fun gear of the world that I feel like is integrated into the show in a really interesting way. But it's not overdone. It's not lingered upon for too long. It is in there for functionality.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay, when episode 3 in perpetuity begins, we find out that Petey is in fact alive. At the end of episode 2, we saw him showering in Mark's basement. He passes out. We did not know what is going to happen with him. He is alive, but the reintegration process has left him with something that he calls reintegration sickness, and it has a bunch of terrible side effects. Ben, do you want to describe reintegration sickness a little bit and what's going on there?

Yeah, I think it has different symptoms. Probably the biggest one is that the hallucinations or not really knowing where you are. So what we're seeing is PD going back and forth between his Indian as Audi. We're seeing that happen. At the same time, there's also physical effects where he's getting nose bleeds, he's coughing. That was one of the things when we were figuring out how to do the show was how to do these fantastical sequences that didn't have a lot of visual effects. We tried to keep everything as homegrown. I have to say that for me, it's a big part of that is just watching the work of people like Michelle Gondry or Chris Nolan, people who really have a facility, I think, with doing sci-fi stuff in a very grounded way, visually. And so that was what we tried to go for in terms of mixing these realities and actually having physical objects in different places. And we do that throughout the episode. And that was fun. It was fun to figure out as we went along and watching this episode, I realized we actually established a lot of rules that we to follow for the rest of the show.

Yeah, watching the episode, I saw that, too. I was like, oh, my God, this is where all of this began and came into play. As we get a little deeper into the episode, I want to talk about how you guys really did some of that. We see the effects of this reintegration sickness. He's staying in Mark's basement. Mark tells Petey a couple of times that he doesn't want to reintegrate because he lost his wife. He just wants to disassociate. He's fine. This The whole severing thing is really working for him. Let's hear a quick clip of this interaction. I just want to let you know I'm not going to reintegrate. Okay. I lost my wife a couple of years ago in a car accident. It's helping me. I'm sorry, Mark. No, no, no.

At work, you'd come in sometimes with red eyes.

We had a joke that you had an elevator allergy.

It has even a song for it.

But I always wondered, you carry the hurt with you.

You feel it down there, too. You just don't know what it is. Which is also the incredible Yol Vazquez as Pee Dee. And, Brit, this conversation, this thing that Pee Dee is saying to Mark here about your feelings filter through down there. You just don't know what it is. You don't know what these feelings are. Is that something you thought about at all with Heli down there, the stuff that pushes through, whether it be just puffy eyes or an actual feeling?

Yeah, I think we talked a lot about that, like what is shared from the INI and the ALDI. Obviously, their subconscious is a shared space, so whether that's their dreams or just something they're not even aware of, but also the trauma that's stored in their bodies. The grief, and when he says that line, you take it with you. It's like, yeah, what part of Heli? I had to go into season One, with some knowledge of Heli's Audi, of course, but for the most part, I allowed myself to be in the dark about what was going on with Helena, so that Heli was on this really physical journey of trying to figure out what was going on and being hungry to figure out those clues.

Sure. I remember this stuff was really the first dial Log stuff we shot the whole show.

Yeah. And looking at it, I really feel like it captures the isolated quality about the whole thing. There's a line that Dan has early on when you say the neighborhood never really filled out there. And I always thought that was interesting, the idea of what is this townhouse community? And as we see in this show going forward, this episode, particularly, what are the connections of this place with Lumen itself, and we're getting a sense of Lumen having reach. We see it even in the town in episode two, when the whole mind collective kids are protesting, you see that statue of Keir that they're her. And the name of the town is Keir, and the tentacles of Lumen and Keir Egan are everywhere.

It's everywhere. And if you notice later on when Ms. Cobell/ms. Selvig breaks into Mark's house, she has her own key to his house.

Yeah, yeah. Also, we see Ms. Selvig baking her shitty cookies, watching you through the window.

Yeah. And has the messiest apartment in the whole series.

Totally.

You noticed, right?

It's, yeah. I mean, it's like there's stuff everywhere.

It's very weird. And she really cares. She's caught up in Mark's life outside of the company. She's like, oh, no, really involved.

Yeah, I thought that was interesting. It's one of the few times we see inside of Selvig Cobell's house. I think she has a little sign up by her window that says, You must be cut to heal. There's a little Egan philosophy there. That was one of the first things to be shot with Patricia, too. Oh, it was? Yeah. Interesting. Just as directing Patricia, it's just she's so good. And, Brit, I'm sure you have interesting experiences working with Patricia, but you just never know where she's going to go and just shooting those close-ups of her watching. She just has such a great fun, mysterious quality, and it's funny and scary and everything.

Yeah, the vulnerability and the wheels turning. I feel like when I first was working with Patricia, before a take, she would to whisper what her inner thoughts were to me. And I think one time she was like, You little rascal, or something like that. And I was like, This is so great. That's awesome. I'm getting just this little insight.

That's great. Okay, so then we go back to work and we see any Mark back in MDR, and he finds an envelope with new group photos at his desk. But then Heli tells him not to bother putting those out because she submitted her resignation request and is getting out. We pretty quickly find out that her resignation request has been denied. Then this episode ends up being, at least partly, about Haley's various attempts to escape, just different ways of trying to get the hell out of here.

Yeah, I love how upbeat and sure you are that you're going to get out.

I It's so heartbreaking. Yeah. At this point, she thinks it's still her versus the machine, her versus the man, and she's not yet clued into the fact that it's her own self. So she's like, of course. I just put it in, and it's sad how happy she is about it. I also noticed Milchick. I think this is where we really see his photographer character come out. And I wanted to ask Ben, did Did Tramell's portrayal of photographer in the office space influence your character, Bendo?

This is a really good question, Brett.

All right. This is what we're going to talk about, Bendo. All right.

We have to introduce Bendo.

Bendo is a character that Adam actually named me because I started bringing my like a film camera on the set to take pictures. I was basically Bendo, the worst set photographer in the business.

Always getting in your eye line. Yeah.

Because your camera didn't have a silent click on it.

No, it didn't have a blimp or anything. It's an old-school camera. You hear the shutter, and it's the same camera That's the way that Tramell is using, only we have his branded as a Lumen camera, but it's really a Leica. I would just not even make an attempt to... I just get right in the way and get right in the eye line.

And quite gymnastically.

Yeah, agile.

Yeah. You just bend your body and get the shot.

It was always just like, Oh, sorry, and then jumping right out of the way.

But still, never stopped. Don't ask for permission.

You took some amazing photos, though, Ben. True.

Well, I had years. I had years to work at it because we shot. It took us... We had a nine-month plus shoot on season one, and on season two, it was even longer.

So, Heli's trying to get out. She As we said, submitted the resignation request, which her Audi denies. She tries to evade the code detectors by writing on her arms, which we have to say now, along with your iconic wardrobe, what I've noticed with people dressing up like Kelly for Halloween is they often write on their arms from this scene, right? Totally. What does it say on there?

Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. Yeah.

You also try to eat a pen cap with a note folded up inside of it, prompting Mark to explain that Milchick would have to forcibly extract any ingested messages himself. It's one of the first scenes where he comes down hard on her and is gross with her.

Then I made sure I had a lot of saliva in that pencap to spit onto your hand in retaliation.

Yeah, we let the dribble moment happen. We then go to outside and we see Devon and Rickon are dropping off Rickon's book at Mark's house.

Yeah.

That scene is so funny.

This is where we start to get a feel for the Devon and Rickon relationship and how incredibly insecure and self-obsessed he is.

Michael Churnis and Jen Tollec just being incredible in that scene.

Yeah. And him obsessing on where to leave his book gift for Mark on the front stoop.

And it has a sprig of pine on it, I think, or something. Yeah.

Of course it does. Our incredible prop department headed up by Cap Miller. And then he drops the book off and we see Cobell come out of her house or in her selvig. Well, she's actually in her Cobell attire because she's heading to work after.

Yeah, she's about to go to work.

That's right. So she waits till the Coast is clear. She goes to the front door and pulls out a key We learned that Lumen has access to Mork's house.

A hundred %. And her being in cobel attire makes it all the more confusing once she's in the basement and Petey sees her. In your thinking, Ben, does that trigger him a little bit, seeing her down there in the first place, but also her being not in selvig attire, but being in cobel attire?

I think it might. We were thinking about that. Also, in In the scene right before that, you see that Pee Dee is already hallucinating, and he thinks he's in the office with you. And that's one of those scenes where we doubled up the office cubicle in the basement. So we actually brought the cubicle into the basement.

Yeah, I wanted you to talk about all that and how you guys did that.

Yeah, it was pretty simple. It was just basically we would shoot a version of the scene, Pee Dee in his robe in the basement on the couch. Then we did a version of the scene in the on the couch, but there was the cubicle there and you were there. And there's these whip pans where the camera goes between the two of you. So we actually did the whip pan between you and Pee Dee, but we did a version where you were in the cubicle with him in the basement. Then we did a version where he was in his suit, but he was also in the basement. And then we went to the MDR set and we shot a version where Pee Dee was in the cubicle in his regular work clothes, and then a version where Pee Dee was in his robe. And So we had all these different variations of it that we would then just do the scene, and then we just, in the editing room would intercut between the different versions of it. And my favorite part of that whole scene is you saying, what's that? You're doing Sudoku?

I know. You loved that so much. Was that Sudoku?

Sudoku.

I just remember doing that line exactly like that because you liked it so much so many times because we were doing it in the basement, like you said, with different costume configurations and then at the office. And then that shot of him coming out of the bathroom being like, Dude, and talking to me about cobel and me in any mark attire not recognizing who cobel is. It's so fun to watch all of that and to try and unpack it as a viewer. It's really fun.

It really reminded me of Eternal Sunshine when the memories are dissolving into each other.

Completely inspired, ripped off from brilliant Michelle Gondry, who directed Eternal Sunshine and is just an amazingly creative film director. I felt like we had to figure out our own language for the show. We came up with this little idea, too, of dollying over one shoulder to the next to try to use that as a wipe between the two realities. We played with that. But the goal was to use as few visual effects as possible. And just to hear you say, Sudoku, Sudoku.

Sudoku. Sudoku.

As many times as possible.

Taking the four desk cubicle transferring it from MDR to the basement is no easy task, right? That is a big piece of furniture, very heavy. Yes.

That cubicle is a very bespoke, unique thing that Jeremy Hindle designed. And As we were figuring it out because it was written in the script as they're all together at a cubicle. But I'd never really directed a pilot for an ongoing series. I directed limited series and sketch, comedy and movies and stuff. But knowing the responsibility of this set, because I knew that if the show were to be successful, this set is going to go on for a long time and we're going to be shooting a lot in here. So you really are thinking like, what are we going to be able to do in this space on episode six, seven, eight? To keep it visually interesting. Yeah. And just knowing you're going to be in this place, you're going to have to figure out how to do scenes. And one of the cool things about the set that we figured out was that we could have the dividers come up and down and have them at any height so that really for whatever scene, we would think about the scene and go, okay, what height should the dividers be for this scene to work?

It was really fun in episode two, watching Toturo work the divider. Totally. The first time I saw him do that where he just understood how funny that was to be his own in and out of the scene, and his timing with that was just amazing.

Yeah, and it's great for punctuating a line in one way or the other. They just really worked really well.

But the set itself becomes this character throughout the whole series. The set and the props, Haley's weaponizing props, Patricia's throwing ups, the doors punctuating. Everything really worked with us as almost this set with a personality. Yeah.

Okay, so we see Selving in Mark's basement digging through a bin labeled Gemma's Crafts. She takes a red and green handle out of it for some reason. And then while Cobell is in the bathroom, Pee Dee escapes. And she drives away, and we see Pee Dee start to walk by Mark's house, and then suddenly we see the hallway. And this is continuing that discussion of how you guys did this. But I remember that. I remember you guys pulling up a piece of the hallway and putting it next to Mark's house out in that neighborhood. Am I remembering that correctly? Yes, you are. So you could just seamlessly have him walk into that world.

Yeah, we wanted to have a real hallway there just to pan into... So we put that outside of the house and then went into the real hallways with him. And then we went on this bridge in Kingston, New York. That was another, again, just the experimentation phase of figuring out how to show this reintegration and this disorienting reality.

Okay, then we're back at Lumen And Irving is the one who suggests the field trip to perpetuity wing after Mark's struggling with Haley in the bathroom. Mark asked Cobell for permission to take the team on this field trip. She doesn't really grant it. She plays some mind games, throws a coffee cup. And then Mark and Haley have that scene. Sorry, Brett.

No, I just wanted to call back the... My favorite moment of this episode is when Cobell She's just thrown a cup at you, and then Mark's like, door open or closed, and she says, both.

Oh, yeah. That was Patricia improvising that.

Total improv line from Patricia.

It ends up being so brilliant right? Because is it the any or the out? Both? I don't know. To me, that's genius.

Yeah, it's great.

It's very confusing to Mark, that's for sure.

Well, also the whole scene, she's like, super calm and just has it all. And then she goes, I'm going to throw a coffee cup at you. And then she does. And that, to me, is the whole cobell, the thing that's so dangerous about her is you just never know what she's going to do.

And then Mark tells everyone, we're going on this field trip. We're going to the perpetuity wing. And so they set off on this four-person little journey into of the guts of the severed floor. Is that right?

Yeah. It feels like it's a little bit of a Wizard of Oz going out down the yellow brick road, venturing out of their safe space. I love the banter there and the back and forth that's going on where we're learning more about the lore and the accepted realities of this world. They run into O&D, right? Yeah. They see Bert and Felicia.

Yeah, we run into Claudia Robinson and Christopher Walkin out in the hallway. This is such a fun scene to watch. I hadn't seen it in a long time. Just Zack in this scene just kills me. And, Brit, you in this scene is great because you're just standing there looking at all this like, what is happening? It's so weird. Why are these people, are they afraid of each other? Like, what is going on?

I think it's like the first exciting thing that's happened in Haley's mind. She's like, oh, she has a morbid fascination with the coup. She's like, all right, maybe this is exciting.

Yeah. I think also we're still, the audience is still seeing this through your eyes, too, because Dylan is talking about it like this is like a scene from West Side Story or something. Totally. These are like the Sharks and the jets meeting up.

He's such a dick to Claudia Robinson's character to Felicia. He's like, what the fuck? He's just so mean to them because he thinks they're bad guys, essentially.

He doesn't trust them. He doesn't trust them at all. But we see that there's a spark between Bert and Irving. And then the perpetuity wing for me was just when I read that for the first time and talked to Dan about it, I love animatrons, animatronic things, all that Disneyland, Pirates of the Caribbean, in haunted mansion characters. And the idea of this hall of presidents. Of CEOs. Yeah. It's a corporate museum on the grounds. It was so much fun to dig into.

I remember you telling me about it, Ben, telling me about we're going to have these animatronic mannequins. But then getting there and actually seeing it, we I don't remember what the place was we shot.

Yeah. So this was a weird location. We found a space in Yonkers, New York. It's called the Hudson River Museum. And we found a museum space that had this '60s brutalist cement architecture and an amazing staircase. And that was why we wanted to use that space. But then to create the Keir Egan house, the reproduction of Keir Egan's entire house. The image in my mind was always the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they have recreated, they put back together the Egyptian temple in this indoor space. But this is a Victorian home. So we actually found at the museum there, besides having that great room with the staircase, they also had this amazing Victorian-era house. And so that room that you guys go into, as you will remember, it was actually outside. And that lawn is outside, and that lawn is outside, and the house is there, but everything else we built around it.

Yeah. It's wild.

At this point, also, Jeff Mann, who's a great production designer, had come in and created that smile wall. The smile wall is all members of our crew smiling. He just went around and took pictures. I don't think it was Bendo who took the pictures.

Which is so funny because we actually never saw our crew's faces because we were all wearing masks.

Well, that's the irony, isn't it? Brit, you used to always say to me, when I be talking to you in a scene, remember, you'd always say, can you please take your mask off because it would help you to understand what I was wanting you to do?

Well, we were all wearing those cones of shame. We were dogs out of surgery. We had a mask and then also the cone in front of us. And I think you had that, too.

Wait, we didn't actually have cones.

No, they were the plastic barrier. Yes.

We had to wear those cones around our heads. They were these plastic shields.

Yeah, they were like shield, but they weren't like, I know the dog cone thing.

They were basically dog hoods, okay? Okay. And so I remember- We also had leashes.

We each had a person that walked us around. That had nothing to do with the show, though. No, no, that was just because it was super fun. It's just Adam.

But yeah, you would come and give a direction, and it would be like, Okay, so you're just going to get a leash, and he's like, Got it? And I'd be like, Ben, I can't hear you. But also, I think because you're an actor, you give so much nonverbal in your direction. You know? I can just...

So, yeah, it's nice to see your face. I think it's because I'm not inarticulate.

No, I think you just... The minute I could see your face, I could interpret your note better.

That's also Bendo coming out because Bendo is such a physical being.

But do you remember also there were those air scrubbers? They were like noise canceling machines that were on incessantly when we weren't filming, and I went a little crazy.

Yeah, you did not like those. I remember that.

No, everybody went a little crazy. Let's be honest. I mean, it was all the time with all of the PPE and stuff. And it was like, most of the time I was on a walk talky with shield and mask. It's just a whole new thing to have to be able to connect. Then every time they'd say rolling, then all the stuff would come off, and then it would go right back on.

It was a drag. We were talking with Zack last episode, Brit, and talking about how the only time the actors got to talk to other people and see their faces was when camera was rolling. Other than that, we were either alone in our dressing rooms or completely masked up with, like you said, the plastic thing in front of our faces. It was really weird.

Right. Well, I think that's, in a way, it brought a lot of humanity to the actual acting part because it was the only time in nine months that any of us had been close to other human beings.

We have a clip here of the perpetuity wing.

Yeah. This is interesting because this is where Irving is talking about the history of the Egan family family. Again, it's a way to learn some of the lore and what the rules of this world are. She was five CEOs ago. They never had a woman before. As she told her father, mother at age seven, she was going to be the first. Isn't that lovely?

It's beautiful. It almost makes me wish I remembered my own childhood. It's an unnatural state for a person to have.

No history. History makes us someone, gives us a context, a shape. But waking up on that table, I was Shapeless. But then I learned that I work for a company that has been actively caring for mankind since 1866.

Brit, picking up on that, the thing is, usually when you get a character, when you're playing a role, the first thing you do is, or some people do, some people don't, but you build out somewhat of a backstory, childhood, family interests, stuff like that. But that is just not an option with Haley or any of the innies. Did that absence of history or backstory or whatever you want to call it, was that challenging or was that fun? How did you handle that?

I listened to a lot of music, a lot of Patti Smith. I went down a YouTube rabbit hole of people escaping from court, who were on trial while.

Oh, yeah.

Like, prisoners who were just at their court appearance and then just escape. I watched a lot of videos of animals that were trapped. And I watched a lot. Actually, we exchanged a few there's been, documentaries about amnesia. Right. There was a really interesting one called Tell Me Who I Am on Netflix about these twins who one of them was in an accident and woke up with no memory of who he was. You just see the nature versus nurture play out in that documentary. I guess it was a physical approach as opposed to writing an autobiography. Yeah, right.

But you also have these little cards that you make up, and you showed them to me. They were almost like little miniature West Anderson style frames of the actions of your character. Can you explain it? They're beautiful.

Yeah. Because we were filming out of order and we had all the scripts in advance, I I just had never done so much filming out of order before. As a visual tool for myself, I drew little pictures of Haley's journey physically, like running through the halls, smashing through windows. Whatever episode that we were filming, I could be like, okay, I've already cut my arm here. I've already hit Adam in the head. This is where I'm trying to escape in this moment.

I think that's something people don't maybe know about when you're filming something that you are filming out of order most of the time. And for an actor, you have to commit to a tone and a feeling and a level of whatever it is that might seem totally in the moment like, well, what's that? But in the story, when you see it in the movie or the show, it will make sense. But you have to do that on your own. And I think it's hard to do because- It is hard.

So they are venturing through the replica of the Egan Home And Irving sees the Bingo card in Mark's pocket. Should we explain what that? Egan Bingo is a game that Pee Dee and Mark and Dylan used to play to make fun of Irving. And Mark now is not as into it because he's supposed to be the leader of the group, but they all have this bingo card, and they're marking off lame things that Irving says throughout the day. Mark has it in his pocket. Irving spots it, pulls out, and they start going at each other a little bit.

I'm sorry. Can I just... I just want to say my other favorite moment in the episode is when Mark tries to sit on the bed and then gets caught. That's right. He's like a kid with his hand in a candy jar getting caught.

Again, that's direct Helle influence because there's this little barrier between where you're standing in this stupid bed, and all he does is put his foot on the other side of this seven-inch barrier, and Irving immediately catches him.

Yeah. And also, by the way, why are you not allowed to sit on the bed? Because it's a replica of Keiri house, not even the real house.

And no one's there. There's no one there. It's so ridiculous.

Just fourth graders on a field trip.

That's right. So while they're doing this and Dylan's in the room with them, distracted by them, Heldi makes a run for it, and she has taken her Bingo card and her pencil that she has and written on a piece of paper, never come back here. And she is hauling ass through the severed floor, and Mark is chasing her, and she is headed for the exit that she burst out of in episode one, I believe.

Yeah. The full-on running through the hallways for Brit.

Yeah, this is our first real run through the hallways, first of many.

Yeah. Haley, I think at this point, still thinks if she can get a message out to her Audi, then obviously she'll see that this is unethical and she's being held here against her will. She's just trying to get the note through the door in order to get her head out enough to see and read the note. Yeah. I just want to say our camera operators are, again, another extension of the characters on the show. The way they move with us, especially in the hallways. It's like we're all on a basketball team together. Yeah, they're incredible.

That's interesting, Brit, because didn't you play basketball in high school?

I did play basketball. I really felt like Even wearing heels, I felt like there was a basketball quality to Helley Season 1. And you love basketball.

I do. The Knicks are playing right now as we record this, but this is how dedicated I am to the show. They are?

This is how dedicated I am to the show. How are you handling this right now?

I'm severed from the basketball game right now.

Your Innie will be watching basketball later.

Did you know that me and John Turturo and Jack Cherry are huge Liberty fans.

I love that.

We saw a game together.

I saw you guys at the World Champion, Liberty.

Yeah, in the finals.

Yeah, in the finals. Yeah.

So Grainer shows up, and this time, Mark is like, take her. Like, last time, he stepped in front of her and went to the break room in her stead. This time, he lets her go. So Haley enters the break room, finds Milchick there waiting for her, and he makes her read something called the compunction statement. And we actually have a clip of that.

I'm bringing up the compunction statement for Heli R. What? What is this?

Read it.

I don't want to.

No.

Do. Forgive me for the harm I have caused this world. None may atone for my actions but me, and only in me shall their stain live on. I am thankful to have been caught, my fall cut short by those with wised and tanned. All I can be is sorry, and that is all I am.

I'm afraid you don't mean it. Excuse me? Again, please.

Do you want to talk about what that was like, Brit, shooting that stuff in the break room?

Well, that room was pretty frightening to be in. And watching it back, it's a pretty disturbing scene. You're watching a person realize they have no free will, and she's realizing she's there to be broken down.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, I remember the after being in my face. It was just physically uncomfortable, but I thought Tramell did such an incredible job of grounding that scene. You guys added the shot of Patricia.

Yeah, there's a shot where she just appears. It's almost like an apparition, but she's there watching. I mean, it is disturbing. You do such a good job in that scene, and I can imagine it was not easy.

Yeah, it must have had a similar effect on you as it does the character, just having to sit there all day reading that one statement. It's just insane.

But I think that's the meta part of our show, right? Our job as actors is to split ourselves into selves. And anytime I was filming a sequence that was a little frightening, I just did simple things like remind myself in the morning that I was putting on a character's clothing, and that at the end of the day, I'm putting on Brit's clothing. Just to help my... Again, we're talking about how trauma is stored in the body, and just reminding my body like, Oh, this is real and this isn't real.

Yeah. I feel like you have such a respect for the character you're playing. Working with you over these years, you've always looked out for Helley.

Totally. Yeah. I I'm really drawn to her. There's like an archetypical energy about all of these characters, right? To be able to step into a character like Heli who is just such a fighter for justice initially, to fight for her own freedom and autonomy. Then as the season goes on, she really starts to fight for the rest of the MDR as well because she feels like they're her family. Yeah.

It didn't fit. There wasn't any weird meta thing where I'd be saying, do it again, take 12, take 13, take 14?

No, no, no, not at all. Okay, good. It wasn't like... No, not at all. I meant on a macro scale, we go to work and we put on... No, I understand. Different clothes and assume a different identity. But yeah, no, it's a completely warm and loving environment to be working in. Sorry.

Adam likes to do a lot of takes. I do. Do you like to do a lot of takes, Brit?

Yeah. Sometimes. I mean, it's a very technical show at times, right? So we have to do a lot of different angles. I've come to really enjoy working with, again, the camera crew. We had all those Libra heads in season one that were like these robots that we were working with that were being operated by someone else in a room.

Yeah, Libra heads, which are the remote camera heads, which because they're used a lot, but especially with the pandemic, it allowed the camera operator to be operating the camera remotely, far away. And so the camera is just on this robot head, as Brit was saying. And so you're having to deal with that a lot.

But I loved that, right? Because it's-I did, too. It's like the camera is dollying down the hallway, then it's making a turn and then doing a 360-degree turn, and then someone's pulling focus on your eye, and then you say your line. You know? That's so fun.

I thought it was sometimes great to have that because sometimes people are distracting, and when you're in there just by yourself with a camera, for whatever reason, sometimes it took inhibitions away for me. And then sometimes it felt lonely and weird I guess it just depended on what we were doing.

Yeah. That's one of my favorite things when you're shooting a comedy. If you're doing a scene and you're cracking up, that thing sometimes when you would lose it, right? And then you're like, and then you really lose it, you can't do again. You keep it like, now you're just laughing because you're laughing. I could always cure that by then looking at the grip who was just looking at his phone, waiting to go home, and it just made me sad.

It just wants to go home.

By the way, Brit, you and Tramell in that scene are great. And you're friendship with Tramell, it seems to me like you guys have a very special relationship. Did that come out of working on the show together? What is it like working with him?

Oh, Tramell's the best. He's so thoughtful. He has such a depth and empathy. I think he's a genius, really. His portrayal of Milchick is so layered. I think the whole cast, we got so close over the course of living through a pandemic together, and then the strikes happened, and a lot of us got closer by being on the picket lines together. It's such a warm and wonderful cast. Everyone's obsessed with making this show.

Yeah, it's a great group of people. Ben, do you want to talk at all, as far as the break room goes, about the lighting and the design of it?

Yeah. Jeremy created these weird off angle walls. It's just ridiculous, strange angles for the walls.

It's almost like it's built. It's small, too, right?

It's pretty small, and it almost feels like, I don't know, I don't know why the walls are like that, but we had that cottage cheese, the perforated panels that to me are just the most depressing thing ever. It almost feels like from another era or from a sound studio in the '50s. Or something. And then we just kept it very, very dark. And really that table was Kat Miller's design, our props genius, I also think.

Yeah, speaking of genius. Yeah.

And And she had to figure out a table that could do this old school acetate projector, which is that projector that he slips the slide into that has the writing on it, which goes back to my era as a kid in grade school of how they were-The overhead projector. Yeah, the overhead projector thing. And then finding all this great old-school cassette deck, mini-casset deck, almost like a lie detector vibe happening. And I love all the details of that scene, too, that she made in terms of the Lumen first aid stuff. And then it's really, ultimately, it comes down to the actors always, and it's just the tone in that scene. And I think you're right, Tramell has this amazing facility to be still and to hold a moment. And on the surface, it seems like he's not doing anything, but there's so much going on. And that's just a quality that he has. And I think it's the work that he does for his character's inner life that is all there, but he feels no need to have to show it. It's just he trusts it's there.

Yeah, Tramell is a force. He is just unbelievable.

And he's a great runner, too. Some good hallway running scenes.

And an incredible dancer. Oh, my God.

We'll get to that later in the season.

Oh, come on. I just want to say we haven't touched on how incredible Adam's hair is compared to how rebellious my hair often is, Ben.

I mean, don't get me started about Adam's hair.

Do you want to comment on?

I think you want to talk about it. It feels to me like you want to talk about my hair obsessions. Well, I don't know if this is the forum to talk about it. We might need a separate podcast.

I think this is the exact forum to talk about it. Oh, you think we may need a separate podcast for the hair of severance?

Did you know that I'm not on?

I didn't even have hair until I was five years old. I was bald.

You're a bald person?

Yeah, my mom used to have to put a Velcro bow on my head.

I just saw the pull quote for this episode in the press. Me, too. It's going to get picked up everywhere.

This episode is sponsored by Baby Propecia.

Were people wondering what was going on?

With my hair? Yeah. No, I just was a late bloomer. But when it did grow out, it doesn't want to do anything it's told to do. And so we often... I feel like at the end of the day, Adam, you and I would just mess our hair up in a rebellion.

Yeah, I will just say Adam's hair is something that needs to be addressed because it's incredible. And I am both obsessed, envious, amazed, appreciative. And your hair, Brit, is amazing, too. And I know that the look that you came up with for your hair on the show with your costumes by Sarah Edwards is very, I think, iconic because it's sleek, cool and of a time, but not of a time. I did pop in every once in a while to just make sure the hair would be in the right place.

Just a hair or two, a fly away. Yeah, that's okay. I just also want to say, can you imagine if Heli had been a brunette?

No.

We almost did that. We did? Yeah. Remember, you called me and you were like, I think we got to go brown. Then you called me a couple of days later and you were like, I'm sorry, I changed my It's got to be red.

Oh, my God.

Well, the red hair goes so perfectly with the wardrobe with Sarah Edwards. Do you guys, just really quickly, because again, this is like a Halloween costume now. Can you talk about the wardrobe and the building of that with Sarah Edwards, who I'm sure we'll have on at some point?

Yeah, I was just talking to Sarah about this, actually, because I wanted to get the details right. But the sweaters that I wear on the show are by a company. They're hand-knit and dyeed so that they're a specific color that will match whatever blue that Ben wants because Ben loves blue. The A-line skirts are all made on site, and they're tailored so that I can move in them, especially when we were developing the character, I was like, She's on the move all the time. I think we really started with the shoes, trying to figure how I could be running through hallways. Sarah found these ballroom dancing shoes from Italy. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I think anybody can make something complicated, but I think it takes a genius to make something simple. That's where Sarah Edward really shines in her costume design is that there's this elegance and simplicity to all the costumes.

Then, of course, Brit, it's also the way that you wear the clothes and your walk because the Heli walk is as identifiable as any walk. I think it's like Denzel Washington does a walk, and then there's like the Brit Lauer Heli walk.

I didn't even know this was a thing.

When I see Denzel doing his... There's like a walk, that swaggerer that he has in certain characters. That's a very specific thing. And I feel like you have your own version of that as Heli that is very forward moving, leaning in and self-assured. And it's just like you could identify it.

Wow. It's true. It's totally true. Heli is taking over the space she's in when she's walking around.

I'm very honored to be in a category with Denzel.

Okay, we're at the end of the episode, and Pee Dee is in a convenience store at a gas station, yelling about needing tokens, so he's feeling like he's at MDR needing tokens for the snack machine. Mark arrives home to discover Pee Dee's not there, so he hops in his car to go looking for sees some ambulances, decides to follow them. He lands at the convenience store and sees Pee Dee being brought out with some EMTs, and they make eye contact. At that moment, Pee Dee just collapses to the ground. Mark gets freaked out and a little paranoid and takes off. We're left not knowing exactly what Petey's fate is here, but it's not good. Yeah. Mark runs home, goes to the basement, hides any evidence that Pee Dee was ever there.

That was also always interesting to me that Mark had this guilty streak in him.

Yeah. One thing I remember being really important is writing that line of Mark believing or not believing all this stuff that Pee Dee has been saying to him, and no one would believe all of it. It's just too crazy. But it is all piecing together a little bit. So it's starting to form in his head that there might be something there. And then he sees him maybe drop dead at the convenience store. He's not sure what exactly is happening, but decides to cover his tracks a bit here, just in case.

And then that phone rings, we don't know who it is or what it is. That's right. And end of episode.

The cell phone that PD ostensibly left behind, right? Mm-hmm. Well, Brit, thank you. Can't thank you enough for doing this. It was so fun.

Yeah, so much fun, Brit.

Well, I'm not mad about the daylight savings anymore.

But just curious, are you into your anti-daylight savings time? Oh, my God. Here we go. I'm just curious.

Honestly, I have absolutely no opinion on it.

See, that's the problem, is most people have no opinion. Okay.

The Severance podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott is a presentation of Odyssey, Pineapple Street Great 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 Bermann 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 Krussis and Davie Sumner.

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

And the team at Red Hour, John Kresher, Carolina Pesakow, Jean Pablo Antanetti, Martin Valderuten, 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 Gabrielle Lewis, Ben Goldberg, Stephen Key, Kristen Torres, Emmanuel Hapsis, Maria Alexa Kavanaugh, and Melissa Slaater.

I'm Adam Scott.

I'm Ben Stiller.

And 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 at 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.

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