What’s Your Deal? (with Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Cat Miller)

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Hey, I'm Ben Stiller.

I'm Adam Scott.

And this is the Severance podcast with Ben and Adam, where we are talking all about Severance.

And in this time where we're in between seasons, the different influences and movies and TV shows and people that have kind of contributed to our are making the show, I guess, in some way.

And this week, we're joined by two incredible multi-hyphenates and longtime collaborators, Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, who most recently co-created the Apple TV Plus series, The Studio.

Yeah, I'm very excited they're coming on.

They've made so much great stuff for years, but they also have the studio that's out now.

It's really, really good and really has this very unique style to it and is also a comedy.

And we're going to talk to them about making that and sort of the crossovers with Severance and also how they got going and, you know, how they connected, which was at a very young age and, you know, what they've been doing together, which is, you know, really, I don't know, they just have such a unique and identifiable style.

And I think with the show, they've taken it to like another place.

place now that's new.

Yeah, it's such a great show.

And by the way, if you haven't seen it, this is a big big spoiler alert.

We're probably going to be talking about the entire first season in detail.

Yeah, I'm excited to talk to both of them.

You know, kind of a free-form conversation about show business.

Can't wait.

I love talking about show business.

Me too.

Yeah.

I like talking about deals.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Making deals.

You know, I hope we can really get into it with them about deals.

I'm curious what their deal is.

That's what I want to know.

I want to know what they're doing.

What's your deal?

What's up?

That's what we should rename the podcast.

Right.

So what's your deal?

So what's your deal?

That's going to be fun talking to them.

And then after that, after talking to Seth and Evan, we're going to bring on Kat Miller, our unbelievable prop master on Severance.

And we'll talk about her work on Severance.

And we will also answer some of your burning fan questions with Kat.

Yes, we're going to get into some nerdy details.

She's the perfect person for nerdy details.

All right, let's get into the episode.

Ben, how are you doing, man?

I am doing well.

I'm doing well.

I'm in New York.

Right now, you're in Los Angeles, right?

Yep.

When you say New York, you mean New York City, the big apple.

I think people know when you say New York,

it's not like New York, Minnesota or something.

Yeah, I know.

I know people know that, but just in case there's someone that has never heard of New York, I'm just specifying.

No, I'm good.

It's super hot here.

There's a heat wave.

Is it still super hot there?

It feels hot.

It's not as hot as it was the last couple of days, but it's definitely, I did a shirt change already today.

Whoa,

not to get too, you know, I don't want, but yeah.

No, but I know you pretty well.

You don't usually do a shirt change till much later in the day, if at all.

No, my shirt change usually comes around 5 or 6 p.m.

for evening wear.

And you have two guys with bugles who enter the room and go

shirt change.

And then you do a shirt change.

Just for me.

It's not nobody's there.

It's just my own little, you know how we all have our little rituals in life, you know?

I did do a shirt change because it was, it's very muggy.

I mean, it's like, it's exactly what you would think, like hot New York City, muggy.

It feels like, okay, we're in summer.

It's happening.

That's right.

You know, it seems to happen a lot earlier these days.

And sometimes it happens in February, too, which is weird.

I was there like a week ago, and it was freezing.

Yeah, it's very unpredictable.

But, you know, it's just like you're just moving through the atmosphere.

It feels to me in the dead of summer in New York, walking down the street, it's like...

walking through a warm milkshake.

Yeah, you know?

Yeah, for sure.

Then you're like extra alert for the rats.

Oh, great.

You know, like everything's at night.

You know what I mean?

You just feel like everybody's out and just kind of trying to get some air.

And then sometimes you walk through just like a cloud of turd smell.

Yeah, yeah.

Or garbage smell.

Garbage smell.

Yeah.

That's why we love New York.

It was like 103 a couple days ago, right?

Apparently, yeah.

And then they, yeah, they said then with the heat index, it was even more.

I don't understand that.

I don't understand the heat index.

Heat index?

I'll explain it to you sometime because I understand it completely.

Do you want to get rid of it like daylight savings time?

No.

No, it's not a thing.

Daylight savings time is a thing that is, you know, that we could all decide on.

Heat index is just an actual calculation.

I feel like they're the same thing.

I'm not going to go there right now.

What's your 4th of July plans, though?

Oh, the birthday of our nation.

Yeah.

You know what?

We're going to hang out with some friends who've invited us to hang out for a 4th of July party.

What are you doing?

See, I never get invited to stuff like that.

And then when there's nothing going on at home i never do a barbecue almost i feel like there's pressure to have to do something yeah and and i don't do anything but that's cool that you got invited to a party it is cool i feel cool by the way there is a new york in texas missouri new mexico kentucky way iowa and florida you know what we need to do is a live podcast from one of those new yorks all right if anybody is listening in new york iowa call up the hotline tell us us what New York, Iowa is like, and are they having a heat wave?

Well, Seth and Evan are here.

Yeah, we should bring them on.

Let's do it.

Hey, guys.

Hello.

What's up?

How's it going?

Welcome to our radio show.

It is spot.

I'm doing a radio.

We like your TV.

We love your radio.

We're live, by the way.

Yeah.

Yeah, I did Howard Stern recently, and it was like, oh, this feels like doing a podcast, but it's not.

I guess it's not a podcast.

I guess he's been doing this for 30 years.

Yeah, exactly.

I love it when Howard gets going on podcasts.

They annoy him so much.

Oh, he hates them.

It's great.

But he's right.

Like, people are not qualified, and they're doing the same thing that he does.

It's like if just people start making TV shows and movies on their own and like saying, hey, look at my show.

And not calling it a movie, calling it a, like my entertainment cast.

My showcast.

Well, thanks for doing this.

No problem.

Thank you for having us.

You guys had this incredible, long-standing working relationship that started like when you were 12?

Is that right?

In Bar Mitzvah class.

It is.

It is right.

We came of age and instantly linked up.

Yes, exactly.

We became men together.

What was it like being kids going to Bar Mitzvah class in Vancouver in the 90s?

What was it?

I guess it was 1994 when we were 12 years old.

And I would say it's as good as you picture.

Yeah, exactly.

As awesome as you picture.

As exciting.

As amazing as you picture.

And did you immediately connect?

Like you just liked the same movies and that's kind of what you connected on?

I think it's even worse than you picture where like none of our friends really were like into it at all.

We were just the only two guys who were really into movies and comics.

And Evan wrote like short stories and I was like starting to want to do stand-up comedy.

And so I was writing jokes and I just never met another like kid who like wrote recreationally, who like

a thing they did in their spare time wasn't like only playing video games or sports or something like that.

Neither of us liked sports.

Video games rule.

We did like video games.

I actually think the fact that neither of us were into sports had a lot to do with us hanging out, especially in Vancouver.

Like everyone was so into hockey and stuff like that.

And we just like were not into the.

Well, you said this the other day at a dinner we were at together, but I didn't know you had the same moment where I found out that the sports team players are not from the city.

Yeah.

And in that moment,

sports are dumb.

I'm out.

I know.

It's like, why do I care?

I'm voting for some Yugoslavia.

Like, I thought we were Vancouver Canuck.

I got very nationalist and

I have questionable beliefs about that.

I'm usually the only person I know that doesn't follow any sports whatsoever.

Yeah, you also follow no sports?

None.

I play hockey every Monday.

I couldn't name one NHL player.

I don't know a single name.

But it's like in your blood hockey, so you can go and actually play.

I think it was in my shame.

My mom wouldn't take me because she didn't want me to get hurt and it was too early in the morning.

So I only started like eight years ago.

We did play rugby, though, in high school, both of us.

Yeah, it was very Canadian.

Very Canadian.

Very violent sports.

That's rugby.

Really hard.

It's quite hard, but we never followed rugby.

When you started, you were doing stuff for fun.

You made like home movies together.

Yeah.

Right?

We made a spoof of space balls.

Which is

a spoof of space.

You won't believe this.

We couldn't finish.

We couldn't figure it out.

I'll tell you.

He really ran out of energy

a few minutes into it.

It was just that his dad had all the toys.

Right.

So we video camera.

We had what we needed, string and X-Wings.

Yeah, and we had, I remember, yeah, my dad at a garage sale bought like all the Star Wars ties in a big box.

So I had all the Star Wars.

So we were using like miniatures and we were making our own like silly Star Wars uniforms and stuff like that.

And then we made a spoof of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs with the Little Blues Brothers.

We only finished the opener on that one.

We didn't get far.

We did.

We did a scene in retrospect.

The joke, it was like Pulp Fiction had just come out and we were making fun of the scene where Christopher Watkin hid the watch up his ass.

And it was Evan with a giant Hanukiah wow.

And the whole joke was like Evan explaining how he hid this Hanukkiah up his ass to escape the Holocaust with it.

That's funny.

It's really fun.

It's funny.

We tried to find the footage.

His mom had it, but it's gone.

You were pushing the limits even then.

Even then.

Edgy comedy.

Exactly.

Fortunately, it was just between the two of us.

We found it funny.

Our audience loved it.

I'm sure there was someone someone who was offended in your family, probably.

Were your parents creative?

And I'm just curious, like, how you got into it so young.

For me, it didn't have to do with my parents.

It was that the rental stores in Canada, they just never checked you for anything.

You could get a rated R film.

So when I was really young, I was watching rated R films, and that hooked me in hard.

My brother just fed me a diet of comics and movies.

He's a little older.

And for me, it's my brother.

He got me into it.

It's the slightly older brother.

And my parents just loved movies.

Like, they were not in any creative field.

I just grew grew up watching tons and tons and tons of movies and they did they show you movies like would your dad or mom sit down and say hey you got to watch you know yeah they and it would just i would just watch what they were watching you know in the 80s and 90s just as like you know like when harry mitzally came out and they loved it so we would watch that movie all the time and hannah and her sisters came out and they loved it so we would watch that all the time and the three amigos and you know ghostbusters and just like whatever movies they liked they would just watch all the time and we would just sit there and watch it with them and and i think a lot of people are age it's like your taste in movies really is reflective to like whatever those, like your VHS collection was, I guess.

And so we had these like 80 movies that my parents had like taped off of television.

And you would watch over and over.

And you would watch them over and over and over and over again.

And it is funny because I think looking back, those movies like.

really shaped my sense of and my parents were also very unlike Evan's parents my parents were incredibly supportive of us pursuing creativity my parents were confused why we were wasting our time and encouraged us to go play sports that we would never had nor shown any want yeah like we would literally be like 13 year olds like sitting at his family's computer like trying to write a movie like seriously trying to write a movie for hours and his mother would just be like why are you doing this you're wasting your time

and and my parents conversely were incredibly supportive and and really encouraging and thought we actually could become movie writers so you guys both sort of absorbed seth's parents support and kind of took this his mom bought us final draft yeah oh that's like bought us final draft at a wow

Wow.

So you wrote super bad truly when you were like 14 years old?

We started in high school.

We started before we were 14.

Yeah, we started

in 12th grade.

Yeah.

That starts rough.

Sure is rough.

Yeah.

And not good.

Sure.

Not that good.

But it was a start.

And there were some ideas in it that I think made it like all the way through to the final

movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very few, if any, writer directors I've ever met wrote something when they were teenager that that then they actually made into a movie.

That actually became like a good movie.

A really good movie that like kind of a classic comedy now.

And like that's amazing.

I actually do think that is why few people are more shocked that that movie like has resonated to the degree that it has than we are.

And something we're always marveling at is like how short a shelf life comedy has at times and how things that are amazing seemingly just, you know.

But sometimes that doesn't happen.

And I really think a large part of the reason that people still relate to it is because we were in high school when we like came up with a lot of it.

So I think there is like, in some like fundamental raw way, it is like imbued with like the actual anxieties and fears of like 14, 15, 16 year old kids that like somehow does resonate.

through it.

But you also had Greg Mattola instead of like someone that's just going after, you know,

there's terrific dick jokes in in it.

Yeah.

Someone that's also emotionally well that all came from like.

I'll never, the first time he did like, he did a wonder in one of the scenes.

Yeah.

And we were like amazed.

The thought that someone in a thing we wrote was like, we're going to do this scene in one shot.

We were like, are you not going to be?

Well, also just that he had shot.

Like, it was so much more composed than anything we had made up until that point.

And, and we would improvise a lot as well.

So it was sort of like you were always trying to get to cross coverage, basically.

Like, that was always like the name of the game is like, how do you get to people not moving and so you can like shoot a camera at each of them right and it was great but that wasn't like greg's thing all the time and and i think it gave the movie like a look and a style that yeah like that we didn't even but we were big fan like it's funny when we were writing it like we were big like martin scorsese fans and wes anderson fans and steven soderberg fans and so we actually i think pictured it being very cinematic and then it was funny because then all the stuff that we were making before it it was all about like how do you capture improvised comedy?

But that was because the other really interesting thing is that, I mean, you came to LA.

You guys were still teenagers, right?

Yeah.

I mean,

I came when I was

18, 19.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I was came first.

Why did you come on your own, Seth?

Because I got cast on Freaks and Geeks.

And so I out of Vancouver.

Out of Vancouver.

And it's, I mean, and it is inextricable from you, Ben, in many ways.

Like, it was coming off of, you know, Judd had done the Ben Stiller show.

And like, these were like the things that to us also were like benchmarks.

And

Jake Kasden, who directed Freaks and Geeks, had just done Zero Effect, you know.

Which I, yeah, which was one of the first movies I was in.

Yeah.

It was his first movie.

He was 20.

He was like 21 when he made that movie.

Zero Effect is so rad.

It's so good.

And Bill Pope shot Zero Effect, I think, who shot the pilot of Freaks and Geeks.

And

we like loved Zero Effect.

We were like completely obsessed with the.

And so to us, it was like, oh, we were getting to work with these people who like, I didn't know who Judd was, but I know who Jake was because of Zero Effect because we were friends and I knew what the Ben Steeler show was and things like that.

So like, Judd was sort of like, we realized a person who was like involved in a way we just didn't know, but we were fully stepping into what we viewed as like the world that like Ben and you, you know, you guys were kind of creating like at that time, you know?

Right.

And I remember Judd telling me, oh, yeah, this kid, Seth Rogan, he's like, he's so funny and he writes and he does comedy and he's like really, I remember him talking about you i was pretty ferocious at the time yeah what do you mean yeah i would like write scenes for freaks and geeks and give them to judd and i would write them and give them to the other actors and i would film i would film us doing scenes that i had written for the show to try to advocate for myself to get to write for the show and to get to like write contribute to the show creatively and was that just because you were reading it and you're like i can do this i can write a scene yeah well and we were writing super bad at the time and i felt like we had like a very specific writing style, and I was trying to offer it up, basically.

Like I was trying to offer up, like, here's how I view conversational comedy between high school kids.

And no one was, you know, Super Bad wasn't even done at the time.

We were writing it.

And so I was like, I feel like I have like a perspective on how these kids could speak to one another.

And I was trying to impose it on everybody.

And so then did Judd kind of scoop you up and he saw something in that and started shepherding you along or helping you?

Yeah, well, then Freakskin got canceled and we did a show called Undeclared.

Yep.

I auditioned for Undeclared.

For which part?

I don't know.

Maybe Jason Siegel, maybe the Jason Siegel.

I really don't remember, but I remember Allison Jones and Judd.

Yeah.

I was probably there.

Yeah, probably.

Because I was, because first I was hired as a writer on the, like, because he had read what I'd done, so he hired me as a writer on the show.

And I was 18, and I was like a writer on a Fox network.

Right, no, no, that's, no, it's, it's so crazy.

And then did you summon Evan to come join you?

And then during the summers, we finished Super Bad around then, right?

Yeah, and then it was Judd read Super Bad and said, bring your friend down for a little.

Let's see if we can jam together and come up with something.

And that led to.

Yeah, we would sit in Judd's like fucking giant house in the Palisades.

Just be like, this is crazy.

Are we staying for dinner?

How long do we stay?

When do we leave?

Are we allowed to leave?

When we leave.

The answer was staying for us.

Are we a lot more?

What is happening?

Are we his friend?

Are we working for him?

Are we getting paid for any of this?

What is happening?

Are we in danger?

What is happening right now?

Are we in danger?

That's amazing to me, honestly.

And I have to say, like, Judd, you know, really was like one of the pioneers, I guess, in terms of this improvisational work on film where he would set it up so that you could really riff and get the best out of people and let them go free to try stuff and then be able to edit it, right?

And I just want to say, because like you're talking about the movies you guys love, you guys are such cinematic comedy filmmakers, which I feel like doesn't always go together.

You know, and it goes all the way to the studio, which is, I think, really, really great in terms of how you guys have such a clear, specific visual style to the show.

You really, I think, kind of like figured out your own style that has a lot more of a cinematic vibe to it.

You know, looking at like this is the end or something, like a genre kind of movie that has all that, but also there's a lot of crazy, huge cinematic.

stuff that's going on in it.

Yeah.

I just think that's, I think that's unique.

Yeah, it was really like, I mean it's sort of it's funny because like we would look back at movies like blues brothers and ghostbusters and stuff like that and like they're pretty cinematic you know and and again i grew up loving you know we grew up loving woody allen movies and you know and like the idea gordon willis and like carlo depalma shooting those movies like they're there you know like the guy who shot apocalypse now shot husbands and wives like they're very beautiful films you know and so

this the end was the first movie we directed and we hired a cinematographer named brandon trust who was around our age, which right there was like kind of a revelation.

Yeah, that is like a bold thing to do because I think if I was in your position making that movie, I'd be like, you know, get me whoever.

Oh, we went to Yanos first.

We went to Yanush.

Yeah.

We immediately did that.

Don't worry.

Don't get us wrong.

Yeah,

we went to Janus and he said he was too busy, but he also said you should get some young guy like you.

That's the move.

So we kind of mentioned it.

That's great.

Yeah, that's Janusz Kaminsky was Spielberg's cinematographer.

And he shot funny people.

Like, so Judd, Judd actually also then like clearly started to want to explore a more cinematic style for no, no, but I mean, what Judd was doing is was its own thing.

Yes.

It was a lot of cameras always, you know.

And we talked a lot about like how with that movie, how to allow the actors to improv because we knew we had some of like the funniest improvisational performers that were around and we knew that like in order to capture stuff that would really feel magical and and we had to allow them to improvise.

But then we talked a lot about lighting and the set and to have some sequences that were incredibly composed and pre-planned and storyboarded and then other sequences that we knew we were going to just put a bunch of cameras on and some shots that we knew were like, okay, this is like a, will break us out of this sort of, you know, riffy camera style.

So you were able to do the cross coverage, just mixed it in with

the other, yeah, exactly.

Right, right.

There's like scenes where it's like more of that way, but it all feels of a whole.

And then there's these huge visual effects,

which is like visual effects, I feel, is the enemy of comedy.

It can be for sure.

And Ghostbusters to us and things like that are like the reason we thought it could work.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, like because Ghostbusters, people forget that Ghostbusters actually was scary at a certain point.

And visually impressive at a certain point.

Like looked as good as what you would expect from anything.

And what's funny is like, I mean, talking about space balls, like, it's like, we, I knew always that like ILM also did space balls and i think that's why to us it was so impressive when we were kids because we're like oh it actually looks like star wars like it actually looks better than star wars a lot of the time and so we actually yeah like the first hires we had on this is the end were our visual effects supervisors and those were like by far the most conversations we had were about the visual effects of the movie and how we could afford it and how we could make like something that had this like reckless quality to it, but also like good enough visual effects that you weren't taken out of it and that it supported the stakes instead of reducing the stakes.

Yeah, while also being an extension of the comedy, but also presenting just how scary and fucked up the whole situation was.

It really was frightening, but also hilarious.

Yeah, because there are scenes where there's like a punchline that is a visual effects show.

You know what I mean?

And that's not easy to do.

I just always say it's the enemy of comedy because it's really hard.

Because when you're doing visual effects, it's all pre-planned and you have to, every single frame, you have to know exactly what it's going to be.

And there's not really a lot of room to improvise

in visually or in terms of

it's also scary because you don't know till post, like you don't know for months and months and months, so you can't pick up the shot because you don't even know if you need to pick up the shot because the shot didn't work.

Yeah, like on the studio, you wouldn't, I don't know if one would assume, but like we had a visual effects supervisor on set all day, every single day of the shooting of that show, you know, and it's something that we learned from this to the end is like so much sleight of hand is required at times to make these things seem seamless.

And so it was always like a very close relationship we had as directors was people who do visual effects, you know?

You know, something that I love about the studio too, as far as you guys go, like, it's also you're turning the page to a new color comedically as well.

Like there's just this really fun madcap, for lack of a better term, kind of harkening back to the sort of screwball comedies of the 70s, like Bogdanovich.

I thought you you were going to say Zany.

You heading on the edge of Zaney.

Just as bad as Madcap, by the way.

Just as bad.

I know.

Sorry.

Sounds stupid.

But whenever you have Seth and the whole gang together and it's just chaos and you eating shit is so funny.

Falling a lot.

Falling.

And then also when you fall, stuff spreads on the ground, like ice or whatever it is.

It's the evidence of comedy.

It's so funny.

And it like had the feeling of Altman and Bogdanovich and Blake Edwards and these like free-flowing comedies of the 70s too.

Just that chaos.

Yeah.

We loved those.

I mean, yeah, I mean, like, I think chaotic comedy, comedy where everyone's kind of, it's a heightened, like, that's what we're always trying to do with the show is like.

find ways to like pressurize the situation and condense the timeline, have a real ticking clock and stakes that to the characters at least feel like incredibly important, you know?

Well, and I think we also have this advantage where it's not a movie and it's a TV show, but it's not a highly serialized TV show.

And so like we can crank it way up with the panic and the stress because it just ends.

That's right.

You don't have to carry over that stress throughout the rest of the week.

That's right.

You know exactly how it sadly ended for Matt.

Yeah, and that actually like for me, like I, we produce a lot of highly serialized television, and I've always struggled honestly to be incredibly contributive towards it because my brain just doesn't work that way.

Like I struggle with like the 10-hour story, you know, which is

I totally empathize with that.

Yeah, I feel the same way.

It's really hard.

And so the idea is really different.

The idea is like, what if each one has like a beginning, a middle, and an end?

We can give each one a build and its own little shape and they kind of stand alone and they're more like short films.

Yeah.

You know?

And stylistically, they seem to have their own thing, some of them, too.

You know, yeah, like, exactly.

The missing reel episode kind of had this sort of

episode.

Yeah.

And it's so fun to try to do that within the overall visual rules of the show as well.

But yeah, it was, that's always what we would try to do: is like kind of create these situations and to go for real comedy.

And for better or worse, me and Evan just think people falling down is really funny.

And like,

and how to,

it's for better.

And like, and that was honestly like a challenge we would have for ourselves: is like, how do we keep it grounded and real and feeling of human emotion and desire?

But can we get it to a place where it kind of has one foot in this like real, silly kind of comedy world?

And we've only seen how his character falls.

All the other characters could fall anyone.

I see sit by a car.

Oh, that's true.

Transton falls also.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's take a quick break.

And when we come back, Adam and I will be back with more from Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg.

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You were talking about before, though, with this 10-hour thing, which I really, like I say, I really identified because what you've done on the show is that you can say to somebody, hey, you know what?

They haven't seen the show, but you know what?

Check out this episode.

I think this episode is so funny.

And if you don't have time to watch the first six episodes, watch this one and you can get it.

You know, I think.

And that's something we can't do on Severance, and it's really, it's really, it's really challenging right now.

I'd be really curious.

We'll help out.

We're here.

That happened with my mother over my shoulder one day while watching Severance at Home.

And I can attest she was very confused.

I'm sure.

Of course.

I mean, yeah, confused probably is a nice word.

I mean, I feel like people sometimes are like, what the fuck is going on?

And, or a lot of times, I get from people too, like, should I feel like I'm not smart enough or something?

but you you've given enough answers fast enough that people trust to me it becomes a question of faith honestly

it really does and i think like for me when i engage in a show like severance which is like inherently revolving around a mystery that will reveal itself to me over time i think for me personally i'm totally okay not understanding things if i have faith that that is what i'm supposed to be feeling right and that at some point I will understand what I need to in order to make this a gratifying experience.

And that's why I enjoy not understanding things and I enjoy things that seem almost completely unexplainable because I have faith that they will be explained to me because I have faith that you're good storytellers and you wouldn't do things that don't do that basically.

That was kind of what Conan said when we talked to him.

He was like, you know, like, okay, I can just like sort of relax into knowing that whatever it is, it's going to somehow be.

And I appreciate that But when you're making the show you're trying to think about like well, what is gonna be entertaining to people within watching this and I never was for me what there was something about what Dan created in the pilot episode that he wrote that was so funny to me and unique that the down the line aspect of the mystery yes I was like intrigued like what's going on?

What are they doing?

What are the numbers?

But that wasn't the first thing that drew me to it when I first read it.

It was just more like, oh, it's got this weird tone that really makes me laugh and feel strange and reminds me of different things I've seen.

Well, you've made it fun and you've made the world really fun and funny.

And you can tell that you're not afraid to be funny, which I think also adds like a level of enjoyment to what you're saying and entertainment to watching the show in like a week-to-week basis where you're like, okay, yes, it's mysterious and I don't always get what's happening, but you're also not afraid to just make jokes and to make like set pieces and to make things that are kind of silly, honestly.

Like there is sort of like a silliness to certain aspects of it, which I think also like takes the weight of it off you, you know what I mean?

And you're not, because I remember like, you know, I've watched so many shows like Lost and shit like that.

And like, you're just waiting for more information.

It's all you want.

You're like, all I fucking care about is what this guy in the hatch is doing.

That's it.

That's all I want to know.

And other than being given that.

information the show is like entertaining sometimes but that's like what you really are waiting for is that information And I think Severance is very, is fun.

Like, honestly, like, the fact that it's funny allows it to constantly be giving you like a dopamine hit that is separate from just sheer like revealing of mystery.

You know what I mean?

I think without the comedic beats, it would be really a tough thing to say.

You know, it would be a lot.

Though it is also, there is one episode this season that is essentially completely serious, and that one

plays like a movie.

Right.

I thought it was like so interesting.

It's the only one where it's like, it is not bouncing back on TV.

That's right.

That's right.

That 10-episode thing is really interesting because I think it's one of the most challenging things with Severance that we're always kind of thinking about is maintaining the tension throughout and the tension that has to do with the characters, the tension that has to do with the mysteries.

It's all of that, which is why I always think like horror is really hard for television because, you know.

It's so prolonged.

Yeah.

And you don't have enough time with, you know, an hour to build the tension.

And then with 10 hours, it's too much time to maintain the tension that makes something scary whereas comedy like you were saying it's great to have those little pressurized segments no very much so what's hard about is we have to think of like 10 ideas that like feel

and that's where we're at right now is like it's so hard to just decide like what are the 10 ideas you know what i mean and you want to really love every one of those ideas and really make sure everyone allows you to like reach the heights that you want it to reach.

And

I do often like, there's so many ideas we come up with that would only really work in a more serialized show because they just play out over such a long period of time.

Like the Kool-Aid stuff.

Exactly.

And so, and that is the thing where we're just like, we can have basically one of those a season, like a thing that's sort of like a running joke that, you know, is something we go back to all the time.

But it's not like.

But it's still by like the Kool-Aid thing.

If you didn't have the other beats of it, it would still work.

The Kool-Aid thing was great because it was like everything was connected to it because it was the big compromise compromise that he makes to get the job.

Yes,

everything's in the wake of that.

That's right.

That's right.

I love the moment at the end of the first episode where you guys are just watching Goodfellas after having fucked over Martin Scorsese because your character, Matt, is just a fan when it really comes down to it.

And it's kind of a deeply felt moment right after this horrible thing happens.

That's actually a real tradition of ours.

Whenever we ruin someone's project, we watch something good they made.

We have a martini

and we think you know what cheers cheers to this but did you did you guys have like a like a meta moment at all working with him because i i read that you guys like he basically he showed up like you hadn't really met him before right he just showed up never never even zoomed not even a zoom wow yeah i that sounds to me like a nightmare i would be so nervous we did have this thing jonah hill was there and had worked with him of course and he kept being like you're gonna love him he's so nice you're gonna have a great time and it was really nice to have someone telling me that right yeah right right and and he's so good in the he's so great in the show yeah but you also had to direct it who's the scariest person i mean i imagine you're working with robert de niro as a young man

yes i had a i had a honestly yes

we're doing a uh we're doing another meet the parents movie and i had a call with him yesterday regarding casting and he called me up and I got like two messages like Bob's trying to reach you Bob's trying to reach you and I was like doing stuff in the morning and then I was like okay.

And Adam, by the way, just worked with Robert Dadier too.

So you know what this is.

But he calls me, I'm like, hey, Bob, how you doing?

He's like, good, good, good.

And he starts talking to me about like, you know, his point of view on this casting choice.

And I was so scared.

I was like, shit, I hope that I'm, I hope that I were on the same page with this thing.

Cause I could picture him just like, you know, saying, no, no, no, you got to do it.

You got to do it.

You know, like, it's, but, but he, were you like nervous with like Scorsese that he would know his line?

Like, because everything's wonders.

So I just.

So there's no idea what to expect at all.

Well, first of all, it was funny.

Like, I think his call time was like, he was supposed to be on set at 9 a.m.

Everyone got there at like six in the morning.

Like, like, we were there for hours before he got there.

Which also, again, we've never spoken to him.

So, we were like, if anything goes wrong, right?

He's like, where's the rewrite?

We're like, what rewrite?

Like, I know.

And we're just blocking the scene.

And I remember being like, we had all these conversations for hours and hours.

And we had a second camera.

I think it was our second week of shooting.

So we had committed hard to this one camera, one lens thing.

Yeah.

And at that day, I was like, I want to have a second camera crew there in case Gorsazi, I was like, if he seems judgmental of how we're shooting, I won't be able to take it.

And I will later reconcile that this scene stylistically doesn't match the rest of the case.

What do you mean, like, if it seems like he thinks it's pretentious or if he says something?

Literally, I thought in case he was like, what, you got one camera?

Like, it's a comedy scene.

You use two cameras.

You're like, yes, sir, we have another camera right here.

Literally, that, and not only that, it was a camera crew that had worked on Killers of the Flower Moon.

So they were like, familiar faces in case you wanted to see them.

But like, yes, and they literally were sitting in a hotel room all day

on call in case we were like, we need you to come in.

We also

only have been filming for two weeks, so we hadn't anything edited yet.

Right.

So there was no proof we were actually doing something good that you could like show him

or show ourselves.

We were still like, I think it's working.

So then he shows up and is it just

the best dude?

He's instantly like a rapturous ball of energy.

Like you picture him as like the host of a show.

It's like, I remember I could hear him coming from down behind.

You just hear that like Scorsese sound.

He was like, da, da, da.

And in that moment, I was like, this is going to be incredible.

Like you could just like feel his positive energy.

And he comes on the set.

Hey, how's it going?

Hey, what's happening?

Okay.

Hey, how, and he's making jokes.

How are we doing this?

Where do I stand?

What are my lines?

What do I do?

Like, and he's like, he's just so, and he loves it.

He clearly was having a really good job.

And as soon as we got some shots off, we were like, so he was like, keep going.

Like, he clearly decided to just like.

And I remember we were like, it's one camera.

And then you forget, like, oh, you're not forgetting.

He's like, oh, he knows more about movies than anyone on Earth.

And so I'm like, like, so, like, we think we're doing this original thing.

And I'm like, oh, we have one camera.

He's like, oh, yeah, French DuWave, Trafo, whole history of that.

That's right.

You know, they only had one camera.

That's why they only used one camera.

They couldn't edit.

So they had to edit it in camera.

They shoot sequentially.

And you're like, oh, yeah, okay.

That's it.

One lens.

Cranes are flying.

Wide lens.

Got to have that Russian aesthetic.

Very wide.

Have everything.

And we're like, okay, yeah,

you understand what we're doing here.

Yeah.

You're like, we just thought it would be cool.

We thought it would look cool.

We were talking also, Seth, about that thing of the cinematic nature, what you guys do.

And you can talk about a single shot, and all the scenes are a single shot.

But the way that that works is because the blocking of the actors, blocking being where the movements of the actors in the scene is going to affect where the camera goes, and you have to figure out the blocking that's going to work in concert with the

block for hours and hours and hours sometimes.

Like we wouldn't shoot before lunch a lot of days because we would just be blocking from like 8 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

And we also did no rehearsals ever prior to shooting.

Yeah.

So like it was on the day.

It was all why was that?

We just didn't have access to like it wasn't an option to get everyone.

We could do it piecemeal, but even so like we, the cast we had, we had and we knew that they could deliver honestly.

Part of me was inspired by, I always think of the musicians at the scoring session and how they're just like handed the music in the room and there's a hundred of them and the composer, the conductor's like, all right, third one, boom, boom, boom and everyone just does their thing and when they're all doing their thing it comes together into one beautiful thing you know and it it reminded me of that where i was like i know my i know he knows his i know she knows her we've never done it all together at the same time but if we all know it as as we should it it will just work and you know you can trust everyone that's in that and then it would and i would be standing there being like holy like this it feels like we've rehearsed this.

That's what was really fun about the day I spent, or a couple days ago.

Yeah, I mean, you saw the studio was that we would, and we had a few wonders on severance as well, but all of the scenes in the studio are wonders.

But we would do it like, I don't know, six, seven times.

Yeah.

And then the scene is over.

Yes.

Like, I would go home at like 2.30 in the afternoon.

But how many times would you rehearse before you'd shoot?

Like, just

we would block it once or twice, then we would start filming knowing the first four are utterly useless for sure, completely unusable.

Right.

Except in the globes, where we were playing with a limited capacity.

We shot, like, we would do like 16 to 25.

On the globes, we did six.

Yeah, I mean, is that right?

That was shorter than that.

There were so many people and so many moving parts that that one we had less chance.

The resets were taking so much longer because there was so many background and stuff like that.

Your relationship with your DP, though, your cinematographer, must be really great.

Yes.

Was he operating too?

No, our operator was this guy, Mark Galanikht, who's a giant, giant, muscular monster of a man.

And a subtle artistic genius.

Yes, and a subtle because his timing was like imperative, you know?

He understood you could be like, hold on Ike's reaction for a split second longer and push in just the tiniest bit and then whip over to O'Hara for her reaction and do it a little faster.

And he would be like, got it.

Well, and even more impressive than that is in the nine-minute scene, sometimes he just has to trust his gut.

I don't think people quite get how much was on his shoulders and how in the moment, every scene, he did something that was his and his alone.

Yeah.

That fixed

it.

Yeah, like another actor in the scene.

He has to have the timing.

And he knows all their lines.

Like, it's nuts.

There are so many moments like that in the studio, like when you interrupt Greta Lee in the shot

and then you walk out of frame and he stays on her for just that split second till her face changes and then whips away.

And like he was so good at that.

And it was like editing.

And our editor was on set all day, every day as well, because there wasn't a lot of editing that could be done after the fact.

So our editor, Eric Kisak, would be there and like

saying what he would do editorially.

He would say, like,

yeah, he'd be like, you have to whip sooner for it to hit the way it needs to hit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He'd be like, I would shave a few frames off that reaction if it was just a normal reaction shot.

And so, which we can't do, right?

Which we can't do.

So we would have to do it as we were shooting it, basically.

But yeah, no, we would shoot the scene with an iPad, and that was a few times and that was sort of the rehearsal and that was how like as though we'd watch it again which we almost never did yes but evan are you holding the ipad no the dp uh okay and then you're watching the ipad and you're kind of like communicating with him as he does it yeah i would run behind and we would run around together in circles and right and then we would all watch it together and be like oh it's too wide there like this on this line it should be only on ike and then on this line it should be all of us and then this line it should go to these two and then as they walk away it should be behind us not beside us and we would sort of figure all that out just like as we were doing it basically and then pretend you're also on mushrooms yes exactly we were we were we were on mushrooms the whole time but oh yeah that episode was actually probably the hardest because of the amount of people like this it was a lot it was a ton of people and like that shot like this the shot that you are first seen is like yeah it's like it's you in the car yeah it starts me in the car i walk the whole red carpet walk through the lobby and then meet up with you guys and it ends in the in the thing and so it was like every reset of that took so long and so it really was incredibly high stakes but at the same time we don't want it to feel like rigidity is like the enemy of this you know what i mean and that's and that's why it was so great having people really comfortable with like looseness because like it was very regimented and precise in some ways

but we always hoped the actors would like saw off the rigid corners and kind of make it feel a little more real you know what i mean well when when you're entering a shot two and a half minutes into it, yeah, it is fucking nerve-wracking.

Yeah, I've had the experience on Empire of the Sun where there was like a two-minute steady cam shot that I was at the end of and I had one line and I screwed up my line.

I said, Oh, shit.

And I said, cut.

I've told this story before, but it's literally one of the most mortifying moments of my life.

I have to say, also, the look of the studio that you guys have to just shift gears for a second is so cool to me.

This sort of Frank Lloyd Wright vibe.

I literally, the first episode, I was like, Where does wait, that looks like it's Warner Brothers, but I've never seen that building before.

What was your idea behind that?

And how did you do that?

Because I feel like you know, both Severance and your show have a very specific vibe and style in terms of the production design.

I mean, that's that's not a coincidence.

We referenced Severance, and honestly, like

in my head, like that's you guys made something so iconic, something that and I actually thought that was like important in this day and age in television is there's like so much stuff on.

There's so many shows.

I watch eight spy shows personally right now, you know, and they're all good, but I think it's so hard to like assert any sort of like differentiation, I feel like, in a lot of ways.

Yeah, and the thing we said about Severance is like, if you flip onto the channel for four seconds, you know it's Severance.

Like you know instantly.

You can see a still frame of it and what show it is instantaneous

instantaneously

instantaneously because of how specific it looks you know what i mean and so we talked a lot about specificity and that was like a word that as we were like just designing the show and the wardrobe and all that stuff we were like how do we make it just hyper specific and hyper different and you picture it being in like i know everyone at apple that we pitched the show to just pictured it being like an office like this office just like a normal office and and we never

that's what they said to us though when we first remember first making severance they said oh well we'll confine like an office like an abandoned office in an office park and we're like no no no no it's weird

we actually are going to kind of try to do some stuff that you can't find in you know uh tenafly new jersey yeah exactly um and we liked and so that was like really a part of it was like how do we give it like an incredibly specific look i'm just like a huge frank lloyd wright fan there's this documentary about Frank Lloyd Wright's work in Los Angeles that I find really interesting.

And we kind of quote it in the show where like he came to LA and made buildings that were like purported to be kind of monumental, but they almost all became uninhabitable because of how tomb-like they ultimately were and kind of how like mausoleum-like they ultimately felt.

And sort of like, you know, the parallels between like a temple and a tomb were very kind of a good symbolism for the show, we thought.

And also just like to anchor it in like our real history of hollywood the studio would have been made at the exact time frank lloyd wright was in la making buildings these old studios a lot of them do have beautiful architecture their art deco they had at their time like great minds dedicating themselves to the design and kind of grandeur of these buildings and that was also our thought it's like how do we like try to make a great idea

yeah and it's very it's very accurate it's very accurate i went to a meeting at warner brothers yeah like a couple months ago right when i was watching the show i was like i'm literally in the, I'm in the space.

It's just less cool looking.

Yeah, it's a less cooler version.

It's funny.

That was actually like when our Apple executives started watching the show, that was one of their first comments was like, should we be dressing better?

And we were like, yes.

You should.

Should we wear double-breasted school coats?

You guys, they used to look cool in your job.

What'd you do?

Yeah, like in the player, everyone looks cool.

They all look cool.

Yeah.

I don't know when it all fell apart at some point or another.

I think, like, into making a show like our show or your show or really any show, you kind of like dive in and especially with streaming where you're going to make all the episodes and nobody's going to see it and then it's going to go out.

You really have to take this kind of leap and like make these choices and take these chances.

I know like I have a certain amount of, you know, when it's before it's going to come out, like I get nervous or, you know, fear it's not going to be well received or all that, but like it's all after the fact because you've done all

that you've committed to.

Did you guys ever have that feeling?

And were you ever, did you ever have any like fear of like, oh, like we've made this huge commitment to this thing?

Or did you feel it was working as you were going along?

And by the time it came out, you felt like, okay, we know what this is?

I believed in this one from the get-go.

I was just like,

this is going to work.

I know this is going to work.

I'm just, I feel like we're like all vibing on the same wavelength and I felt like it was going to rock.

I hope so.

I think because I was so front and center, I was like.

pretty self-conscious about it.

You're not in a shot where if I say my line wrong, it goes to hell and it's all on on me.

Yeah, and it's been a long time since I had like written and directed and starred in a thing.

And I think the pressure of that is something I have not subjected myself to in a very

specific.

I haven't done it for a while for the same reason.

Yeah.

And the last time I did it, I almost started a war with North Korea.

That's right.

Which was not lost on me either.

I totally get that.

I totally get that.

You guys are awesome.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so far.

Thanks, you guys.

This is great.

Congrats on the show.

We'll do a mashup podcast next year.

Mashup episode.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys.

Our conversation with Seth and Evan might be over, but we've still got some more of this episode for you.

Next up, we're joined by Severance Prop Master Kat Miller.

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Hi.

Hey, Kat.

Hi.

How are you?

Great.

How are you?

I'm good.

I'm so excited to see you guys.

Oh, it's so good to see you.

Thank you for doing this.

No, it was so cool.

First of all, I just wanted to say I have had such a great time working with you.

Do you remember the first time we met?

I do remember the first time we met.

It was in December of 2019.

It was

on my birthday, actually.

It was my birthday.

Yeah.

Really?

I think it was this like little weird.

production office in like in like midtown manhattan or something it was and and like an editing suite in there or something.

And it was ushered in.

Yeah.

And yeah, we hadn't like really set up our offices or anything.

And it was just like a temporary space.

And, you know, when you're hiring a prop person, it's such an important aspect of filmmaking.

Maybe just like, can you tell people a little bit just about like what your responsibilities are on a movie or a TV show generally?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, so a prop is considered anything that the actor touches.

So that's a really broad range.

It can be the glasses that they wear, a cell phone that they use, the food that they eat, the cars that they drive, the guns that they use, any kind of paperwork they have, any kind of bags, and any other kind of then larger, very scripted objects or things that come up that they have to interact with.

Generally, anything that's not a piece of furniture would fall under the props realm.

Yeah, which is a huge responsibility because if there's an actor who has a diary or something, you have to create that diary and put the writing in there and all of those things.

Or a newspaper article.

Yeah.

And everything

with being able to freeze frame and screen grab, and especially on Severance, everything is so examined that you can't just get away with, you know, just having some random text on there, just some random words in a diary.

No, it has to be specific to the story.

It wasn't always like that.

I think, honestly, like it's really in the last few years.

I mean, someone would be reading a newspaper.

I don't remember, you know, props and movies 10 years ago where people were worrying about what was actually in the real newspaper, maybe the headline or something like that.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but before HD, there was no capability to read whatever article, even if it was a quick shot of it.

You couldn't really see it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When I started out, you had to actually describe to the person what it was because there were no cameras for so long.

It was all vocal.

yeah

and I remember talking to you and there was a project you had worked on where you told me that you had like there was a character that had a desk or something and you had that desk was completely functional in terms of if you opened any drawer there would be it would be filled with real stuff that the actor could use right yes yeah that was it it was um I had just done a Derek C in France project and he believed and he he said you know prop the life outside of the frame and do that for the actors so that the actor could not have to act so much and pretend and and be able to really use and interact with the environment and that was a huge kind of light bulb for me like oh the the objects that the actors are holding or seeing or even potentially being able to create an environment for them could be a helpful tool in telling the story and that that really helped like open up a door for me to realize that it's not just about handing you know the backpack or the briefcase to the actor.

It's actually really, how can I contribute to the story?

How can I help tell the story that the director wants to tell and is telling?

And how can I help the actors with their ability to tell that story as best as I can?

So, and you know, you did help so much because, you know, so much of the story obviously is lumen and then the culture of lumen, which is directly reflected in the props that you created.

But then you guys really did fill our drawers drawers with stuff at the cubicles.

And so much of our time there is spent just sitting around and fiddling with stuff.

And those drawers, we could pull out like post-its that had the lumen on them or the finger traps, all that stuff you guys made.

And we'd throw stuff at each other.

And it all ended up, you know, in the show, but it also made us just feel like we had our own little culture.

in our cubicle space, which was so important.

I think it's really important that there's nothing random, especially in a show like this.

Like everything that we do in all departments is just so considered and so specific because anything, like a random thing that isn't, that doesn't have a reason like endowed in the story, then it's just, it doesn't make sense and it's going to pull the audience out.

Our audience is too smart for that, you know?

But then this, you know, development of this thing, I had never done this either in terms of developing a world.

And we moved to these stages in the Bronx and Jeremy Hindel, our production designer, was there and starting to create, you know, ideas for the look of Lumen and all that stuff.

But you really, I just remember you, your department there starting to do the RD on the computers and

how deep you went with that.

And could you just talk a little bit about your process of how you started that?

Yeah, the computers, when things started to have a retro feel within the severed floor, like Lumen was curating and designing an office space and environment for the Innies that was slightly retro back when design was a point of pride in offices.

That started to inform us about the tech.

The tech was a really big question.

Is it going to be super sleek and high-tech?

And we started to think maybe it could be analog, maybe it can be along the lines of this kind of retro feel.

So we started to think about, okay, the computers, which the characters are interfacing with for so many hours in their lives.

What are the computers?

And so I went up to the Rhode Island Computer Museum and got Dan up there to open up this back warehouse.

So we opened up this warehouse.

It was huge.

It was Costco-size warehouse.

It was like going into the Raiders of the Lost Ark and the last scene with all of the things just this history just crated up.

And there was just shelves and shelves and shelves and shelves of old computers.

Can I ask you, how did you know that there was a Rhode Island computer

Like what, like, where do you find that information?

We just kind of knew it.

It's sometimes, you know, one of the vendors will rent something from them or something, but we, you know, inside prop, prop business.

Incredible.

Okay, keep going.

Sorry now.

And I was just allowed to be in there in that space for a whole day and just kind of roaming through the shelves and just trying to find really interesting shapes of old computers that would make sense to start a starting point, a jumping off point of what our MDR computers would be.

And so I pulled down as many as I could fit in the minivan.

I think it was like 13 of them.

And I was like, okay, I can't do anymore.

And I drove back and then we cleaned them for a very long time because they had decades of grime and cigarette stuff on it.

And so we tried to clean them all up, make them look presentable.

And it was really, I don't know if you remember, it was our kind of like first big show and tell.

I totally remember i remember them all laid out there and also all looking at them yeah it was really fun yeah it was and but everybody came like everyone in the office were like coming around all this nostalgia of like oh that's the atari i used to have or the commodore my parents used to have um and and it was like a big first moment i was you know a little nervous about like oh um But then I, you went through all of them and looked at them all.

And a lot of them are really tall and boxy.

A lot of them are really rigid or have a height to them.

And then I felt like you were drawn to the data general dasher, which had a little bit lower profile and could also articulate.

It was on a yoke, so it could articulate up and down and pivot left and right.

And it just seemed like you could already see how that could be directed and used.

And we were drawn to that.

And we said, okay, this will be our reference point.

And so we 3D scanned it, we 3D modeled it, we 3D printed it, and we had to get actual CRT tubes and screens to put in it because we didn't want to just do an iPad behind something that looked old.

We wanted to actually do what the real texture, you cannot fake that real texture of what a CRT, an old school tube screen looks like.

So we found matching ones.

We found nine matching Commodore nine-inch CRT TVs.

We ripped them apart.

We tried to put the the tubes within the housing.

We had to make some adjustments because all the old computers just just used to be monochrome and just one color, but we wanted to have multicolors on our tubes.

So the color tubes were longer than what our housing was.

And that one color was that green.

That green

orange.

Or white.

That's red.

There was also white.

I had a Radio Shack, a TRS-80, I think.

That was my first computer.

And it was like, I think it was white.

Yeah, but the green was also, that's like such a green was common.

So are all the tubes used on our computers, are those all vintage?

Those are old tubes?

Those are old old tubes from the late 70s late 70s early 80s because they don't make them anymore they don't make them anymore

and so there's very few left we tried we gathered as many as we could find at that time because we knew you know what if one breaks we weren't even sure it was going to work because we had to rearrange where all the transistors were and all the power sources were and that kind of made the the tubes so you know we had to do a lot of r d that it would make the the images go wavy but we kind of finally got it right and was able to figure out a way to then splice the input and the power cables and dig out a channel within the yoke uh so that we could run all the cables through the yoke of the computer and down through the desk so that it could peer wireless which was a cool little

It's a lot of cable.

It's a lot of cable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then to make them functional was a whole other level to it also in terms of the actual programming, right?

Yeah.

So the it's they're fully interactive.

They're fully on and they're fully

functioning in real time and nothing gets laid in and post or anything like that.

You know, you had said early, I think in that first interview, Ben, that you wanted the.

actors to be able to actually interact with the computer in real time because not only in the story were they supposed to be in front of those computers for a long time, but you know, Adam, you guys are actually sitting at those desks for so long while we shot for hours at a time that not having that actual functionality and that something to interact with just seemed like a lot.

Yeah.

The development of that was, I think, such an important aspect of the show, even to the point of having them be functional so that you guys on set could actually know what you're doing and like be able to, like, so much easier as an actor actually doing something real than pretending, you know?

And I guess in between setups too, you guys would start to do a lot of refining.

Yeah.

I mean, just to pass the time, I would refine and you could also adjust the size of the numbers and kind of learn how to refine enormous groups of numbers all at once or single number.

There's all different ways of doing it.

And Zach and I were always debating which was the most efficient.

No, incredible to, yeah, just like have that ability.

I think it made so many things easier on set.

There's so many more things to talk about with you, but we have some hotline questions from our listeners that we're gonna play for you and get some answers, all right?

Yes.

Hi, my name is Madeline, and these are my roommates, Tyler and Kendall.

And our question is: what is the stuff that Mark has to drink in real life?

Like, what was Adam Scott drinking in that weird little yellow thingy?

Looks like Wallstrom.

Or sauerkraut.

Those are our guesses.

So let us know.

Okay, praise Kier.

Bye.

Oh, the stuff in season two.

Season two.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Kat, but was there coconut in there?

There was.

There was.

It was the reintegration elixir.

And we auditioned so many, so many different things.

You know, we had this whole debate in our prop department before we even showed anything.

Like, do we really make it taste disgusting?

Do we want Adam to really drink something disgusting?

They were like, no, we want him to drink something that tastes okay.

I, there was, um, it was a peanut colada-flavored protein shake with applesauce to make it to thicken it up.

And then we floated and suspended the coconut chunks inside of it.

Yeah, it was not disgusting at all, actually.

It was quite pleasant and lots of fiber

because of all the coconut.

Yeah, it wasn't gross at all.

It was a pleasure.

My question for Madeline would be, what is colostrum?

Or maybe that's Kendall.

Tyler was in that.

What is colostrum?

I think that was Kendall.

Just kidding.

I don't know.

And it does have a sauerkrauty kind of color to it.

I'm so glad it wasn't sauerkraut.

That would have been a bummer.

Oh, and now I just remembered what colostrum is.

It's the first form of milk produced by the mammary glands of humans and other animals immediately following delivery of the newborn.

Colostrum is like

you can get little packets of it and eat it throughout the day for health reasons.

Tyler Kendall is a doctor.

All right, let's go to another question.

Hi, Ben and Adam.

This is Taya calling in from California and I need to know when you guys are making the Irving mugs for real because I need one for my mug collection.

So Give me a call and praise Kier.

Yes.

I love it.

It's a good idea.

It's not, it's a great idea.

It's a great idea.

I've had so much fun making mugs on this show.

I don't, it's just the branding of the lumen mugs and making the trigger mugs.

They're the ones that have the handle with the kind of indent.

So you put two fingers through it.

Yes.

I just, I just love making the mugs on this job.

It shows.

It's such a great prop because it's so like usable in life.

You know, know, I must have like, I don't know, I must have like six different lumen mugs at home that are combination of maybe stolen from the set or from like some promotion or whatever.

I have like a big green one.

Yep.

Did you ever make the green ones?

I did make the green ones, yeah.

Yeah.

And yeah, one of my favorite moments in, I guess it's, is it episode, is it five?

The funeral and, you know, Milchik's in the back supply closet with the other, the other mugs, the other faces.

You know, that was something that I think, you know, it was a great development of the Irving mug from the funeral and the idea that, oh, there are other mugs

with the faces of the other people at MDR that someday might be

ready.

They're just ready.

They got them ready.

It's a really clever moment.

Ominous face mugs.

How about the Irving watermelon head, Kat?

Oh, we actually have a hotline question about that.

So let's play that.

Hi, my name is Joan Musa.

I'm from Seattle, Washington.

I have got to know

who carved Irving's watermelon head.

It was one of the most beautiful pieces of art I've ever seen.

And the touch, the nose, the rhined nose was such a special touch.

I just want to make sure that whoever did that is honored.

Thank you.

Oh my God.

That's like, I've seen people online really obsess over this watermelon head.

You know, our fans are amazing and the super fans are so detail oriented and they have created, tried to create almost all the props and they do it with such high fidelity.

They have tried to recreate the Irving watermelon head and it's just amazing.

The results are amazing.

We tried to do it.

So Pankov, Panko, who is our, Platinov, who is our master sculptor on the show and does so much great work, tried for many weeks to, for a couple of weeks to carve out a real watermelon Irving space.

And it was just so mushy and just couldn't hold the detail.

The water content of the watermelon was just so too, way too high.

And so, you know, I was like, okay, okay, you got to keep trying.

And he's like, I'm going to make it.

I'm going to try out a foam.

And I said, no, it has to be real watermelon.

Everyone will know.

And so he's like, give me a day.

And he got some foam.

I came back the next day and I was like, oh, you made it out of real watermelon.

Amazing.

And he was like, no, that's the foam.

And I was like, he's just a genius.

And I feel like when he had that little cap,

he made the

rind out of the cap with the little vine coming out and his hair.

So good.

No, it's brilliant.

It's like a little pope cap or something.

I don't know.

There's something very ecclesiastical about it.

But yeah, let's listen to one more question.

Hi, Jackie.

I'm an Audi from Down Under.

I am absolutely loving this series, especially the art and design.

And I was just hoping you could give some insight into the design of the show's sort of two two worlds.

I feel like the Audi world is quite modern and

has some really

modern parts of it like the severance presentation while the innie world has a real distinct like retro futuristic style.

And I just wanted to know how do you approach designing each of these worlds and do you have a favourite prop or piece of set dressing?

Mine personally is the goat eye chart on the testing floor.

It's amazing.

I felt like the art department had a lot of fun.

Anyway, Craig's Kiers, great show.

Thanks, guys.

Oh, thank you.

That's so nice.

What's your favorite prop, Kat?

I got to say the break room table, making the break room table in season one and then pushing it against the wall and having it evolve in season two in the break room.

That was a real fun adventure.

Yeah, that was really challenging.

That was challenging because it was something that didn't really exist in reality in terms of the idea of this sort of brainwashing room and to figure out how to get and still have the elements of the retro, the sort of like table projector.

What's that called?

It's an overhead projector, like old school, super old school.

Yeah.

Yeah, which I loved.

And those elements, and I remember you creating that and looking at all those specifics.

And I remember as a director being so excited.

It's like, oh, there's like a knob I can do a close-up on.

I can do an insert here.

So many fun inserts in it, which was amazing.

And then also to figure out even like the throw on that, the projector so that it could be in focus for her to look at the words, for Helie to read the words, then seeing how we could shoot through that.

It was all created.

The ambiance of that scene, the feeling of that scene was because of that table and how you designed it.

And then repurposing it for the second season break room was insane.

And I have to say, it was one thing that I felt like unfortunately couldn't figure out how to do in the second season was to use that table.

I had originally blocked a version of the scene in episode 201 where you guys go in the break room, the new break room for the first time.

And originally the scene where you guys are all talking after Milchik leaves with Ms.

Swong was a scene where you guys stood up and started talking.

And one of the blocking moves was that Dylan went over by the table.

Yeah, I think.

I thought he did.

Yeah, he did.

And then that was a scene, actually, that I went back and looked at and felt like it wasn't quite working.

And we reshot the scene of you guys just sitting around in a circle.

But the sort of collateral damage of that was that we didn't get to see that really ridiculously funny idea of that table, which became like a game table where you had two paddles that were in the shapes of hands.

Yeah, so we used the...

We wanted to use the same break room table that

Helly's hands were

in

the hand forms that she used where it picks up her

vitals vitals

were used now as paddle forms.

Yeah, we made hand-shaped ping-pong paddles, and we had a whole game that we created, which was with a ping-pong ball, and you would try and hit the glass that was now against the wall.

And the projector, you know, would have a little like the old pong where it was just a floating little target, and you would have to try and hit it.

And if you hit it, it would, you know, explode in a firework of color.

And then you would try again.

I will say it was really challenging because the hand ping-pong paddle was really hard to use.

But Ben, you were really good at it.

You got that up, and you were really good at it.

I found it impossible.

I actually, I have a picture of Zach Cherry playing it.

Like one of the Bendo pictures that I can, I have never posted that because I thought people wouldn't necessarily know what that is, but now I could post that of him playing and like having fun with it.

But yeah, that was such an inventive, you know, and great sort of, you know, thematically saying like, hey, we took this thing that used to be a torture device and turned it into a fun game, which was very lumen.

Well, Kat, this was so great.

Thanks for joining us.

Yeah, thanks, Kat.

The show is just such an honor to work on and just the most creative and collaborative.

And you guys are just like such artists.

And it's just such a great, it's just such an awesome thing.

Well, you, you are an artist.

And honestly, the more, you know, whenever we talk about doing the show and talk about this collaboration, we can't literally couldn't do the show without you.

No, there's no way.

So the reality is this, the, the, the show is a collaboration of

all these different artists and creative people, you know, making stuff.

And, and I just feel like, you know, from the beginning, it's, it's great to meet somebody when you meet someone for the first time and you don't know where that working relationship is going to go that I feel really grateful for our creative working relationship.

Yes, me too.

Yeah, dude.

Kat, you're just incredible.

It's such an honor to work with you.

And thank you for being here.

Thank you so much, guys.

And that's it for the episode.

The Severance podcast with Ben and Adam.

We'll be back again next week.

Yeah, this was really fun.

Remember, you can stream every episode of Severance on Apple TV ⁇ .

You can't stream it anywhere else, just on Apple TV.

That's the place.

What if we started saying there are multiple places you can stream the show and started directing them to like Netflix?

Yeah, or stream it wherever you get your streaming shows.

Yeah.

Like they say with podcasts, right?

That's right.

Stream it wherever you like watching shows.

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

If you like the show, be sure to rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your other podcast platform of choice.

It really makes a difference.

If you've got a question about Severance, call our hotline, 212-830-3816.

We just might play your voicemail and answer your question on the podcast.

Our executive producers are Barry Finkel, Gabrielle Lewis, Naomi Scott, and Leah Rhys-Dennis.

This show is produced by Ben Goldberg.

It's mixed and mastered by Chris Basil.

We have additional engineering from Hobby Cruises.

Show clips are courtesy of fifth season.

Music by Theodore Shapiro.

Special thanks to the team at Odyssey, Maura Curran, Eric Donnelly, Michael LeVay, Melissa Wester, Kate Rose, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schuff.

And the team at Red Hour, John Lescher, Carolina Pesakov, Jean-Pablo Antonetti, Martin Balderutin, Ashwin Ramesh, Maria Noto, John Baker, and Sam Lyon.

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

I'm Ben Stiller.

And I'm Adam Scott.

Thank you for listening.