S2E3: Who Is Alive? (with Gwendoline Christie)

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That's A-T-L-A-S-S-I-A-N

Dot com Slash C-O-N-F-L-U-E-N-C-E. Hey, I'm Ben Stiller.
I'm Adam Scott. And this is the Severance Podcast with Ben and Adam, where we break down every episode of Severance.
Today, we're diving into the third episode of Season 2, Who is Alive? Written by Wayne Ng U and directed by Ben Stiller. Yeah, we got a great episode for you today.
First, we're going to be joined by the incredible actress, just incredible person, Gwendolyn Christie. Oh my God.
Who plays a mysterious new Lumen employee who, you know, has something to do with goats. The goats are back.
Oh, yes. The goats are back.
The goats. And she's connected to the goats.
I'm excited. And then after that, Ben and I will talk about a few of our other favorite scenes from the episode.
Plus, Zach Cherry is back, of course, to predict what's going on in the next episode. Okay, so we're going to be talking about anything and everything from episode three.

So if you're just, you know, listening to this podcast and it just like automatically went into the next podcast and you haven't watched episode three, please watch episode three first and then come back to us.

You know what? If someone is behaving like that and just listening to podcast episodes willy-nilly and then just watching whatever they want, that's dangerous behavior. I know, but maybe they just, they were listening to the episode two, you know, 202 podcast and they fell asleep.
Stop defending that. Which can happen sometimes with our podcast.
And then all of a sudden they wake up and it's like they're hearing spoilers for episode three. That's right.
In that case, it's our fault. Yeah.
And in that case, they probably won't hear this warning because they're asleep still. Right.
Wake up. Time to wake up.
Wake up. This is very exciting, you know, because I don't know about you, but before we were lucky enough to have Gwendolyn come on our show, she was one of my very favorite actors.
And her turn as Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones is seminal and one of the great television characters ever. Amazing.
Amazing. And, you know, I, like many Game of Thrones fans, and we can talk to her a little bit about it, but, you know, you put these characters in their own world and to see her as a living, breathing human being in, you know, the modern world who's super cool.
And I just, I, first of all, welcome. Hi.
Gwendolyn. May I speak? Yes, you're here.
Thank you. I've been waiting for permission to speak.
Or should we just keep talking about you for 20 minutes? I feel so relaxed while you do it. It's so great.
While you just talk about me, it's not at all uncomfortable or strange. No.
No. Not at all.
No. Well, we like talking about you because we're fans.
And you and I met a few years ago because I was a fan of the show and you were in new york and some representative or somebody said hey would you guys like to get together but it's weirder still we were at the emmys and i took a photograph of my boyfriend and i and then i looked at it because we don't often do selfies and looked at it and i said it's Ben Stiller up there in the corner. He's looking directly at the camera.
And then I said, oh, my God, what if he thinks I'm trying to take a picture of him? He'll think I'm so weird. This is awful.
And then I felt a tap on the shoulder, and it was you, and you were incredibly nice to me about Game Game of Thrones and I said oh god I think I think it's okay I don't know I was really over terribly overwhelmed already and then even more overwhelmed and then because I was obsessed with Escape at Dannemora yeah I then said to a representative please is there any way I can meet Bener? And then we met as if by some miracle after the whole weird incident at the Emmys, you decided to magnanimously overlook that and agree to meet me in person. And I really wanted to work with you.
And you mentioned this show, Severance, and it sounded amazing. You said, there's no part for you and i was like great why am i here yeah and then thanks for the coffee i'm so thrilled to um but it worked out was but was thrilled but this is weird as well so when the show came out i was really excited about it and i watched it my mind was genuinely blown from the first time i watched that opening scene and seeing Heli on the table and every single element of its strangeness and the suspense and the relationship between the characters and the dysfunction and the clinical environment.
And to me, it was... John Le Carre is my favorite, one of my favorite, favorite authors.
And I really adore his work and no one quite builds suspense and atmosphere like john le carrie and hitchcock too with that degree of cinematic suspense and i finally saw this in a tv show and i was a really obsessed with it like i'd make sure everyone left the house i'd close the curtains i'd sit down and watch it then i'd watch it again dogs had to be silent. Sometimes they make noises.
I was like, please, you want to stay in the room? We've got to be silent. So after that, this is like when I watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Yeah. So after that, cut to about 2022, I'm having a dark night of the soul.
I'm really like, I want to do something I really want to do. I'm not being creative enough.
Why aren't I in severance? I'd never be asked to be in severance. No one would ask me to do that.
Really bitter, bitter. Finally get to sleep early hours of the morning.
And this is true. I wake up and there is an email from your producer asking me if I want to be in the show.
And that is true and insane. Wow.
I know, isn't it? Wait, so you were having a dark night of the soul, which all actors have, which is- What is that? I'm not familiar with that. Ben's never experienced anything like this other than glory.
Yeah, just ask Christine. On a plate.
You had a dark night of the Soul specifically as a reaction to Severance. Like, why am I? Partially.
I mean, the show made me angry. Yes.
I was angry because I loved it and it wasn't in it. So we are the givers of pain and delight.
Yeah. I mean, I don't know.
It's sort of stamped on the delights. It was like a kick in the face.
Watching it was a kick in the face um that is so amazing because i remember us thinking wow should we ask gwendoline would she do it would she do it yeah that's what i remember thinking yeah oh completely yes because i remember you had the idea and it was perfect it was a perfect idea for Gwendolyn to come and play this

role and it was all about could we get her and like I was like oh man would she do this and I was so excited and so happy and I just enjoyed when we did meet um even though I didn't have a part to offer what we talked about because we did we did talk about my favorite kind of meeting because you're because you have you're just such an interesting person and your your experience as an actor i mean there's you have like a very varied kind of experience where you come from what you what you do and it's weird yeah you want to talk about that varied experience not at all don't want to don't want to speak about it. Well, let me ask you the question.
In what way do you perceive it to be strange? Well, you told me a little bit about your background and about the sort of creative community that you were a part of and have been a part of. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, well, you know, I grew up in the countryside and it was a different world then.
You know, magazines were the internet and I was obsessed with films. I was obsessed with television.
I was obsessed with America and literature and art and fashion. I really, anything I could get my hands off.
And it was very rural where I grew up. So it was hard to get these things.
You know to drive half an hour to get a magazine that would be maybe three months out of date or something.

And I hated school.

It was such a bad experience for me.

So I had this other rich interior life and world of hoping.

And so when I arrived in London, it was under kind of quite strange circumstances. To be honest, I'd done a fashion show.
I'd been spotted on the street for the student designer, and then Isabella Blow, who was a stylist and who discovered Alexander McQueen and Philip Treacy and all these phenomenal people, she sort of discovered me and got me to meet lots of people and lots of designers. And everybody got excited for about two seconds and then it all just sort of faded away because these things do.
But I was where I wanted to be, which was immersed in this creative world. And I was obsessed with St.
Martin's School of Art and the designers that came out of there and the artists around there at that time. So I was embraced by a community of freaks, basically, who live life on their own terms, who identified in different ways, who considered themselves to be outsiders of societies and misfits, freaks.
We were all freaks. But we came together because I suppose we didn't have a home.
But we had a home together. And the UK at that time had a different kind of system whereby you could find a survival as an artist through one means or another.
It was a very, very different time. And so having been obsessed with classical work and doing classical plays, I then moved into a different environment of the avant-garde, I suppose, from that extraordinary group of people.
And Lee Bowery had died two years earlier, who's a really outrageous avant-garde artist who dealt with the absurd and the obscene. He had died two years prior.
So it was that group of people that were all underground artists. And it was hilarious.
Everybody pretty much was hilariously funny. So you kind of had this background of more sort of traditional Strasbourg kind of education.
Yeah, and classical work, yeah. Then you kind of moved into this more avant-garde.
So that must have been an interesting mix. And then I went to drama school.
That was classical training with a method approach. And that was 12 hours a day, five, six, seven days a week.
And it was insane. It was brutal.
It was really brutal. And I arrived thinking, I'm not going to make one friend and left just being in love with everybody.
And was that in London? That was in London. It was Drama Center London that had a sort of terrifying reputation.
Right? Trauma Center. Which is what attracted you to it? It was specifically because it was a classical training with a method approach.
And there was a choreographer at that time called Michael Clark who was sort of doing something similar in that he was classically trained as a choreographer, but he worked with Lee Bowery and he would work with The Fall and he would work with other avant-garde artists to create these dance pieces. And I thought that's who I want to be as an actor.
And also the fact that everybody told me no and told me that wouldn't work and I wouldn't work. I sort of, I don't, it actually weirdly galvanized me at that time.
I think because I'm bloody minded is the only conclusion I can come to.

How would you define bloody minded? I like that term. I suppose it's sort of sticking two fingers up at the establishment.
Right. Which is why this particular school appealed to you in the first place.
There's a sort of something I told, you know, you kick the dog and the dog lays down,

or you kick the dog and it jumps back up again. And I thought I was always the dog that laid down,

but then I realized I was the dog that jumped up and murdered you.

That's bloody minded.

It's a nice segue into short into and this is my first podcast well it's a fantastic story I mean it's not going to be your last it is it's so interesting that whole world is so interesting because you know like you're talking about a sort of counterculture thing this group of group of people that you were part of you did you ever imagine that like you were going to then end up in like this you know show that would be kind of like go all over the world and like did you see yourself doing that it was completely weird because to be very honest you know things weren't happening for me in terms of my career. They sort of were.
I was working, I was doing theatre, but, you know, no one could see at that time an obvious path for me. but you know when I was with my friends I was a star and I was adored and loved and it was amazing because it didn't matter how I was treated out you know on the streets walking the dogs or by the rest of the industry because I had a home and I and I could be loved and adored and and you know and and that group of people loved that I was a freak they loved that I was living my dreams out as an aesthetic and as a life.
So it was a combination of feeling like the waiting for the world to catch up with me, but more generally thinking it was going nowhere. And were you thinking that way when you took a step outside of and got some perspective on your life and taking a step outside of your close-knit group of friends?

Or was it something you realized later looking back? I think when you're in your early 20s, you know, that whole environment is exciting and it goes with your passion and enthusiasm for life and wanting to really taste life and experience life, which is what I really wanted to do. And I think as I definitely as I as I crept closer to 30, I remember the first time I went to Los Angeles, I was on my way to the gym.
And someone that worked in the industry who was a friend of the friend said, What age are you and i said i didn't tell anyone my age because i was like god i'm what age was i don't know 33 and i was told it was like and uh i said uh i said i'm 28 and they said uh well i hope you are because if you're over 30 this is not going to work oh jesus to be honest, it was fairly accurate at that time. I mean, who would ever have suspected that this part on television, of all places, on HBO, would arrive of the incredibly unconventional woman who is described as being hideously ugly, who fights men, who is on a mission of chivalry and dignity and overriding sense of moral good, and be allowed such prominence.
It was unheard of, because people, you know, the whole, the feeling at that time was that people didn't want, there wasn't audience for that. So it was a bolt from the blue.
Really, honestly, it was a total bolt from the blue. And was it season two that you started on Game of Thrones? It was season two, yeah.
Season two. And at the time, was it apparent to you that this was going to be the most popular TV show in the history of planet Earth? It's so strange what you saying that I just completely kind of, because I've never really taken that aspect on board, mainly because when we were doing it, what's so delightful about that show, and I think has resonated through it, is that nobody expected it to be a success.
It was this odd fantasy show that nobody expected to go anywhere. And I read the books and I went through a whole kind of Rocky style preparation for the part.
Because I used to always, I mean, it's sort of how I look now, really, but I used to have really long hair and wear a lot of makeup and be very dressed up up but I'd never got in touch with that aspect of myself with all the fear points of being incredibly tall and incredibly strong and sort of very unconventional looking and in some ways disfigured and you know lots of all the you know all the all the strange elements of me that I did my best to shield and I knew it was time to get in touch with that as, I don't know, as strange as it might sound to, for my wholeness as a human being and as an actor, I had to embrace those things. I could no longer live in denial of them.
And I had to embrace them and to be able to have a part in which to do that, to become someone else, to become all the things I was horrified and terrified about myself. And the things that society told me were wrong as a woman was a dream, was a perfect, perfect dream.
So I stripped it or, you know, I stopped wearing makeup. I pulled my hair back.
I, I trained at the gym. I lost a lot of weight training.
I put, I put on loads of muscle. I did kickboxing.
I read all the books. But what was fascinating about the books was that it was such unconventional narrative.
It was so subversive. And the women were at the forefront, and I thought they'll probably cut that and just leave it as the men.
But I thought if they get this right, I truly think this could have life. But almost nobody else did.
What that meant was everyone was committed in terms of creating a piece of work, a drama, where we were all giving everything we possibly could. I mean, it's great to hear you talk about the very thing that was so unique about you is what is, of course, what is so special about you and why you're so successful and people want to see your work is also the thing that makes it hard for the world to see before that opportunity comes up.
And that's something I think it's important to hear, you know, because that uniqueness can sometimes make you feel like you're never going to get to where you want to get. But that's also the thing that actually gives you, you know, that specialness.
Yeah. And the courage to take all of those things, all of those unique attributes and push them out on the outside and use them.
And in the process, make one of the only characters I've ever seen on a show where

I felt like if one hair on her head was harmed, I don't know what I would do with myself.

It's incredible hearing any part of your story, Gwendolyn. You're just the coolest.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, we're going to take a break.
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So we need to move on to mammalians nurturable. What's going on with Lorne? Yeah, what's up with her?

Yeah, I

mean, Lorne.

There's a lot going on with Lorne,

isn't there?

Are you here to kill

me?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Sorry, hi, I'm

Mark. I'm Hellyi and we're with macro data refinement what is this place mammalian's natural so we're mark and heli are going around to different departments looking for Miss Casey, and they stumble upon what they come to know as mammalians nurturable, and Lorne is there.
As far as just, if we want to start with the wardrobe, which is really unique, what was that process like? Were you working with Sarah Edwards to figure out what you wear? Sarah Edwards is completely wonderful and really skilled and has a brilliant frame of reference and incredible imagination. She's so great to work with and she's so good with creating character.
She's so good at telling the story so that you receive a deeper experience. Anything I do do I want it to be different I knew I wanted to be different and also in watching Severance so much I wanted it to to have a different feeling in the show I didn't want to replicate and as much as I did want to replicate everything I didn't want to replicate anything and I was led by Ben.
I mean, I only had something like 4,000 references for hair, but... Surprise, surprise.
I'm getting this reputation as the guy who is obsessed with hair. Well, I'm obsessed with Adam's hair.
Yeah, well, we're all obsessed with Adam's hair. And when it was Adam's birthday, I sent Adam the glossiest, blackest flowers I could find in celebration of your magnificent hair.
They were the most beautiful flowers I've ever received. Only eclipsed by your hair.
Oh, God. What I liked was that you and Sarah sort of, Um, you connected and went off together.
And, you know, honestly, like for me doing any project, I'm very collaborative and like to work with people who are really good at what they do. Sometimes I have a specific idea, but lots of times it'll be just like, you know what, come back to me with what you're thinking, what you're feeling.
I feel like you guys went off and created this look together yes i i really um i i just went towards what i was drawn to which is what i do increasingly these days rather than trying to be systematic about it so initially i had uh and this doesn't i mean i i sound like such an airhead but then probably i am I was drawn directly to Martin Margiela at a particular point particularly when he was designing for Hermes because those fashion elements together by that conceptual artist spoke to elements of the show and there's a very particular time in the 90s with the color palette as well that I was receiving very strongly that's a sort of favorite era of mine kind of around 1993 is what I what I found there um and then so there was a visual there but I knew I had to go into something real now what's weird is when you and I spoke about the part I was in the highlands of Scotland and uh and we left and it's remote place you have to drive through the moors that were covered in sheep and so it's unending that landscape and it makes you feel like you're in a totally different dimension with all these sheeps around and then a good friend of mine is a sheep farmer and my oldest friend from when i was a child my first also keeps sheep. So I had to do some very sort of undercover questioning about it.
And what struck me was in speaking to my friends, the sheep farmer and kind of being around them, was the life and death nature of it. The whole time these lambs are being born because I couldn't get close to goats.
I could only get close to sheep. And during lambing season, that's life or death.
And what do you mean life or death? You mean if they don't get the amount of wool that they need for the season, they won't survive? I mean the lambs being born. So when you're around things being born and breeding, it's very intense and very emotional.
And the darkness that I could sometimes see, I felt was really core to lawn. So that darkness and the rawness and researching farmers and people dealing with animals and the way that so many farmers will commit suicide because of what they're around, because it's so hard, because you're dealing with animals.
I mean, these are just a few perspectives. Putting those elements together, and I loved that Sarah Edwards had this idea of this sort of Thierry Mugler jacket, but making it filthy and deconstructing it and changing it.
And I wanted to change my silhouette a little bit as well. Yeah.
Andchief the yes it's amazing that was you know that was sarah and it was it was so perfect and we and we really love the idea of the rubber boots to be in that environment the idea of kind of wading through blood or feces or whatever you have to deal with the idea of this department was really the and antithetical to anything we'd seen in terms of literally, you know, like you're saying, it's organic and there's grass and creating that space was, you know, Jeremy Hindle had this really smart idea where he, we wanted to have this, you know, this hilly terrain. And we knew that the reality of building sort of this hilly grassy area on a soundstage would just be impossible uh and the scale of what the room was going to be we wanted it to be really really big yeah so the solution was that he found a golf course out in uh jersey no it was brooklyn yeah it's a golf course like in the far reaches of brooklyn and we built a tent over the golf course and put up some walls and uh and supplemented the rest of the computer and that was the environment it's one of the first things that we that we filmed for the series uh second series we put up lumen walls uh up against the tent is that correct we put walls up uh that were in you know where they would be but only like the first sort of you know like 10 or 15 feet of them and then the rest we augmented with the computer yeah but we were all in a tent for a number of days uh as this with real goats, lots of real goats and incredible people in this department, the mammalian's nurturable department, the actors that we found were just so committed.
We wanted people with these just rugged, intense faces that, like you're saying, like have been dealing with these life and death situations out there. and obviously there's a lot of mystery about who Lauren is and what she's up to.
But what I loved about what you brought to the part, first of all, everything you're saying about your imagery, your inspiration, like that to me is like why you work with an actor. People say, you know, oh, you hire an actor, they come in, they learn a lot.
It's like, no, when you work with an actor who is really like a great actor, you come in, you came in with all these ideas that to me, it translates no matter what of those ideas actually ends up visually in the show. It's the fact that there's so much invested in what you're doing and thought into this character and you're making a real person.

And that is what makes any of these characters on the show work in my mind is the belief in this world no matter how fantastical or weird it is yeah and you get the sense when when we walk in there that lauren is going to be formidable to to uh mark and heli and you get the sense that there's this severe protectiveness that she has over this place and these animals. Not just the animals, but those people that you guys have been through it and that you need to.
You have a need to protect each other and the animals. You know, there's this scene when basically you guys go to her and say, you're looking for Miss Casey, you won't really give any answers.
And then you basically get freaked out and ring your bell. But there was an incredible moment where the goats were everywhere.
Your desk is in the middle, in the corner of the goat room. a goat came up to the desk and was butting its head against my knees.
Yeah. Under the desk.
While we're shooting this serious scene. And I am quite good at not laughing, I laughed.
Yeah. I laughed and I laughed and I probably made some woo noises.
I remember when I was shooting my coverage and I was trying to maintain this serious thing with you and a goat was eating my shoelaces. Yes.
And it really tickles if a baby goat won't stop trying to eat your clothes. Yeah.
It was amazing to having a makeup touch up and the goat eating the brush or the sponge. It was chaos.
I was there for it. It was amazing.
I loved every second of it. But also the goats were one of my absolute favorite, favorite moments of the first series.
Because when I was watching it, and then when I heard the goat cry, and I thought, are they putting goats in it? They're not. They are not putting goats in it.
They are not. And then when I heard the goat cry and I thought, are they putting goats in it?

They are not putting goats in it. They are not.
And it was such a sublime moment with Wyatt feeding the goat. It was just sensational.
I think I sort of did some cursing and some pacing. And then when you said that I was in charge of the goats, it was a hallelujah moment.
Oh, it's perfect.

Let's listen to that little scene where once you kind of gathered everybody around, you're kind of holding them captive for a moment to figure out what to do. And then you finally decide what you're going to do.
Excuse me. Have you seen this woman? Hey, stop that! Her name's Miss Casey.
She was the wellness director. Stop that! Have any of you seen her? Enough! We've decided to send a courier to inform Mr.
Milchick of your inquiry. No, no, no, no, you can't do that.
They could kill her if they find a... That's not a mammalian's problem! It's an inny problem.
Listen, we used to be afraid of other departments too.

We're not afraid of you!

Look, they just disappeared her.

And if we let this happen to Miss Casey, then who's going to step up when it happens to us?

If one of your goats went missing, wouldn't you go looking for it just hear the goats i know there was no shutting them up um they aren't interested yes yeah it's a tense scene it's a tense scene. It sounds incredible.
Well, I mean, I love your character because she has so much, um, she's very protective of both the goats and, and the goat people in your department. which to me is sort of like indicative of there's a lot there that we obviously don't know about but it it feels like, again, we've noticed that these departments, first season it was O&D, now it's Mammalians and Urtribal, are kept so divided from each other.
And so suspicious of each other. Yes.
Yeah. And it sort of takes it to that next level.
Yeah. And like you, a lot of people had this real reaction to the goats.
It ended up being this sort of hallmark of the show that we didn't really anticipate. I don't know if you did.
No, no. After the first season, people responded to that goat scene, that one scene.
And we felt like, well, that's good because it's part of what the story is about. But I have to say, though, I do have a fond memory of talking to you when we were prepping.
You were hanging out somewhere, maybe it was when you were in the north there with the sheep. And I remember just checking in with you once and you said, I'm just here with the sheep.
Yes. Well, yeah, because I would go down to the countryside to be around sheep.
And I walk through the fields for hours, for days, weeks, to develop this, to find this, to be fearless. So that when I was put with the goats, and we went looking for goats, we found goats as well.
And I put my hands, my fingers through the chicken wire. And they are freaks, goats.
They are. They're really highly intelligent.
They climb, they climb up things, they eat things. I did everything I could to be around those animals and to also lose my natural prissiness and to get into the guts of the situation.
I loved it so much.

It was thrilling.

Amazing. prissiness and to get into the guts of the situation.
I loved it so much. It was thrilling.
Amazing commitment. And it totally pays off in the work that you do in this show.
Gwendolyn, we've been inviting people to call in to ask questions of the show. And the goats have really resonated with people.
So about a third of the calls that come in go a little something like this. Hello, this is Ashley.
I am wanting to know whether or not we will find out what is with the goats. I was just wondering what's the deal with the goats.
How are the baby goats doing? And when will they be ready? Just wanted to know if the baby goats is code for sex with Mark S. And if the goats are actually people.
As well as the goats being fed milk. So what's going on here with all this dairy?, you know, I've been raising them on my own here for a while.
Just want to know what you guys are going to do with all these babies, all these goats. I think that's all my questions for now.
Thank you so much. Praise gear.
Yes. One of those guys sounded like you, Adam.
He did. I think the guy that sounded like you was the one that asked if the goats stood for sex with Marcus.
Well, as people will now see that there's a reason the goats are there. And we're going to find out more.
And we found out a little bit. And how lucky were we to have Gwendolyn heading up the goat department and to have you on your first podcast yes what about that well thank you both for making dreams come true something as simple as that putting me in my favorite show on tv a simple thank you not being an experienced podcaster i'd say you you're a very good podcaster.
Oh, my God. I will never podcast again.
No, no. Keep it pure.
That's it. It was this one moment in time.
That's great. Makes it even more special for us.
Yeah, 100%. Thanks, Gwendolyn.
So great to see you. Thank you so much for coming over and doing this.
We were in person, by the way. Yeah, this is in person, which is, it's so much fun in person.

Yes, it's a lot more fun in person.

But I personally love to be

a disembodied voice.

Well, thanks for flying in

from England for this.

Yeah, exactly.

Better catch your flight home.

It's a pleasure.

Yeah, straight after this podcast.

Okay, we're going to take a break.

We'll be back right after this. The MDR team continues to search for answers as they try to piece together memories from the overtime contingency.
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All right, let's get into the rest of the episode. Let's start with the newest Lumen reform, the visitation suite.
So while Mark and Helly are looking for Ms. Casey,

Dylan is meeting his Audi's wife.

Should we listen to some of that?

We have three kids.

Right.

And you, no, he, or...

My husband has had trouble keeping other jobs. He dumb? No.
He a dick? No. What is wrong with him? Oh, nothing's wrong with him.
He just... He never quite found his thing.
So he's actually kind of a fuck-up? Yeah. I mean, this is obviously part of Milchick's sort of, you know, manipulation of Dylan that started in the first episode of the season and based on his demand from the end of season one.
Yeah. It seems to be working.
Yes. You know, that's the thing.
Like at the end of season one, Dylan has been ever since he saw that kid in the closet, you know, there's just no going back from that. And we were thinking, okay, who's going to be Dylan's wife? Yeah.
And much like with Gwendolyn Christie, why not just go to one of the great- Go to the best. Actresses around and Merit Weaver agreed to do the part and she's so organic and, you know, I think grounded that relationship in such a great way.
And it's just such a, you know, weird thing where, you know, what kind of world are we in where a wife is meeting her husband who doesn't know her at all? I know. And you know what's so great about, I mean, one of the thousands of great things about Merritt Weaver and her work is in this scene, you can really just read all of that that you were just saying, the strangeness of this and the strangeness of meeting your husband for the first time.
And he doesn't know who you are. You're reading it all.
They're not talking about that. She's not saying, this is weird because of this, this, and this.
They're carrying on the scene, but you're seeing it all and feeling it all they're not talking about that she's not saying this is weird because of this this and this they're carrying on the scene but you're seeing it all and feeling it all just from her experiencing it she's so good yeah and it has like a kind of a little bit of a vibe of like almost like a prison visitation scene even though they've remodeled the security room into this you know know, this was a Jeremy Hindle idea to kind of like refabricate the room into this sort of like, you know, kind of lush little, you know, very anodyne kind of warm place. that's not it's a lumen version of warm i like that the uh that the backdrop behind the windows

where the computers were is like a sort of like a natural history museum painting of a beach and some gulls. Yeah.
And you get the sound effects of seagulls and kind of beachy vibes. Yes.
Yeah. Which is just.
And like reeds, like dried reeds. That's right.
It's also condescending. Yes.
And, um, but you know, what's kind of great is that you start to see this inkling of what their relationship probably was when they first met. Right.
And she's seeing that. And Dylan, of course, is just experiencing this woman who he thinks is so cool.
Yeah, his mind is blown. but you can see the sadness in her of, yeah, like you said, like kind of reading this, feeling this sweetness from him and sort of, and you starting to learn more about her relationship with Audi Dylan through watching her behavior with any Dylan.
It's really interesting. And his world just kind of turned upside down.
Yeah. And you're seeing how Milchick being able to hold this over Dylan, the promise of something like this in contact with his family is compromising him in other areas of the episode.
You see his interactions with Irv are now slightly compromised. Yeah.
And then, of course, we see Back at Home right after that. Yeah.
Oh, my God. She's kind of not quite saying what happened to Audi Dillon, which, you know, similar to me to season one, Dan's idea of having the Rickon book turn any Mark on to Rickon as this sort of, you know, incredible sort of almost like messianic figure.
And while on the outside, he, um, you know, can't stand him. Um, it's just a simple idea, you know, I love this simple idea that could only happen in this premise of the show, which is that Dylan's wife starts to have these feelings for his innie as if he's another guy.
Yeah. She sort of is keeping things from the Audi and not being completely honest with him about the nature of her experience.
Yeah. Cause you get the feeling from that hug that there's a little bit of spark of something, which in a normal world would be like, oh, this is actually, you know, could be good.
But they are two separate entities. And I don't know.
That's just for me what's so fun about the show is to be able to explore premises like that. For sure.
And getting to see Audi Dillon being this guy who is a little adrift. adrift he goes every day, but he doesn't do, he doesn't, he isn't aware of what he's doing there.
He can't even get his shit together enough to make the cookies for his daughter's class. He's sort of just there.
And you can see her kind of holding up everything, kind of spinning all the plates of the family.

Yeah, she has a uniform on.

She works in some sort of,

I don't think we quite see exactly what it is.

Yeah.

And Zach Cherry also told me that

when he found out Merit Weaver was doing the show,

he was so excited because he's a huge fan of hers,

but also I think Zach's wife is like, she's her favorite actress. Wow.
And, you know, we joke with Zach in terms of his actual, you know, commitment level to the reading the scripts or watching the show or, you know, being in 12 different shows, but which he is, but all joking aside, I mean, it's been so much fun to watch Zach, you know, really rise to the occasion with this character and the depth that he shows and the vulnerability and the innocence and the, you know, this kind of new... There's the Audi Dillon, but there's also any Dillon is softening and, you guy who just cares about finger traps and perks.
Yeah, muscle shows. In season one is starting to actually have these emotional vulnerability.
Yeah, his world is opening up in a really big way. And Zack is just phenomenal.
Yes. Okay, next up, let's talk about Ms.
Cobell. The last time we saw her, she was speeding away in her car, almost running mark over.
Now we find her sleeping in her car on the side of the highway. That song, that Stone Rose's song, Love Spreads, it's not something that probably you would guess would be a music cue to go with Cobell.
But I really felt like Stone Rose's, it's her era. We don't know what time frame the show is actually in, but for Patricia and myself, that 90s era music, it felt like the right era for her.
And when we put that song on for the radio that she turns on, just there's something about the vibe of that song. And then we played that sequence of you going into work and timing how long you can keep an image in your eyes, this weird idea of trying to burn

this image into your eyes, right? And you're trying to figure out, Adi Mark, how long he can keep that so he could possibly be able to see who is alive on the insides of his eyelids when he comes to as is any in the elevator.

That's the plan.

Yeah.

You know, so you do your little experiment. The next time we see Cobell, she's driving down the road, this snowy road, and she gets to this sign that says Salt's Neck, 200 and something miles.
And she has this moment, she looks down to the front passenger seat, and we that little breathing tube yeah we don't know what she's thinking but we get the sense that maybe something with salt's neck and that breathing tube are connected and we know that that breathing tube if we look closely in last season was you know had a the name cobell on it yeah and uh she decides she's not going to go to Saltzeneck.

She's going to U-turn and go back.

Yeah.

And we see her pull up in front of Helena.

Yeah.

Helena thinks she's done for the day,

walking out to her car.

With her ominous looking driver.

Yeah.

Cobell says, you know, basically like,

I'll come back, but she has her terms.

MDR, non-negotiable.

Marcus is so close to completing Cold Harbor.

I intend to finish the work that I started,

which is why Milchak must go.

He's not equipped for the task.

I must be floor manager.

I hear ego.

Hubris. arrogance.
Care teaches us they only cause pain. Everything I accomplished, I earned through dedication and industry, not because I was born into it.
She thinks she has some leverage here. Right.
And says, you owe me this. I'm integral to this company.
But she wants to get rid of Milchick and get her job back. And Helena is just sort of, just sort of shrugs it off and invites her in the building to discuss it further.
And this is the, you know, the second time we get to see this dynamic, the flipped dynamic of Helena in charge of Cobell. And there's this really kind of weird moment where you don't know what's being inferred, but basically Helena is saying like, you know, we could do whatever we want.

And she says, come meet the board, come talk to the board.

And Cobell goes with her until she gets close to the car and she sees Helena's driver.

And there's this moment.

We don't know what it is, but it just feels wrong.

Something in her gut feels wrong.

I think that she's unsure she's not completely sure but she's unsure if she'll ever come out of that building again if she follows her in there yeah it's very it's all implied and sort of i could be wrong completely but something in her says she doesn't want to go in there and she turns around and drives off. And it's just so fun watching them and how great Brit is as Helena.
It's just so much fun. Yeah.
No, it's, I mean, this, so far this season, you know, to see Helena as a character, it's basically a brand new character. Yeah.
And I think Britt, you know, has really, the way that you guys have delineated these innies and outies is just always so much fun to watch.

Yeah.

And then the end of the episode when you see Rigabi, I think, you know, kind of like sort of jumpstarts us into the propulsion and the forward momentum of the season.

And you decide to go in for this reintegration idea. Yeah, well, finally Mark gets an actual answer, a black and white answer to the question, is Gemma actually alive or not? Let's listen to that scene.
How could you not tell me? We were interrupted, if you recall. Mark, I want to help you, but you have to trust me.
There's one way and one way only to get information in and out of Luma, and that's reintegration. I'm better at it now.
I can make it work with you. I can sew together a version of you that loves her with a version of you that can...
Yes. Do it.
You're sure? I want to see my wife. I remember when we were talking about how to do this scene where Rigabi tells you she is alive.
And this is the moment now where you're ready to accept it because I think you've kind of heard it enough. Yeah, the ground's been softened enough.
And I feel like that's believable. But we were talking, I remember we went out to the parking lot to figure out what the angles were for the car scene of her in the car talking to you and telling you this.
And you said to me, when you hear that news, instead of just sitting there, you said, I think I might want to go outside and maybe get, like, almost might make me sick. Or, you know, that physical reaction when you get such momentous news.
Yeah. And I remember we talked about that and you kind of did what you thought you might do there.
And I think that ended up making the scene a lot more interesting visually too, in terms of, and motivated for when you decide, yeah, you're gonna, you know, you decide you want it. Cause you have to make this decision of, yes, I'm going to go for this.
I want to see my wife again. Yeah.
And it's something that's sort of been building over these first few episodes, which is to actually get someone to believe that someone that they've been grieving is still alive. We all felt like it was something that he needed to hear many, many times before he would believe it.
And this is the point where he does. So that's why I love working with you so much is that we're in a situation like that.
And I get a, an instinct that this kind of news would drive me to, you know, feel sweaty and hot and nauseous. And whether I actually throw up or not, it, it, it's, it's too big a moment to contain it in the car.
That's just emotionally what I thought was going on. And you're kind of there to go along on that ride and kind of agreed with it.
So we kind of took the scene outside of the car. And that's really, really fun to come up with that stuff with you on set.
And I think it's important, too, because that leads to the next moment in the scene where you do agree to the reintegration right on the spot. So I think that buildup to you saying, yes, let's do it is more believable because you've had that reaction to the news building up to it because it is a place also where the tempo of the of our storytelling shifts yeah really quickly yeah into boom you know hard cut to you in the basement with ragabi she's set up the you know homemade equipment and we're just going for it yeah and you know there's another version of it where it could take another whole you know know, two episodes to get to that.
But by believing that decision for you by the reaction you had to the news, to me, like then makes that next part of it believable. Yeah, the episode easily could have ended on, let's, I want to find my wife.
And then we get to that event. But yeah, we just jumped right into the reintegration stuff.
all right before before we go, it's time to check in with our buddy Zach Cherry and see what he actually thinks is going to happen in episode four. Because for real, he's not seen any of the episodes.
Until they air, he doesn't see them. And it's really questionable how much he actually engages in them.
He essentially reads his lines. His lines.
And that's it. And he learns them phonetically.

I heard that, yeah.

Hey, Ben.

Hey, Adam.

It's me again.

I'm here to fulfill my solemn duty of delivering predictions on what's going to happen in the next episode of Severance.

And, you know, I do take this very seriously because I think our show, sometimes you need a little help figuring out what's going on.

So I hope I'm here to help the fans and provide them with a valuable service.

Now let's get into it.

Next time on Severance.

We've now seen Mark's early time as an innie during his reintegration process.

And I think we're going to go even further back and we're going to see what was happening in Kier at the time of the dinosaur. What? And maybe there's a dinosaur named Dylan and a dinosaur named Irving and they're also friends.
That makes no sense. Yeah, I feel like he put as much thought into that as he does into anything else.
Though I do like the... Some good Apple tie-in with one of their nature shows or something.
I just love the idea of a dinosaur named Dylan and a dinosaur named Irv. That could be another DreamWorks franchise in the works.
Okay, so on that note, that is it for this episode. The Severance Podcast with Ben and Adam will be back next week to talk about Season 2, Episode 4.
Yeah, and thanks again to Gwendolyn Christie. Just the best ever.
And you can stream every episode of Severance on Apple TV+, with new episodes coming out every Friday. And then, make sure you're listening to our podcast, which drops right after the episode airs.
The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott is a presentation of Odyssey, Pineapple Street Studios, Red Hour Productions, and Great Scott Productions. If you like the show, be sure to rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, the Odyssey app, or your other podcast platform of choice.

Our executive producers are Barry Finkel, Henry Malofsky, Gabrielle Lewis, Jenner Weiss-Berman, and Leah Reese Dennis.

This show is produced by Zandra Ellen, Ben Goldberg, and Naomi Scott.

This episode was mixed and mastered by Chris Basil.

We had additional engineering from Javi Krustas and Davey Sumner.

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, Matt Casey, Kate Rose, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schuff. And the team at Red Hour, John Lesher, Carolina Pesikov, John Pablo Antonetti, Martin Martin, and Christy Smith at Rise Management.
We had additional production help from Kristen Torres and Melissa Slaughter. I'm Ben Stiller.

And I'm Adam Scott.

Thank you for listening.