S1E2: Half Loop (with Zach Cherry)

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Let's get them over with. 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 recapping Season 1, Episode 2, entitled Half Loop.
And special treat, we're bringing on Zach Cherry, who plays Dylan George, to go through it scene by scene with us. Hi, Zach.
Hi. Wow, that was quick.
How do you like that intro? Did you think you'd be sitting there for a while? Yeah, I mean, that might be the quickest a podcast has ever started. That's what we're doing.
We're sort of trying to break down some barriers here and, you know, break new ground. I love it.
Well, we're revolutionizing podcasting. You said it, not me, but that's what we're doing.
I wasn't aware, but yeah, this was history. We made history here.
Okay. Well, you've obviously done more podcasts than I've never hosted a podcast.

So what would be like, what would be a more traditional introduction?

Typically, the guest of a podcast sits there on their phone for about 30 to 35 minutes.

That's true.

While the hosts pretend they aren't there.

It's true.

They sort of lay out the premise of the show.

They often sort of, you know, just get into stuff that has nothing to do with what anyone wants to listen to. And then eventually they introduce the guest.
So I was planning on having some more phone time, but I can save that for later. It's so true.
I've been on so many podcasts where I'm sitting in the studio with the hosts just sort of waiting for a while. Yeah.
Well, I'm just happy you're here, Zach, because I feel like you're a ringer. You're funny.
You're smart. You have like a kind of a cool sort of perspective on the show where you're like of it, but sort of like hovering in some sort of meta way outside of it.
Am I creating that in my head?

Maybe, but I appreciate it.

I always feel like if you like something, I think it's good.

Yeah.

I think Zach, if I'm gathering what you're saying, Ben,

Zach is always hovering above us.

Yes.

Yes.

Zach, Zach's, I want Zach's approbation.

Absolutely.

Okay.

I agree.

Okay.

Do I have a little bit of phone time to look that word up? It means approval. I should have just said approval.
Just consider this entire recording phone time. Okay, good.
So Zach, we're going to go through episode two of season one today. Of Severance.
Yes. I know you're on a lot of shows, okay? So, like, it's not Fallout.
It's not- It's not episode two of fucking Spider-Man. Okay.
Like, come on, dude. Yeah, I'm ready to talk about it.
Before we jump into the episode, though, Zach, how did you come to Severance? How did you get cast? My recollection is i sent in a tape first then i got a call back and at the time i remember i was working on the show the last og and my callback was on a day that i was shooting but they let me leave um in the middle of the day and then come back so i i left and i I remember I was sitting in the waiting room and I saw Ben walk by. And kind of how the podcast started, I thought I would have a few more minutes of alone prep time.
And then Ben was just like, all right, you ready? And I was like, yeah, I guess. And then I went in and read and we chatted a little bit.
And then I, as all actors do, assumed nothing would ever come of it and sat in silence for a little bit. And then I showed up, I guess.
Yeah. I mean, what I do remember, Zach, is I said, can you do a little improvising? Do you remember that? And then you did like one take where you kind of like made up some stuff? Yes.
I do remember i do remember that sort of and i remember talking about that because you were asking me about that and and that is sort of how i i like to work even if we don't end up using it it helps me kind of just like i don't know like figure out the edges of the character and like figure out what feels good and what doesn't feel good so i do like to kind of like play around with it when i have the chance it's funny because in the show we don't really do a lot of improvising most of the time but i tend to want you to improvise whenever you feel like it because i always feel like you do come up with great stuff it's it's hard to stop me even in context where i am not encouraged to do it it tends to kind of leak out and i actually remember once early on when we were shooting adam i remember you encouraging me because i think i said something like quietly during a rehearsal and you were like you were like you should say that you should say that again and that that sort of helped me like be like, okay, I can kind of try things here.

Oh, cool.

Because, yeah, you were constantly saying hilarious stuff that should be in the show. Yeah.
And I remember thinking when you read that you were so uniquely right for the part because a lot of people did come in and read for it who were all really good too. but you had this just kind of office humor vibe thing that you were doing that felt very natural and real, but also you have a great sense of humor.
And I think understanding that, you know, where are the spaces for the jokes sometimes, even if you're not doing something that's like supposedly a comedy or funny all the time is really important. And then Adam, I mean, do you want to talk about you doing the part? Sure.
Because it's, for me, this was like such a clear idea when I read the script that you should be Mark. Right.
And basically, I had talked to you about it already. And then I told Apple, I was like, hey, we got the guy.
It's Adam Scott. And Apple wasn't exactly convinced that you were right for the part.
And I said, well, he's definitely right for the part. But like in my mind, the weirdness of this show was that we were developing the show for a platform that didn't exist yet.
And so all of it felt a little bit kind of make-believe. Like it's sort of like, okay, I guess this is a real thing we're doing.
Right. But then they started to like, you know, they started to pay for stuff.
And like we had offices, and we were building sets and stuff and casting it. And so it's like, all right, we're going to really do this for this unknown platform that will exist at some point in the future.
And there was a long process of talking about other ideas, but really had basically was not going to do the show if you weren't going to do it. And I kind of kept saying that to them and they were like, okay, but you know, maybe you'd think of this actor, maybe you think of that actor.
And so then I would think about them and then I say, yeah, I thought about them. And I still think Adam's better.
And finally, it kind of came down to this moment where we really did have to have this talk with the Apple guys who – and I said, look, this is how I feel. And they were like, well, we're just not sure.
And then I was at – sort of at a loss. And then I said to them just sort of like without even talking to you, I said like, well, what if the guy read for you? and then I went to you and I was kind of like

just said to them, just sort of like, without even talking to you, I said like, well, what if the guy read for you? And then I went to you and I was kind of like trepidatious about this because I was just thinking of myself in this situation. You know, if somebody said to me like, hey, I want you to do this part.
And then like told you the part was yours. And I said, I actually, could you read for the part? Yeah.
And I, but I asked you and you said yes.

Yeah.

So just to say right off the bat that Apple has been so great to all of us and to the show and they've been terrific for me. And this has nothing to do with that.
This is just sort of the churn of show business and what happens. Yeah.
I mean, this is kind of par for the course in doing what we do, is that there's always casting decisions being made and people having points of view and that are, you know, really valid a lot of the time. And sometimes, you know, those differences of opinions, I mean, there's so many stories about people who auditioned for something or who was the first choice, who turned it down, or the studio liked or didn didn't like but i think it's interesting to talk about because you don't really hear these stories that often but it's just sort of the process of making something yeah and i never held anything against them either because i understand all of that having been you know a part of this business for a long time it just it didn't even't even phase me really that, that, uh, that it was happening.
Yeah. And also I think Apple was the second they saw the reading, they were like, we totally get it.
Right. And that I give them a lot of credit for too, because it had been such a, you know, long process.
And I think they really understood, oh yeah, this is what we didn't see. I mean, again, we, we've never talked about this like publicly before but i understood why they were feeling this way because the first time i read this script my first instinct was there's no way i'm gonna end up actually doing this this is too good and if i Apple, I would likely be wanting a giant star to play this role, right?

So when you came back and said, hey, what if you come and audition?

Because I remember the email very well.

And honestly, when I got the email, I was in my trailer. I was hosting a game show.
So I remember sitting there thinking, am I in any position to say no thanks to the audition for probably the best pilot I've ever read? Right. But that's underselling yourself because obviously you've established your work and you've done so much stuff.
And I just want to say as an actor, people do get to a certain place at rightfully so in your career. We go like, it's a thing called offer only where you, when you're casting something that says next to the name offer only, meaning the person won't audition.
Yeah. And there are many actors who consider themselves offer only.
And by the way, I understand it because I was an awful auditioner. Yeah.
But when you get in that position where you don't have to audition, of course, you don't want to have to do it. So for you to have the lack of an ego to be able to say or the, you know, just the awareness of like understanding the situation, say like, hey, I want to do this is I think a very rare thing.
And to Apple's credit, we did the reading, and I sent it to them. And to their credit, they were like, we totally get it.
Which I was very happy about that we were on the same page, and we got through that. But I have to say, that was one of the reasons that I think almost like a year went by of nothing really happening on the show was because we didn't have you in it.
Yeah, yeah. And I give you so much credit for putting yourself in that position and doing that.
And I feel like that's sort of for us going forward from that point forward, we were sort of connected in that way too. Totally.
And it was 100% worth it. I thought about it for five seconds.
It was like, yeah, of course.

And here we are.

Hey, Zach.

What do you think of that story?

What do you know about it?

Nobody knows that story.

Or I hadn't heard most of that.

That is fascinating.

Yeah.

It's always so interesting to hear about those, you know, kind of what ifs and near misses.

Yeah.

And then once you see the thing, you can't imagine anyone else doing it. You're like, oh, of course it's Adam.
Yeah. Right.
Exactly. Well, that's the thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then once you see the thing, you can't imagine anyone else doing it. You're like, oh, of course it's Adam.
Yeah. Right.
Exactly. Well, that's the thing.
Yeah. And by the way, I've been like in those situations where like you get offered something and you know, like three people were offered it before you.
Right. Like I had that on Night at the Museum.
I know. Right.
And then I met the director, Sean Levy, to like talk about being in Night at the Museum. And he like did this whole, and he's a really good friend of mine.
mine. But he did this whole sales pitch to me about like how we have to make this movie together.
And then I found out after I said yes, that he had just come on the movie the day before. Are you serious? That's amazing.
That's amazing. So, you know, like everybody, you know, like it's, you have to just take yourself out of it in that way and kind of just like, if you have an instinct about something, you know, from there and you don't you don't let that other stuff get in your head if you want to do what you want to do 100 of course okay so i'm glad we told it's all that's

yeah okay let's take a quick break At Lumen, things are not always what they seem. Mark, Dylan, Helly, and Irving in MDR make a great team, but what else lies beyond the four white walls of their department? There seem to be more questions than answers as the secrets of Lumen are slowly revealed.
There's definitely a lot more going on than you see. It's a little bit creepy.
I agree, there are more Q's than A's in this place. Yeah, for sure.
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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. Some people follow the rules, but where's the fun in that? I'm Soraya and this is Rule Breakers, the podcast where we celebrate the rebels,

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an Odyssey podcast available now for free on the Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Half Loop, episode two.
We start where we get to kind of dive into getting to know Heli's Audi just a little bit. We're seeing Heli record this message to her innie and we're starting on the outside and seeing her record this and then being walked by milchik over to uh have the actual severance procedure done that's right and what i remember when i saw the first cut of this calling you and being like hey I don't think people are going to buy this,

the surgery. Oh, really? Like that was my biggest note was like, this is crazy.
And you're like, no, we had like the doctor there. This is how they do it.
Like that is what brain surgery more or less is like, right? That's what it looks like. So the surgeon who is implanting the chip is an actual brain surgeon, VJ,

and he was our technical consultant.

And so we would talk to him when we were working on the scripts about how the chip could actually work, you know, the needle, the drill,

all those things are real, and Dr. VJ is doing Yeah.
He's doing it as you would in the actual procedure. The nurse in the procedure was our COVID nurse who was in charge, Amanda, who's in charge of keeping everybody safe.
Yeah. That sequence, we wanted to show the, you know, the gory details to really get the sense, like like this is like a real surgery that is happening.
It's really striking seeing the drill go in and seeing sort of the skull matter kind of rise up like it's wood or something. And when he's drilling, Milchick is standing there saying, slight vibration now.
Yeah. And it's vibrating because he's drilling the back of your skull.

Yeah. And also before the surgery, Milchick takes a picture of her and says, I'm very excited to meet you.
Always just sort of doing the creepiest thing possible. And then we see Heli kind of go unconscious.
and then when she becomes conscious again,

we're outside of the door of the hallway the exit right and we're sort of picking up in heli's perspective on the outside of what we saw in episode one where heli was trying to leave right this was one of my favorite early moments of of the show. And I think also for a lot of people like my friends who have watched it, it was this cool moment of the show kind of doesn't hold your hand with some things.
You just see something and then you start to go, oh, okay, we're seeing the other side of what we already saw in the first episode. And I remember when I read the scripts, I didn't quite like clock how that would play out.
But then when I finally saw it, it was like a very, very cool thing to finally see. And I don't know if you guys saw, I think a fan made an edit where you could watch, they like cut the two things together so you could kind of see it all play out.
But I do, I do love that moment in the, in the first couple episodes. Yeah.
we were sort of thinking about that when we were doing it to try to keep them in sync as much as possible and then the end of that little sequence is great because like she the elevator door opens and milchik gives her the white flowers which are the white flowers that heli is holding when you almost hit her with the car that's right episode one that's right i never put that together till just now oh really yeah yeah yeah oh that's interesting that's an experience i've had so many times working on the show by the way is not putting something together even a thing that i was part of and was there for and then you and then you're like oh wow they really really really thought about about this okay so after

we see – oh, this is our first time jumping into the opening credit sequence. Oh, right.
So the opening credits are done by a man named Oliver Latta who lives in Berlin. And on Instagram, he is called extra weg.
And I was driving to work one day when we were shooting and somehow, I don't know how it came up, but I got, I saw his feed and it was this crazy, just trippy 3d animation of like people's brains turning into things and globules going through portals. And it's just so weird.
His Instagram is maybe the best Instagram account. Yeah.
And I just thought, oh, wow, this guy could really, we were trying to figure out what to do for the opening titles. And I thought maybe this guy might have an idea about it.
And so I reached out to him and he had never done any titles before. And, uh, you know, we basically communicated over the course of the next few months.
I'd send him images from the set, different ideas of, of locations and, you know, ideas that we wanted to be a part of the opening credits, but then he just kind of went off and did his thing with it. And we had the piece of music that Teddy Shapiro had written.
And so he created these animatics, which were like sort of like rudimentary storyboards that then he started to fill out. And it was just one of those things as we were watching it come together.
I was like, this is just I could could watch this over and over and over again. It's so fun and was such a just incredible surprise the first time.
The first time, because I just went to a studio and went in one of those things with just like hundreds of cameras all around you and stood there for five minutes while they took my picture. That was all I had to do for it.
Right. They were capturing you for the 3D animation.
Yeah. Yeah.
And, uh, and the cool thing about it too, is that it's kind of his,

I mean, there's something on the show where the production design and the cinematography and the

costumes and even the opening credits all kind of feed in to the creative process of making the

show. And by that, I mean, ideas are sort of coming from everywhere.
And so even in season two, there are ideas that were in that opening credit sequence that he created that informed season two images too. And I think that's just part of making the show.
Our prop designer, Kat Miller, who is just the most incredible prop person ever, she designed all of the consoles and all of the Lumen hardware and all those things. So it's all a very collaborative effort and everything is always feeding everything else.
Yeah, for sure. And Oliver won an Emmy for his opening credits sequence along with Teddy Shapiro for his music.

So after that, we kind of go back to the workstation. And Dylan is teaching Helly how they do their job and everything.
But he starts showing off all the incentives he's earned from being so good at his job. Zach, how important are these incentives? Yeah, that's a big thing for Dylan.
And I remember when i first started working on the show i didn't ask a ton of like extra questions about about what we know about dylan so like early on this is kind of it you learn that he is the type of guy who is who is really obsessed with like hitting his marks at work basically and that informed a lot about him to me. Especially because they're things that are not really things that we would consider valuable, but to him, they're the coolest things in the world.
So yeah, that- Oh my God. He loves these things.
And I will admit, the caricatures actually are pretty cool. Yeah.
They look pretty awesome. It's kind of great that you weren't asking a lot of questions about Dylan's backstory, even as an actor, I think, at that point.
Because Dylan is just so in the world of the present. So it's kind of like he never really has even thought about, except that you sometimes think about your Audi and what your Audi does.
Yeah, but it's more that he tells himself a story. He doesn't really, like, care about what's true at first.
he's sort of just like, oh yeah, it's more that he tells himself a story he doesn't really like care about what's true at first he's sort of just like oh yeah it's probably this it's probably this and yeah stays focused on the on the work which is you know if you can say one thing about me when I'm at work I stay focused on the work oh bro you are so focused it's nuts bonding no every day day. I always feel like when the phone comes out, I'm like, that's Zach just checking his lines.
I know. Absolutely.
I don't even have apps on my phone. I just have Adobe script.
When you first started working with John to Churro, this was like an odd couple to me. That was kind of funny because totally Zach, am am i wrong to to think that like in terms of your experience before doing the show you definitely work a lot and done a lot of stuff but was it mainly in comedy was this like a different world for you to be in yeah definitely you know i came up doing like improv and sketch comedy and that's kind of how i started working so this very much was a new thing for me and i did i honestly i i learned a lot from john you know over the course of of making it and we did get along in a in a fun odd couple way pretty immediately i'm like a huge fan of the show monk i don't know if you two have heard me talk about that john is in i think I think, two episodes of it.
And so it took me like a week to be comfortable enough to bring it up. But then I just started talking his ear off about Monk.
And I was telling him about the show and about they wrote books about his character after the show. And he was like, I didn't even know about that.
And I do think that sort of kickstarted our little bond. For me with John, it was was – I had to wait a couple weeks to get comfortable as I wanted to talk to him about all the Spike Lee movies he's been in.
And then once that kind of barrier was broken, I just never shut up about it. And I remember – I really – just sort of like getting used to the – like you were saying, getting used to sort of the pedigree of this show we were doing.
I remember when I got the job, Ben and I were talking on the phone and you had said generously like, hey, if you have any ideas for actors and stuff for the other roles. And for Irv, I was like, hey, yeah, I had an idea.
I saw someone did a guest spot on Billions. I thought they were really great.
What do you think? And I remember you being like, oh, yeah. No, that's great.
I was maybe thinking John Turturro. I was like, okay, yeah.
Maybe we go with do that. Go ahead.
Yes, John Turturro. That's probably a good idea.
You got to ask. Just like, oh, shit.
This is what we're doing? Oh, my God. Okay.
I felt like that when Rachel Tenner, our casting director, said John Turturro to me. Oh, okay.
Because it was her idea. And I was like, okay, John Turturro is the exact same thing to me.
I was like – and she's like, come on. We got to ask him.
Wow. And then you went and had like Italian food with John Turturro.
Well, that's a whole other story. Yeah.
and then John's idea that he said, what about – for Bert? He said, what about Chris Walken? I was like, okay. Yeah.
Oh, my God. It's like one thing leads to another.
Those two meet in this episode, by the way. Yeah.
Okay. So here is also when Mark is teaching Heli about the numbers and how to do, and so Helly's like learning how to refine numbers from Mark while juggling Dylan's weird interjections and Irv getting kind of caught up in the fact that Mark took the photos away and he can't let go of this.
And so there's like these three different things juggling around at the same time, right, in this scene? Two favorite moments of mine in that scene are you getting under the hood of Heli's MDR monitor. You're fixing something in the beginning.
Like you're literally under a car fixing a transmission. Yeah, yeah.
Which when I was watching it again, I was like, this is just, like, what is he doing? What is doing? He's making sure the, you know, like the whatever, it's plugged in the right way. And I was under there literally doing nothing.
Yeah. But what I love about it is just, it's such an image that just, it just feels like, okay, I get what's going on there.
Yeah, yeah. And then the other part of it that I love, there's a, actually, this is another theme of favorite scenes that I love.

Every scene is Ben's favorite scene. No, but you sitting on the desk, when you get up, you decide to sit on the desk as office guy to tell her about what's going down and how it works.
Yeah.

And there's just something about your posture

and the way you sit there

that just feels to me so specific to this world

and to Mark.

It's sort of like sort of condescending

substitute teacher energy.

Let's take a quick break.

And when we come back,

we're going to discuss all the debauchery

that goes down at a wild and crazy Lumen melon party.

so before the melon party actually starts we have an icebreaker activity to help Heli get a little more ingratiated with the group. And it's us sitting in a circle and rolling this red ball back and forth.
Whoever gets the ball has to state something about themselves. I remember shooting this scene.
It was pretty early on. And watching it back, I was like, this is so weird because we never got to see people without masks on at this point.
This is November, December of 2020. And I would be in this apartment by myself because I was out in New York by myself, go down to my car in the morning, be in a van sealed off by plastic to the driver, get to set, take a COVID test and go up to the room where we were not allowed to be in a room with anyone else with their masks off, sit in your dressing room, then be called down to set with a mask and a plastic thing in front of your face.
We would rehearse. And the only time we actually got to take everything off and be with people was when the camera was rolling.
So this scene was right in the middle of all that. And I feel like it's present in that scene in some way.
Yeah. All that stuff really did sort of add to this quality of surrealness for all of us that kind of made you feel like you were at lumen like you know you were it was a very very strange time it i remember that scene as well you know for the same reason yeah i mean and that that lasted the entire shoot yeah i mean this was we started shooting november November of 20 and we went all the way to like – I guess it was like April or May maybe.
And it never let up in terms of what the protocols were for that and the testing and so many things that everybody was dealing with in their lives. But for us as a cast and crew, there were people who basically you never saw the bottom of their face in the crew.

Yeah.

At the end when we had our wrap party, finally, like in May or June, where there was like that first break before everything came back again and the masks were off. Yes.
And I remember seeing people in the crew that I worked with for nine months and not realizing they looked like that. Yes.
Because I assumed they looked different behind their masks. Totally.
Yeah. And how weird mouths were.
Yes. Forgot that there's like this chasm at the bottom of faces.
Okay. So we're doing this kind of get to know you game.
And then Mark mentions that he broke protocol. Yeah.
It's like the evolution of Mark where he's starting to kind of starting to feel some things and starting to maybe take a chance and question authority for a second here. Yeah, I think the little he knows about Helly, I think that kind of pushes him to let this piece of information get out there just to see what happens.
So then the melon party actually starts. And Zach, why does Dylan love the melon party so much? I think it's all just, you know, he's just focused on what is.
So like, that's a nice little treat. So here we go.
This rules. Melon is good.
It's tasty. I think it breaks up the day.
You know, I think he just really is not that concerned about anything other than what's right in front of him. Very carefully selecting his pieces of melon.
Yes, which became a little bit of a theme. He's very particular about what treats he selects.
That's right. Then it's time for a group photo.
We all get over there and take a couple photos. And then Heli decides it's time for her to go.
She's like, I'm just going to quit. This is total bullshit.
Previously in the red ball game, Milchik had told her about the code detectors in the elevators. You can't have numbers or letters transferred across severed barriers.
She thinks it's bullshit. She gets in the elevator.
Immediately, the code detector goes off. Alarm bells go off and Mr.
Grainer is introduced, comes in. Michael Kumpste as Mr.
Grainer comes in. Michael is excellent and so scary.
I mean, he has an incredible face. He does.
and he knows how to use it. And he's just a really good actor who just knows how to do very little and be really affecting.
And such a gentle, sweet person. It's so nice.
Yeah. Yeah.
So Grainer pulls Helly out of the elevator and seems ready to punish her. Mark kind of steps in front of her and says, this is my fault.
And Grainer's like, fine, come with me. And they walk off together.
And we do not know what's going on here. And then we see Mr.
Grainer bring Mark to the break room, but we don't go any further than that. So we have no idea what goes on in the break room at this point.
And then we cut to Mark on a date in the Audi world with his sister's midwife or doula, Alexa. They talk about his job at Lumen.
Yeah. Nikki James is playing Alexa.
Yeah. Nikki is so great.
She's a big Broadway star. Very big Broadway star.
And I actually had worked with her. She did a small part in Escape of Dannemora also.
That's right. Yeah, the total not-intuit-ness that you have in the date.
What's kind of, I think, maddening about Audie Mark is also that he's just sort of like really just going through the motions. And I think as an audience, I thought about it when we were making it, how are we going to connect with Adi Mark? And I didn't ever want us to have to like try to make him sympathetic.
Yeah. Because it felt to me like you're just like in a really dark place.
Yeah. And it was important not to try to make him someone that we necessarily had to sympathize with.
And this scene I thought was pretty – like you get that in this scene. Yeah, for sure.
He's kind of being a little bit rude. Yeah.
And then when they go outside and come across the whole mind collective passing out flyers, Mark goes up to them and confronts them and is just an asshole. And he's drunk.
He gets drunk. And the drinking was, I think, also an important part of what's going on with him in the first season.
Hey, man, you want to benefit off forced labor. Hey, man.
That's up to you. Forced labor.
Fucking really? Yeah. Forced labor.
Really. Okay.
So people can just, like, self-imprison. Are you captive right now? No, seriously, because your past self chose to walk you down here to be an infantilizing prick to people.
Severance is subjugation, asshole. Oh, oh, that's nice language for, what are you, 12? Are you 12 years old? Are you even in high school yet? I will just say, I do love hearing you both talk about these other scenes because it's such a different world like i didn't even interact with with outie world for so much of of the season that i love hearing about all this stuff because i was in that little uh low ceiling basement were you reading these parts of the script i was i was reading everything but i always say about this show more than any other the experience of reading it and even being there shooting it there's such a gap to when you finally see it like it it really comes alive when you see it in a way other things i've worked on it's felt more similar to the experience of making it so even though i was reading it once i finally saw this stuff and then now learn more about it i am always a little like oh whoa there's so much more there than i even picked up on yeah it's interesting because it's sort of like the amalgam of all the different things that are going on in the show too yeah okay so Okay.
So this date does not go well. Obviously, he yells at the whole Mind Collective kids and Alexa is clearly embarrassed.
Cut to Mark at home after blowing it on the date and Mrs. Selvig comes over and knocks on the door.
Visiting Mark super late at night. With cookies.
With chamomile cookies. Tells a weird story about her late husband who promised to build a house in the afterlife for them.
Then she says, I have the blueprints in my bag. That she has with her.
First of all, you know, we're trying to figure out who Mrs. Selvig is in relation to Cobell at this point.
And, you know, Patricia is so funny. I know she had this idea in her head of wearing that scarf.
Patricia and I are the same age-ish and we come from the same generation. And the show – I know the show in her head.
She mentioned Bewitched, that there's something like kind of witchy about Selvig. And also like a neighbor in bewitched i think it was mrs kravitz who used to come over and was always snooping right anyway that was something she was influenced by and then she had like sort of the valerie harper from rhoda and anybody of a certain age will know that that look is what she was going for and yeah and then you know she was kind of just like again it's like we're trying to figure out what selby is wanting to learn here, what she was going for.
And yeah. And then, you know, she was kind of just like, again, it's like, we're trying to figure out what Selbig is wanting to learn here, what she's really all up to.
Is she obsessed with Mark himself or is she just surveilling him? Like what is going on? The next day, Mark decides, I'm going to take the day off and go down this potential rabbit hole and go see this PD guy. Yeah, which is interesting because like Audi Mark and Innie Mark are both sort of being prompted to step outside of their comfort zone in different ways.
That's right. By these new figures in their lives.
Yeah. And this is also a fun opportunity to see MDR.
With Mark gone, it seems that Dylan is kind of stepping up into a quasi leadership role. Yeah.
I think he, uh, he takes the chance to kind of be the big dog. Also, he spends a lot of this early part of the show sort of like not quite trying to undermine Mark, but pushing him on his leadership.
And so now that he's out, it's like, okay okay well let's see what i can do okay yeah also uh dylan in mdr tells heli that he believes their job has to do with cleaning the sea floor and zach do you remember that was the audition scene yes yeah yeah i do i that one was really burned into my brain by the time we got around to it and i do think that is such a big part of Dylan's character is stories he tells himself about what the outside world is like. That's like huge part of what he does down there.
Like these fables he's created, like his persona and talking about his Audi and what he must be like. It's very important to Dylan.
He's so big into-mythologizing and yeah, just telling a story about the outside world that makes him inside feel important, I think. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Later, Irving is admiring an oil painting at the Wellness Center waiting room and Bert enters, played by Christopher Walken. Heard of him? The head of optics and design.
I mean, this is what the term meet cute was invented for. I mean, this is just lovely in every way.
It is. And Dan wrote this beautiful scene of them sort of appreciating the art.
And it introduces the idea of the art that hangs on the walls and this weird sterile office environment that becomes a very important element in the story too i will just say one of the best parts of the job was sitting there when we weren't shooting and just watching them get a kick out of each other they were like laughing all day telling insane stories about because between them they've worked with everyone and on everything you know so just that was like such a fun part of the job was just sitting there and watching them giggle basically um they really do have such a special dynamic yeah miss gacy interrupts the uh irving bururt flirtation and calls Irving in for his wellness session. We can listen to a clip here.
Your Audi likes films and owns a machine that can play them. Your Audi is splendid and can swim gracefully and well.
I'm sorry. Please try to enjoy each fact equally and not show preference for any over the others.
That's 10 points off. You have 90 points remaining.
Points? Please don't speak. Great.
And that's so, again, Dan Erickson ideas and dialogue.

Yes.

It's just so interesting and fascinating.

And you start to think, oh, wow, if someone being told these little snippets about their outside life, which, as you were saying, Zach, you know, Dylan doesn't know anything. And they just can imagine things.

So it's almost a reward or a treat for them to be told some reality about or supposed reality about their outside life. And we do lay some actual facts in there that down the line we learn about.
Yeah. Your Audi likes the sound of radar.
That's one that I particularly Like, Deach and Lockman is playing Ms. Casey, who is absolutely incredible.

Yeah. On the outside world, Mark goes to the address that Petey gave him.
He finds an abandoned greenhouse. Petey's there waiting for him.
And that was another thing to decide on the day, like when we were doing the scene. Like Mark still needs to be skeptical of this guy.
He drove all the way out here, but it's still outlandish, the shit this guy's saying. But then he plays that tape, and Mark is pretty much in at that point.
Yeah, and I think also there could be an argument that whatever sort of permeates the severance barrier, whether it's friendship, love, affection, the things that would make people friends, maybe somehow there's an instinctual thing that you trust him enough to want to take them to your house. Yeah.
You know? Yeah. Love is one of those things that's continually approached by the show of, is this something that can be affected by your brain and barriers of any kind? Right.
Right. What is that? What is the essence of that? But then you guys end up going back to your basement, right? Yep.
He sleeps in the basement there. Yep.
And Heli finally figures out refining in the sense that she does get scared by some of the numbers. She says they were scary, the numbers were scary.
And Britt's fantastic, of course, in the scene. Yeah.
And she's interrupting the argument between you and Irving about, you say, because you're talking about that Bert's a, you call him a fuck. Yes.
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. Dylan has bought into the, we don't know if it's real, but this sort of propaganda slash mythology of his department is dangerous.
And then we see you also at the vending machine trying to choose what you want to eat at some point too, which I think is like we sort of have a little runner of like Dylan can't choose the melon ball. He can't choose which shriveled raisins or which snack he wants to get which i think sort of in some ways connects to why he likes these rewards he likes to be given a thing but choices may be too much sometimes oh that's interesting yeah yeah that's like overload almost yeah it's sort of like the rat in the cage that doesn't want to leave his environment.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So back at the basement, Petey ignores a phone call on his cell phone and then starts having reintegration sickness. And his nose begins bleeding.
And suddenly there are two of him in the bathroom. And that's a crazy sequence.
Yeah, he starts hallucinating and starts seeing himself in the shower and start it's we start to see his realities are, you know, kind of intermingling and his office reality and his Audi reality. And we wanted to play around with different ways of doing that, which we continue on in the next episode in terms of the language of that.

And yeah, and then that's it.

That's the end of the episode.

We don't know what's happened as Petey sort of like goes still on the, you know, in the bathtub on the floor.

That's right.

Zach, you now have more phone time.

I can't wait.

I can't wait to get back on my phone.

Thank you for doing this, Zach.

Thank you for hanging out for so long.

Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, it's good to see you, man.
Next up is episode three in perpetuity. Stream all episodes of season one on Apple TV Plus right now.
And season two, again, premieres January 17th, 2025. I have to say, episode three is one of my favorite episodes.
Is it? Yeah. Wow, Huge surprise from Ben Stiller.

Late breaking news.

I'm a huge fan of one through nine.

No way.

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, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Leah Reese-Dennis.
The show is produced by Zandra Ellen and Naomi Scott. This episode was mixed and mastered by Chris Basil.
We have additional engineering from Javi Krucis 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 LaVey, Melissa Wester, Matt Casey, Kate Rose, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Shuff.
And the team at Red Hour, John Lesher, Carolina Pesikov,

Jean-Pablo Antonetti,

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and Oliver Ager.

And at Great Scott, Kevin Cotter,

Josh Martin, and Christy Smith

at Rise Management.

We also had additional production help from

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I'm Adam Scott.

I'm Ben Stiller.

And we will see you next time.

Hey, Adam. Yeah, is your experience at work a bit dysfunctional lately? I don't know.
I think it's... It's...
Okay, I'll take that as a yes. Your team could undergo a highly controversial surgical procedure that would mercifully sever any and all memories of that work experience from your home lives.
Or you could try Confluence by Atlassian. Oh my God.
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So that would equal out, like if we're playing with like, let's just say 100%, 5.2 of those percentage points. Yeah.
That's the improvement. I mean, I'm not great at math, but that sounds very close.
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