“Severance” star Adam Scott could have felt any number of things after seeing the first billboard for the Apple TV+ series that featured his face front-and-center: elation, pride, excitement for this project he’d spent months working on to get out into the world.
Instead, his psyche took him to a bit more of a panicked state: “Oh s–t,” he thought.
Television hadn’t quite seen something like “Severance” before, and it hasn’t quite seen something like it since. A slow-boiling dystopian sci-fi drama set in the confines of a bright, sterile office? Innies? Outies? Patricia Arquette gone grey?
Scott, who also serves as executive producer on the series and is Emmy-nominated for the second time this year for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, relished the opportunity to be in what Stiller called a creative “bubble” while creating Season 1. But he soon enough realized that there was no way of knowing how the world would take it in.
“I remember I had my freak out about that specific thing,” Scott said in conversation with Stiller for the latest installment of Visionaries, TheWrap’s longform video interview series spotlighting the year’s best performers and multi-hyphenate creators. “The billboards went up before Season 1, and I saw my face, and I was like, Oh s–t. Like, What is going to happen? Are we just going to be made fun of?“
“Or ignored,” Stiller added, laughing.
“As far as, like, how it will be received by people or critics or whatever, we have absolutely no control over that,” Scott continued. “So it’s time to just push it out in the world and let it go.”
Fortunately for Scott and Stiller, “Severance” was anything but ignored. A critical hit with dedicated fans in Season 1, the unlikely workplace drama experienced a groundswell of ravenous word-of-mouth in the nearly three-year lead-up to Season 2 amid the dual writers and actors’ labor strikes. Now going into the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 14, the series is a frontrunner with 27 nominations — a best-in-show turnout that also includes Outstanding Drama Series for showrunner and creator Dan Erickson and Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for Stiller.
“I remember when we were getting ready to put Season 2 out, you and I were just worried about getting all of the Season 1 viewers back,” Scott told Stiller.
“When we were making the show, obviously, there were setbacks and things like the strike. But when you’re in it, it’s that thing where you’re, like, having to spend the time to get it right because you know that people are waiting for it and we knew the audience from the first season was very loyal to the show,” Stiller said. “So it’s that struggle of like, Oh, it’s taking time, but if I don’t take this extra time, then when it finally comes out, it’s not going to be as good as you feel it should be. That was a constant battle.
“And then there’s that unknown of just like, are people going to watch it or not?” the director added, echoing Scott’s fear apparently shared among many creatives.
“That’s one of the things I love about working on the show, while we’re shooting, while we’re actually there, we’re always so hyper-focused, and it’s on making it as good as it can be,” Scott emphasized. “And that sounds like a simple thing, but we’ve all been on sets where that’s not necessarily the focus. And when you start doubting that really simple thing, that’s where things can sometimes fall apart and just not be as cohesive.”
Now to just strike gold again for the already anticipated Season 3 …
To hear more of Stiller and Scott swapping stories about early career breaks (Stiller wasn’t originally meant to direct “Zoolander,” while Scott was a last-minute replacement on “Step Brothers”), creative jitters, the prowess of the “Severance” creative departments and more, watch their full “Visionaries” episode in the video above.
