For Ben Stiller and Adam Scott, the positive response to their seriocomic dystopian Apple TV+ series “Severance” means different kinds of relief. For executive producer-director Stiller, it’s the reassurance that he and audiences can still see eye to eye, especially on something tricky and genre-bending.
“I’ve experienced it all, so to see how people are invested in the show, it’s a great feeling,” he said recently over a video call with his lead actor, Scott, who plays Mark, a man whose work existence and home life are neurologically walled off from each other in his surgically altered brain. For Scott, the fan love assuaged the nerves he felt doing justice to a project he loved. “It’s the kind of role I’ve always wanted,” says Scott. “I’ve been working toward this some 20-odd years, so the reaction has been the best-case scenario.” Here, the two discuss splitting a character in two, the tough shooting conditions and trusting each other.
The show hinges on actors splitting a single character into two. So how did you both work out the differences in Adam’s portrayals of Innie Mark, loyal employee of the mysterious company Lumon, and Outtie Mark, hard-drinking, caustically witty widower in his off-hours?I think it was important that it feel like the same person, so the shifts between the two were more internal. It would manifest itself in subtly physical ways.