Full SEVERANCE Season Finale Event Q&A with Cast and Creators - SPOILERS!

i needed more than that much time to soak that up they told us this is supposed to be 30 minutes and they're like can you end it on time and i was like no we have so many questions don't we yeah yeah that we can't answer if you haven't well we thought how we would start because i think most of you haven't seen this before that everyone would starting at the end will introduce themselves and say their instant reaction to watching that [Music] amazing i had never read any of the scripts so i didn't know it was great i actually read the script so loud to michael so this is awkward i'll take a xanax if anyone has one uh i agree with all that it's great exhausted my heart just gotta work out intense i'm i'm still pretty sure this is a prank that people are playing on me uh that was it was fun to watch it with people so thank you for letting us have that experience um by the way this is dan erickson hi well i guess uh we could just start at the beginning and what's wrong with you dan like what where does that come from in your mind yeah it goes way back my family's here so they they bear some of the blame i think um but yeah i know this this was the whole thing started because i was in the you know i was i moved to l.a and was doing a series of office jobs that i just absolutely hated and walked in one day and was like god if i could just suddenly not experience the next eight hours i would totally do that i would give that give up that time uh and that's a that's just a screwed up thing to catch yourself wishing for uh and so you know the story just kind of kind of came from there and ben when did you read this or hear about this yeah it came through uh red hour and uh jackie cohen and nikki weinstock and they got the script and uh yeah jackie said you gotta read this thing and i i was i just loved it i mean it's funny like dan said he i know when we first met you said you were working in a door factory i was working in door factory that is right but is there such thing as a door factory i didn't think so until i worked in one yeah but that's damn like like i think you know like people work in door factory um but like he had a way of taking this experience i think this very you know mundane experience that he was having to go through and turning it into this really interesting concept and i just loved his writing and so we you know immediately i reached out to adam scott and uh and that was like five years ago and now adam is in costa rica yeah he's in a better place but there is a weird i was trying to feel bad for him in that video but like it looked really looked good but he's like oh then room services here hold on i'll finish the video afterwards that that is the lightest version of coco that i've ever seen in my life if you aired that on tv no one would get a shot ever but how was it but it is that there's a pandemic vibe to it yeah a little bit and but it was written obviously before it was written before but it's been a long process and you know uh and and thankfully endeavor content and apple developed it with us and uh dan spent a lot of time thinking of different things he's an endless founder of ideas um and then we uh finally at the point where we were making it we got and we were able to get patricia on board in this incredible cast and uh we were about six weeks away from starting to shoot and then uh covet hit so we had been prepping for about six months already and then we had to shut down but then we kind of kept going and we made the whole thing really during the heart of it all so it was a weird weird experience i think because we never knew what we were getting into from the start someone should make a movie about that type of experience yeah that would be funny like everybody's like in a bubble yeah when you can't really talk to people you can't have dinner after work you can't talk it through afterwards the whole thing is a is a little more intense yeah all of that it was happening and it was as soon as you could come back to work we came back to work so there's this labyrinth of hallways and to utilize a space best they would move around the doorways sometimes at night and you'd go to the stage and get lost and be like i'm here to rehearse i'm lost on the stage but the crew had shields on and mask and six feet apart and then when i had to yell in natalie's face i had a really hard time with that scene first of all just to yell on her face was a whole issue in my own self but then i was like we don't have shots we can't have shots there's no 80 year olds are just starting to get shots and what if i gave her something so there was also another weird tension just in within the scenes of like you ready here we go whoa we have no defense we don't know what's happening we're in this weird thing and then i got shut down like five times i was in shut down for two extra months yeah literally patricia would come from l.a we shot in new york and she would get there and shoot for a day or two days and then all of a sudden be quarantined for two weeks so severant you know paranoia awareness that go to your room and stay alone don't see anyone don't talk to anybody is that part of why your character is so deeply troubling exactly no i blame this man here and this man i mean those are some incredible cadences you know like it's it's really remarkable performance uh because there's so many unique choices in it and i could see like while you were tweeting it's probably a moment where you're like is any of this working right yeah i think until like this afternoon i mean i definitely was we shot it uh you know not episode by episode we did it like a movie where we shot the whole thing pieces of episodes all across even this episode especially so it was really hard to get a sense of the whole thing until we finally finish shooting and we're editing and i think for the actors that was the biggest challenge i think for harder for them for me was that they had to jump in and out of the story and especially for adam uh who was doing a lot of you know the sort of you know both sides of it um i think that was really really challenging but i think everybody kind of took responsibility for their character and it was fun because dan leaves space in the writing for people to interpret what's really what what else is going on you know we don't know that much about milkshake or you know even dylan's life so for the actors i think they brought their own ideas and would fill it and sometimes we wouldn't talk about stuff but they would just make choices on their own which was interesting because there's no you know you can't really say that's wrong or not you know not right because it's sort of up for interpretation well all the performances really are incredible i mean it's so it's remarkable complex work it's so i mean it's just pitch perfect everywhere you'll talk a little bit about you're you're falling apart most of the time how you decide what that looks like as someone whose mind is uh imploding um well that was uh a lot with ben you know we we talked about it a lot we rehearsed on zoom i was in i was in florida and uh we would just we went over a lot of the what we could go over and then when we got there ben gave a lot of room for a lot of stuff to happen in the in the room but it was tough to know because i didn't know what what the uh visual effects was going to be so i'm i'm in this weird but i would trust ben that's what i do he's like you'll see when you do this it'll make sense and i was like all right dude just don't let me look like an isn't that all of acting though now so you know yeah it was in in in pieces really this is the only way i could think about how we did this and michael your character i've watched the series multiple times thank you your character haunts me the most i'm not sure why you live inside me um have you read the book the you inside of you yes i have i always like looking when you have a lot of text on the screen to see like you want the audience to read a little thing ben but then there's another hunk and i was like to pause and go did they write the rest of the page of the book we read it we wrote it all this is there's a lot more uses he wrote like 50 pages of that book it was about it was about 50 pages there's a lot because you know you never know if on the day we're going to want to like flip through a couple pages so there was always like a lot of pages written just in case so you got it my favorite is at the center of industry is dust this dust i was thinking about getting that tattooed but i was going to run it by you like the dust and parenthesis you should run it by me well we're all doing it we're all doing it did you let michael read the 50 pages so he would know what he would yeah and he would it was fun because i i felt like i was writing it just for adam because in many cases he was the only one who ever saw it but yeah like he would we'd be between takes and he'd start laughing at something and that always made me feel real good i for some reason it always makes me so sad when your character doesn't think he he read well yeah it's strangely heartbreaking like he's so funny in a blowhard and then he's just now he's just a sad sad clown it's a hamburger waiter with no hamburger does it feel like hamburger waiter and door factory like yeah for the same ride all the same yeah no but it did it got a lot easier to write the uur once michael was cast because i would sort of sit alone and do kind of a michael impression as i would write it and and like talk to myself in my apartment and it just it made it flow much more easily and brent how is this for you i mean this is a big it's a big meal to take on from the second one uh it's a it's a big one how did you feel also just even being in that room where you shot you shot so much of it in the same room during a pandemic that's a lot of time with zach there's a lot of time when zach was 11 months wearing pantyhose which if you've ever worn pantyhose you know why uh heli is so angry and uh yeah the set was super inspiring to want to get the hell out of there so i had a lot of fuel for uh heli's gasoline everywhere i looked then you had to look at that guy who played your dad i mean how are we supposed to shake that off man what do we do with that that's that's in our minds forever yeah there's a lot to pick apartments and yeah yeah there's also there's so much there um and jen how how is it for you just you know playing you know uh you you're playing something really complicated like you're trying to be supportive in a really kind of messed up reality with grief and work how was it working with adam i mean obviously adam didn't care enough so he lied and said he had a disease that i come to but for you how was it working with adam in those times it was great i mean he's a dream it was i think coming in playing someone who's sort of a balancing act of care taking all of the men around her was was it could be an isolating moment at times but everybody made it so easy and uh most of all adam i think we're both close with our family so it was an easy dynamic to sort of pull from um and the man loves a good book so we bonded early on on political books that's how it happened george lakoff we read george lakoff books together that's that's what went down i mean he's so dialed in adam i mean yeah it's insane it was i think any of us that that worked with him particularly in that character were definitely made to hop up on our toes a bit more because he was he saw the man pre-coped and and you're that scene uh with uh you know the the very intimate wellness scene i mean that it's it's such a beautiful scene you know talk a little bit about that moment um yeah it was extraordinary i mean i'm just like a girl from kathmandu and sitting up here with all you guys and being on set with ben and adam and just the most extraordinary crew i was just trying not to up the whole time um ben you directed that scene and i was just so nervous and i had to remember to breathe and um you know we played with it and and it's so interesting working with the director who's also been an actor and that you know the compassion they have for the the process and the work um i just feel so lucky it was an extraordinary time i think that you know there were so many levels that we didn't know how the audience would react to in terms of giving away things and so that was one of the reasons we had to sort of play around in terms of like well this like the little i think like the littlest sort of gesture or the littlest acknowledgement the audience that we found and i assumed with going into the audience would be watching closely but we really found in you know as the show has aired that the audience is so clued in to the specifics and looking for every little thing so it was really an interesting process trying to regulate all that and that's why i think everybody did such an amazing job and then also being able to be with these actors for such a long time and see their strengths come out and you know like just what trammell does uh in episode seven with his dancing like let's see but i saw that before was even over i just texted ben and said i feel like everything you've done your entire life and career has led to this moment it has and i'll take it from here thank you yeah let's see give us a move when i study extensively [Music] i was able to use my tutelage to create a character that is very nimble very agile and i'm grateful that um ben has opened the floor to allow that agility to exist there so thank you just like we rehearsed it patricia do you wish you were dancing with them well yes no i mean yes i love dancing as much as my next guy but not next to tramal because then you look like dancer i'm glad i didn't uh show my dad moves and to get zach out there i'm so getting over you in the serial killer show at the bookstore why didn't you stop him [Music] none of my business zach is one of my favorites of all time he wasn't crashing and i love seeing you crush this hard in this show and the scene where you find out you have a child it's so beautiful and i'm just proud of you as a friend and someone who's worked with you to see you do something so amazing thank you obviously he doesn't care as much about me as i get up here that's what i took from that little i he didn't have the same moment i did i think he's like the most chilled out person i know i mean you're just your natural state is just very relaxed or like the least relaxed guy ever but this is the cover uh a little about it and so dan uh you have the next season finished yeah have you written it yet uh yeah sure um no we're we're so yeah as you may have heard we were just announced for for the second season the other that's day congratulations thank you yeah um you know how mad we would have been if that didn't happen how many of us would burn our apple computers and throw them in a ditch yeah no it would have been the end of computers like i think we would have acted it out live that they hadn't picked it up we just would have made it happen it's a real cliffhanger yeah yeah and and i was really scared i'm glad people seem to really like this episode because i was really scared they were just just gonna be mad um you know at the cliffhanger aspect of it but yeah we were happy it's um you know we tried to make something that gave us some satisfaction some modicum of joy but uh also you know opened the door for a lot of different new avenues that we're gonna go so you know it's fun to think about kind of how the events of this episode change the world and change the game for all the characters and and how they're now gonna have to contend with that so yeah i mean we were we were talking about season two this morning we were we were uh so we're going through it and i think it's gonna be really fun and here is when [Music] well according to the internet we're already shooting so tomorrow sketching out second season during first season like how much in your mind when you you thought about this for half a decade right like how much farther forward does it exist in in your mind it's it's i have a pretty strong sense and you know we've talked about this at length ben and i of sort of the overall where it goes sort of what the company is doing what their plan is and what role our characters are going to play in that moving ahead but we wanted to make something you know we wanted to think of it in a way where it could be two seasons or it could be seven seasons you know and so we tried to create something that had some flexibility within that but but yeah there's definitely you know i have like 19 seasons planned you know several of which hopefully thank you yeah 20 seasons are bust michael do you want to pitch what happens to your character next season uh i sure do um no i mean i did and i trust i trust you completely to do that [Music] i stand behind you yeah no i mean it is lucky and and you know i i do want to say while i'm up here what an amazing thing it is to work with one of the greatest living directors right now um but but from the beginning i mean ben was always like you know we need to we need to know what we're doing so we can sort of work from the outside in because no no detail can be sort of superfluous and so it's all you know ben made sure that we that we thought through everything and and you know that includes sort of where it's going and that you know so that we can be sort of laying seeds for things as we go and it it just was a wonderful wonderful way to work thanks great did any of the uh tell them some things maybe he could do better now's your chance it's a safe place better snacks they'd say better snacks generally better snacks yeah it was like a rice crispy thing all right let's talk about it all right craft service people fight for unhealthy crab service like you try to make it healthy i think that's natural yeah i know i'm trying to trying to create a healthy work environment um now it was such a weird it was a weird one you know because we really didn't i said before we didn't get to hang out at all i remember like we went out with adam jen and like one night right and right and then it was like a week before the read through or maybe a few days and then all of a sudden nobody was seeing each other for two years um so it was you know i just hats off to everybody who's had to deal with this all of us getting through the last couple of years but i feel like we all you know went through something together do you think the pause made it a lot better that you had more time to think things through like i actually do um we were about six weeks out from shooting and we paused for about we it was probably march it was march and then we started shooting in november i think and so in that time we got to keep working on things got to keep prepping and um you know everybody's sort of playing by ears as all productions were uh figuring it out as you went along but in terms of thinking things through and uh having time to work on stuff it actually helped us and there's these seeds of these love stories that potentially could happen season four yeah or sooner when would they happen are you excited about the potential it could become a really hot show in some way i mean it could become anything at this point dan we don't know what direction it's about to go well i'm i'm i'm interested for uh miss casey and and holly to to really get to know each other i don't know what that means but i didn't mean for that to be what i sounded like but uh you know they're obviously connected so you want to have a scene together yeah absolutely and there's the fundamental churro and christopher walker yeah there's a lot of there's some unfinished business yeah yeah yeah i mean john and chris couldn't be here but man they're just such amazing actors and i just want to say so grateful where are they pretending to have covet was that what are they pretending to have cohen yeah um so let's talk about the religious aspect because you've created some sort of weird religion slash business how much of that bible have you written uh uh oh of the handbook the employee handbook there's a there's not as much of that as there is of the uur but there's probably like 10 pages of that all told um those catchphrases are really good but so weird yeah it's really it's so you in some way yeah it's it's it's thank you i think uh he seemed like a very specific writing style yeah that was like really wonderful and inventive and but really creepy well it's it's really fun to get to work in that voice of this like creepy quasi-religious corporate overlord you know who's who's writing these these sort of you know terrifying lessons for of subservience for the workers um but it was i i mean we talked so much as we were doing this about you know different cults and different work cult like organizations and you know we were looking at uh you know nexium and everything and and uh what's wrong with nexium sorry i shouldn't i shouldn't assume uh yeah it but it was what we found is there's this weird fuzzy line between stuff like that and in some cases businesses where it's like there's a cult of personality surrounding the founder or like the current ceo or you're going to work every day being told that the coffee you're making is going to save the world you know and they're sort of buying your loyalty with this weird quasi-religious um tone so so it was fun to sort of look at that like look at that spectrum of cultists uh in different parts of society and then let that inform kyrie and his whole ethos you know it's amway yeah um but uh it was weird because whenever dan would talk about like the the cure eagan sort of ethos and the rules or like the uh the core principles like i would give then notes on the script and say like well this doesn't make sense and then you go okay but then you start talking about the nine corporate so they're like okay yes i understand like i would never question him because he was i just took it just he knew like where is this coming from i don't know but he was very clear on them it's because of verve then right exactly uh but i i think that weird uh sort of cult like business culture thing that's kind of you know the corporate culture with the cult aspect of it is what's interesting in the show because it really does sort of i think cross over to what a lot of people experience in these bigger corporations not apple but other organizations google nightmare google yeah patricia why is it so troubling when the boardroom is just like yeah i think the board is really the people that grow her most off base and when we were first reading this you know i didn't know why they wanted me to do it i didn't have much to do in the first episode i didn't know what it was what this company was doing and as they were writing during that break those things like that specificity of the language and the belief and the core principles and all of those things like we kept talking about them and i kept asking more about that and getting more of that information of that kind of uh belief system of that and in that is the board right and the board is the void and the board is i mean part of the whole setup and any of these kind of organizations religions army whatever it is military political parties all of it is set up like often that you keep going to get water from the dry well and part of the setup of you working so hard is because you're never going to get there so you think you know the rules and your upper management now not only do i know the rules but i'm going to tell you all what the rules are and the sounds are constantly shifting and suddenly you're out of favor again and now you're desperate to get back into favor again like you know hearing a story like is shelly miscavige uh scrubbing floors with a toothbrush for four years in a cave i mean i don't know but i could see this this last time i saw her she said she was fine it's all a misrepresentation [Music] yeah just that quest that you can't and you're always wrong no matter what well yeah it certainly seems to be very political undertone to it in your head are there like i mean we won't be able to get into it we'll let people yeah well let's get into it let me i'll tell you my voting history no yeah it's it's definitely a it aspires to be a show that that tells the story of workers and the people who have had jobs like this and who have felt sort of marginalized by their you know their situation and their they're a lot in this weird capitalist system we're all part of you know hopefully they can at least see their story told here and see some of their struggles sort of voiced and understood um you know that's the that's the best we can hope for and uh how do you look at your character and how he fit into a office situation and his role there you know i i see him as this very ambitious guy that is um trying to climb that corporate ladder that wants to go for what cobell has you know and he's a by any means necessary kind of fellow and he's very crafty and sharp and we see him unravel as this season goes on and his control and his quest for control gets the better of him which is so interesting and so fun to step into and ben if i feel like this journey to direct something like this it really has been your whole career and you you've sacrificed so much of your acting career to do work like dannemora which is so incredible and this and i'm so glad that you decided to do that because really no one does do that well kenneth branagh does it but other people generally don't do it i guess he did it well as well but i mean it's like i know your love is sitting in the man you always talk about forever and there's a real kind of kubricky and feeling to this and the music is so incredible uh teddy's work and do you know what before we finish do you want to talk about some of the other people the cinematography and the production design yes yeah incredible team thank you yeah i mean by the way it's not like for me it's not hasn't been a sacrifice because i love doing what i do and i have to be able to focus on that and to be able to work with the team that we've had and jeff richmond is our editor who i worked with on dannemora and um and and uh erica friedmaker and gershon hankson who also were editors uh and um jessica lee gagne our cinematographer uh i have to say um who's not here tonight uh ethan mcardle who directed episodes456 did incredible work and she was with us from the beginning we prepped together we shot it all together so uh her contribution was uh huge and um jeremy hindell's production design really i think you know was uh so specific and it was just a great team it's just great to see and everybody kat miller or props department who designed those terminals uh the level of commitment that everybody had to this was beyond and we all felt lucky to have something to focus on and to uh to dive into uh because it felt like it was worthy of it the material that dan had written and uh and along with the entire uh other writers in the writing staff that you know that he oversaw um but uh you know we just felt lucky to be have something that was so substantial to to dive into so uh i'm grateful to everybody it was a complete group effort sure well i mean it really is a remarkable work we've all watched so much tv lately and we're always so disappointed i mean not the tinder swindler that was better than we thought it would be but usually we watch it and then you see something like this and it makes it worth watching 10 000 hours of to see like a masterwork like this i really think it's just brilliant everyone did such an incredible job and i congratulate all of you it really is fantastic and can i just judge and i just say i've been known this guy for a long time we started working together in 1992 92 91 i'm just so happy and proud of what you do and grateful for you and uh it's nice to be here with you this moment in 2022 and uh grateful for our friendship and your work sounds good thank you [Applause] wanted to thank you everybody this was a delay we haven't had a chance to hang out with each other and this has felt like the best party just sitting up here let's get some waffles out and here thank you for bringing heart and humanity to this story i mean we've been living through a dark time and this show is you know there's dark circumstances but these characters have such and wonderment and you really brought them to life and it's just it's been a pleasure to work with all of you thank you fans thank you thank you guys [Applause] thank you [Music]

Channel: The Astra Awards

Views: 97,807

Keywords: Processing Severance, Severance, Severance Review, Severance Recap, Severance Spoilers, Severance Breakdown, Severance Series, Severance Season 1, Severance Apple TV Plus, Adam Scott, Severance Episode 9, Severance Finale, Severance Season Finale, Severance Ending, Severance Explained, Ben Stiller, Dan Erickson, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Zach Cherry, Dichen Lachman, Jen Tullock, Michael Chernus

Id: NzZfkJy4Z8Q

Length: 34min 52sec (2092 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 09 2022