How 'Severance' Creator Came Up With the Idea for the Show | How I Did It

ben called me and just gave me the elevator pitch of the show and i remember thinking if i'm able to land this if i may be able to actually get this job it'll be like i've spent the last 20 some odd years earning this hello my name is mark s [Music] and i have of my own free accord elected to undergo the procedure known as severance i'm dan erickson writer creator ep of severance i'm britt lauer i play helly r i'm adam scott i play mark and this is how we did it i confer upon you the advanced role of department chief congratulations a handshake is available upon request thank you may i have a handshake i wrote the pilot while i was working a series of temp jobs you know on lunch breaks and and when i could and i i sort of caught myself having this fantasy you could say where i was like man i wish that i if there were some way that i could just skip over the next eight hours of my life and just immediately it's 5 p.m and i can go home like i would 100 do that and and just realize like that's a kind of scary thing to catch yourself wanting you know less precious time on this earth jackie cone the producer at red hour ended up bringing it to ben stiller and i i remember like in the old red hour office there was a spiral staircase that like you would walk down and then you would you would come out into this sort of basement level just because i was terrified of ben stiller and his you know legendary status to me it was i came down and he was just like standing there like hannibal lecter just like in the middle of the room just waiting for me we had a very very good conversation i had all of these really sort of nerdy deep lore things that i already had in the back of my head and ben immediately was sort of like well what about this could we could we go like back and show the backstory and there's like and i'm like yeah like oh my god yes we could so it was you know that that sort of initially terrifying meeting quickly became something really fun and collaborative it first came to me as a call from my agent they called and and said we think this role is really right for you so i made a self tape in my bathroom there are still kick marks on the door of my bathroom from where i kicked it pretty hard it was the very first scene of the whole series that really hasn't changed that much since i first read it once brit read it was sort of like it was all it was all over um so nice yeah i mean it wasn't just perfect it was informative i remember like and it was kind of like oh that's that's heli i give consent to sever my memories between my work life and my personal life the shots where we're in the elevator we actually like switch over from audi to any or vice versa doing it really fast like that kind of really helped pinpoint what those things were we were adding or taking away we had like a few different times when we would go in and do like three episodes worth of the switchovers and just do them over and over again and try and figure it out i was really doing a lot of early research on amnesia and not only is it completely disorienting to wake up having no idea who you are but patients tend to be much more on extreme sides of their emotions heli throws what is it a stapler what did she throw at mark speaker yeah yeah it was a speaker you probably can't remember though because i hate it hit me so i remember that whole day yeah it gave me a few concussions i think we did it a lot of times and i got a concussion every time so this is your work um we don't paint them we do hang them i loved that you did the ambrose cycle in the team building space last quarter you get christopher walken by by first getting john turturro and then john tuturo gets christopher walken i don't even know how he got john tutturo i remember early on talking to ben and he's like what do you think for these other roles and i i said you know for irving i was kind of thinking i saw this guy guest spot on billions and was like oh yeah no that's great i was thinking maybe john turturro was like yeah that's also a very good very good instinct yeah yeah yeah john i remember said when he suggested chris for it i don't think that it was about sort of the the star power that that christopher walken brings he was like you know it's if i'm gonna have this relationship with someone this closeness and this love like i wanted to be with chris because like we really have that and it'll be organic on screen and damn it he was right i've always said that the secret weapon of this show is is kindness and heart and and that it feels like such a grim dark dystopian uh at times cynical story but it's not i i don't think it is i i think that it is basically this this story about you know these people who managed to awaken the humanity in each other all of them [Music] you often consulted us on how to be in the audi world i like to approach actors uh whether they want it or not yeah to give them advice you know and actors i think really appreciate it even if it seems like they don't you charge like so much money for our classes [Music]

Channel: TheWrap

Views: 32,031

Keywords: thewrap, thewrap.com, the wrap, severance, tv show, apple tv, Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Dan Erickson, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Drama, Ben Stiller, interview, q&a, How I Did It

Id: WfoNw0XI0wI

Length: 5min 58sec (358 seconds)

Published: Thu May 26 2022