Severance’s Ben Stiller and Adam Scott Talk Their Unconventional New Series

Both director Ben Stiller and actor Adam Scott are largely known for their comedic efforts, and while their new series Severance on Apple TV+ isn’t without hilarious encounters, it leans into a tone more akin to The Twilight Zone, exploring a concept so disturbing that you can’t help but laugh at the absurdity. Of course, other sequences are so unsettling that you’d be hard-pressed to find any levity in these moments, making for an ambitious blend of humor, horror, and drama. Stiller and Scott both opened up about what drew them to the series. Severance premieres on Apple TV+ on February 18th.

Given how many comedic projects Stiller has worked on over the years, one might think he intentionally has taken bigger chances with projects he directs, including the embrace of Severance‘s macabre subject matter, but Stiller noted that any project he takes isn’t a reaction to previous stories he’s brought to life.

“I’m not comparing it or trying to somehow do something intentionally, other than I want to explore stuff that I’m interested in, and for me as a director and an actor, which, for a long time, I did both at the same time, but I haven’t done that for a while,” Stiller shared with ComicBook.com. “So it’s really fun to explore different ideas and different tones both as a director and an actor. So if something’s good, that’s really what excites me about it … So I couldn’t tell you why, honestly, the last thing I did, Escape at Dannemora, why that was something that I gravitated towards. I just thought it would be a really cool story to tell, and I’d want to see it. And I felt the same thing with this one.”

In the series, “Mark Scout (Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries, whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. This daring experiment in ‘work-life balance’ is called into question as Mark finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work… and of himself.”

The nature of the story brought with it some inherent challenges for Scott, who not only had to bring a twisted narrative to life, but also was forced to play a man with a fractured and compartmentalized psyche, performing the version of Mark inside the company (“Innie” Mark) and outside the company (“Outie” Mark).

“It was really challenging and really interesting to jump in with Ben and (writer) Dan (Erickson) to try and figure out, because it’s different,” Scott recalled. “It’s not two characters. It’s definitely the same guy. It’s just, almost, two halves of the same guy. One who’s had 40-odd years of life experience and sorrow and joy and all of the things that go into that and of living a full life. And then the Innie version of Mark who’s, for all intents and purposes, two years old or something. But there are emotions and feelings that he carries with him into the Innie world. It’s just Innie Mark doesn’t know what those are or how to identify or name them. He just feels things, and it doesn’t have anything to do with his reality. And they don’t know anything about each other.”

He added, “The Outie version of Mark, all he wants to do is not feel, and let go of his memories, which is why he’s switching off for eight hours a day. And Innie Mark, when we find him, is content with where he is, and with this company. And both of them are content with where they are, with sitting still in life at the beginning of the story. People come in upset that apple cart a little bit, and make him reexamine where he is both on the inside and the outside.”

Severance premieres on Apple TV+ on February 18th.

Are you looking forward to the new series? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!