This story about “Severance” star Adam Scott first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Drama issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.
When it came to filming the first season of the Apple TV+ series “Severance,” Adam Scott could relate to the series’ central concept of a procedure that can completely separate a person’s work-life consciousness from their personal life. That’s because filming during the pre-vaccine days of the COVID-19 pandemic was like being in the Wild West, with Scott describing a life of being shuttled in a van between the show’s set and the empty apartment where he spent his nights alone.
“That was the life, and I didn’t see anyone without a mask on until after ‘action!’ was called,” said Scott, who received one of the 14 Emmy nominations for “Severance.” “So it was a very strange Groundhog Day repeating itself. Very strange, but very fun. And once we had the masks off and we could actually talk to each other and see each other during scenes, it was extra exciting.”
But the dystopian premise of “Severance,” where the main characters work for a shadowy and labyrinthine organization, wasn’t the only thing surreal about the experience for Scott. The actor, best known for comedies like “Parks and Recreation” and “Step Brothers,” described doing background work as a young actor in 1993 and fantasizing about working with actors like John Turturro, Patricia Arquette and Christopher Walken, his “Severance” co-stars. He was star-struck enough that he waited a few months on the job before admitting to Turturro that he used to run Turturro’s scenes from “Do the Right Thing.”
“I mean, just the fact that they’re all in the show that I’m also in, and Ben (Stiller) is directing, and it’s good? And really fun? It’s just so exciting. I’m still kind of pinching myself,” Scott said.
The reality of the show started to sink in for Scott once he saw the massive scope of the sets being constructed and he could walk around the stark, chillingly empty corridors of the Lumon corporation headquarters. He had to just “surrender” himself to the show, to the guidance of Stiller and showrunner Dan Erickson.
“I don’t think I would have been able to do the show if I was keeping an eye on it or self-editing along the way,” he said. “There was just too much to do. And I wouldn’t have been able to put into it what I needed to if I was doing that.”
Scott has said that his character Mark, despite being severed as “Innie” and “Outie” versions of himself, is still very much one person. He was two halves of a whole rather than two separate characters, something that went against Scott’s instincts to go wild with two vastly different performances.
And there’s something heartening and human Scott sees in knowing that neither version is a caricature or wholly naïve.
“You behave differently when you’re with your friends or with your family or with your mother or your children,” he said. “Everyone has some different pieces of themselves that they share with different people, and this is an extreme example of that.”
Read more from the Down to the Wire: Drama issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine here.
