Nearly three years after Season 1’s cliffhanger finale, Dan Erickson’s dystopian workplace thriller “Severance” has returned—and, trust us, it’s worth the wait. Season 2 premiered on Jan. 17, and it promises even more innie and outie struggles with Lumon Industries, all while sticking to the Apple TV+ series’ eerily uncomfortable yet darkly humorous tone. But what really makes “Severance” a standout is its multilayered characters and the talented actors who portray them, whether they’re working in macrodata refinement or not.
So, how does a show with such an unsettling tone find talent that can not only match the aesthetic, but also play, sometimes, two complex characters at once? We sat down with CD Rachel Tenner, who cast the series alongside Bess Fifer, to learn how she knew certain actors were right for their roles, and how her creative partnership with “Severance” executive producer-director Ben Stiller shapes the casting process.
JUMP TO
- How the tone of “Severance” influences casting
- What qualities should an actor have to play an innie or outie character?
- What it’s like working with Ben Stiller + what type of talent he looks for
- How Tramell Tillman and Sarah Bock landed their chilling “Severance” roles
- The best tips for auditioning for a dark comedy
From its uncanny theme song to its disorienting corporate office set designs, “Severance” creates its tone right away for audiences. We asked Tenner how casting a show with this type of aesthetic plays into her process for finding talent. “The tone is paramount,” she says. “You’re trying to work within this really specific world that they’ve created. However, within that, you have a lot of freedom [as] to the type of people that you put into these roles, as far as looks, ages, and ethnicities…. It’s very open, and there’s a lot of room to play there.”
The series follows a group of colleagues who have decided to “sever” themselves, a procedure that separates their workplace (innie) selves and personal (outie) selves. To cast talent who can navigate playing both lives, Tenner looks for actors who have “an innate depth to them.”
“It’s interesting when you think of these [characters] who have severed themselves and have this inner and outer life; there is a multilayer quality to them,” she says. “When I am thinking about actors for this, I definitely think about if there’s a depth that you read from them right away when you see them [auditioning]. Just by meeting them in the first minute, there’s a complexity that makes them interesting right off the bat.”
Ben Stiller on the set of “Severance” Courtesy Apple TV+
Tenner and Stiller have had a long creative partnership. From the filmmaker’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (2013) to “Zoolander 2” (2016) to the upcoming drama “Bag Man” (about the 1973 scandal surrounding Richard Nixon’s vice president), they’ve collaborated on a number of projects. Tenner says this is “a goal for a casting director.” When working with a director for over 10 years, “you really get to hone in on what they love,” she says, noting that for Stiller, “If there’s anything [he] loves, it’s to find somebody new to shine a light on.”
“On [the miniseries] ‘Escape at Dannemora,’ we did a lot more callbacks in the room together,” Tenner recalls. “And he’s so great with actors. He reads with people, and he’s so excited and involved that he puts people at ease when they come in [to audition]. It’s really fun and an exciting part of the process of doing projects together.”
Along with Stiller’s enthusiasm at auditions, Tenner says he “embraces the same ideas” as her: “If something’s out of the box, he lets me have my day in court. I get to make my pitch as to why [I want someone for a role], and I feel like eight out of 10 times he sees the same thing I see…. I think we’re pretty in sync that way. Everything he does is so specific and always well written, [making it] easy to jump into [that world]. Even if the genre changes, it’s easy to tap into what the needs are on these [projects] with him. He’s just meticulous.”
Tramell Tillman and Sarah Bock on “Severance” Courtesy Apple TV+
“Severance” primarily stars Adam Scott as Mark Scout, Britt Lower as Helly Riggs, Zach Cherry as Dylan George, and John Turturro as Irving Bailiff. But Tillman’s Seth Milchick (known as Mr. Milchick to the innies he supervises at Lumon) is one character who’s hard to put on the sidelines. Mr. Milchick is cool and collected, but there’s also part of him you feel is about to become unhinged at any moment. He’s one of the series’ most disquieting characters, especially on Season 2. When looking for someone to play this dynamic role, Tenner says it was Tillman’s “quiet intensity” that convinced her he was the perfect pick.
“He had this ‘I will kill you with my smile on my face’ [look], and it’s so eerie,” says the CD, adding that “in spite of how threatening” the character is, Tillman also brought “a vulnerability to him. There’s a warmth [to him] when he chooses to show it.”
Because of the show’s capricious nature, Tenner says she particularly admires Tillman’s ability to be “unpredictable.” “You don’t know what people’s motives or intentions are,” she says, “and so to have the quality that can always keep someone on their toes is something that I think Tramell excels at. It’s just so layered, complicated, and fun to watch.”
Season 2 introduces another hard-to-forget character: Lumon’s youngest employee, Miss Huang, played by the talented Sarah Bock. The rising star landed this challenging role “because she understood what the world of ‘Severance’ was and who [her character] was in the story,” Tenner says.
“[Bock] just got it instinctively and came to [the role] with this very self-possessed, old soul quality,” she adds. “I was very excited to jump into this role and see what we could find and bring to fruition. I didn’t know [Bock] before this—not that she wasn’t acting; I just hadn’t met her yet, and so it felt like a discovery. She just seems so much older than her years, [and] she brought the character to life in such a specific way that I can’t even imagine anybody else doing it.”
Keanu Reeves also makes a surprise cameo on Season 2 as the voice of Lumon’s administrative building in an animated “Lumon Is Listening” video. Tenner says they chose the actor because he has the same “qualities that Tramell does.”
“We had big discussions about who was going to do the voices of the building, and we talked a lot about wanting this voice to be iconic,” she explains. She finds that Reeves’ voice has “warmth to it, yet underneath it, there’s just a little bit of danger and a little edge. And I think that was the perfect combination for the building.”
When auditioning for a dark humor project or a show with a hyper-niche tone like “Severance,” Tenner says it’s best to “not to overthink it” and to “keep it simple.”
She notes that while many actors have an instinct to “come in with these big characters,” usually, “the simpler, the better.” Tenner explains when someone is trying too hard to match a project’s aesthetic, they end up “commenting on the tone, versus working within the tone”—and that’s particularly true with dark humor. “The simpler you make it, the funnier it is, and the more justice it does to the material,” says the CD.
She advises that actors do their “normal homework” like they would with any other audition, and that it’s always a good idea to “break down the scene and understand what’s happening” before walking into the room.
For more advice on landing a role in an Apple TV+ project, check out our guide to auditioning for the network. Or if you’re hoping to get cast in a project today, these roundups are updated weekly with the latest gigs:
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- Voiceover casting calls