Britt Lower explains how Severance, the circus and libraries dovetail

When Britt Lower was a kid growing up in a small farm town in Illinois, there were two places that made a big impression on her: the library and the circus. Today, those childhood interests unexpectedly dovetail with three of her most recent projects: the hit series Severance, the Canadian indie film Darkest Miriam and her 2020 short film Circus Person.

While you might already be familiar with her Severance character, Helly R., Lower makes no less of an impression in the film Darkest Miriam, in which she plays a Toronto librarian living through a fog of grief. The film is an adaptation of Martha Baillie's Giller Prize-shortlisted novel The Incident Report.

"I loved the format of that book," Lower tells Q's Tom Power in an interview. "It's made of 144 incident reports that this librarian writes. It's a real thing that librarians do. When something peculiar or even just out of the ordinary happens at the library, they fill out a report…. So this book is this librarian writing her daily incident report, but they become increasingly more personal and journalistic."

Like many children, Lower felt very connected to the library as a young person. "I feel like we all have some kind of library in our childhood memory," she says.

As for her circus connection, Lower's mother is a professional face painter who brought her into the "circus-adjacent world" of Renaissance fairs, festivals and birthday parties. Along the way, she discovered that the town of Bloomington-Normal, Ill., close to where she grew up, was once known as "the trapeze capital of the world." It's also home to a large circus archive library that further fostered her fascination with the circus.

"Whenever I spend time with circus performers, and I've traveled around the country and spent a fair amount of time with a variety of circuses — small-tent circuses — I like to ask them what 'circus' means to them," Lower says. "I've been collecting definitions of the circus, and some of my favourites are that circus means that everybody's welcome. Circus is risk. Circus is right now. Circus is family. Circus is a circle…. But for circus performers in particular, the word I hear most often is that circus means family."

I sometimes like to think that Helly R. was born at the circus.- Britt Lower

In 2020, Lower wrote, directed and starred in the short film Circus Person. It's about a woman who runs away to join a circus after experiencing heartbreak. But at this point you might be wondering, how does this all connect back to Severance?

"After Season 1 and 2 [of Severance], I joined two different circuses and performed in the role of a ringmaster of sorts. And it was, again, a full circle moment for me because it was two weeks after I filmed Circus Person … that I got the call from my agents to make a self-tape for a character named Helly R. It was really the spirit of making that film that I had with me when I made that self-tape. And so I sometimes like to think that Helly R. was born at the circus."

It doesn't stop there. Lower says the second circus she performed in, Shoestring Circus, was located in Bellingham, Wash., which is the same town where Dan Erickson, the creator of Severance, attended college.

"He actually came and saw my opening night performance in the circus", she says. "It was really special to get to see him in the audience and to be performing — sorry, again, full circle — under the tent that was actually in my short film five years prior."

Lower's new film, Darkest Miriam, is in theatres now in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. It will be available on-demand as of April 15.

The full interview with Britt Lower is available on our YouTube channel and on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. She also talks about Helly R.'s unique walk and how she developed her rebellious character. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Britt Lower produced by Lise Hosein.