Severance is a dystopian thriller about work-life balance. For Adam Scott, it's the role of a lifetime
The actor joined Q’s Tom Power to discuss why he considers the new Apple TV+ series his dream project
When Adam Scott received the first three scripts for his latest project, Severance, he was immediately sucked in.
"I think primarily because it's something that I would watch as a fan and as a viewer," the actor told Q's Tom Power. "It's something I would seek out."
The critically acclaimed new Apple TV+ series is a psychological thriller, which explores a nightmarish experiment to enforce work-life balance.
In the show, Scott stars as Mark, the newly appointed lead of the macrodata refinement team at a mysterious megacorporation called Lumon Industries. Grieving the death of his wife, Mark opts to undergo a surgical procedure that severs his work memories from his personal ones. While at work, the employees who have undergone the procedure have no idea who they are outside of the Lumon offices. Likewise, once they leave, they have no recollection of what they do at work or who their colleagues are.
"This is a system that Mark's kind of built up around himself as a way to cope with his wife's death. And he is constantly finding himself having to defend it and is very defensive about it," said Scott. "It is the Band-Aid he has put over this awful tragedy that's happened."
Scott explained that severance gives Mark the chance to "switch off" his sadness for eight to 10 hours a day while at work. "He's not carrying any of that stuff around, but he sort of is," he said. "I mean, your brain is bifurcated, but your emotions aren't."
With work-life balance being discussed perhaps more now in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, it's natural to think that Severance is responding to the current moment, but Scott said the project was in development long before 2020.
"Ben Stiller, who's the executive producer and directed most of the episodes, he first called me about it in January of 2017 just to kind of tell me the quick sort of big idea of the show," he said.
"It was all written before lockdown, before the pandemic. But yeah, it's all sort of worked out in this really interesting way where I think, you know, the show would resonate in a number of ways regardless, but I think there's this strong sort of connection that you can make with it, you know, considering our current circumstances."
After his call with Stiller, Scott worried he wouldn't get the part since he's primarily known for his comedic work in projects like Parks and Recreation, Party Down and Step Brothers.
"You know, I've been doing this a while … and I've learned to not get too invested in things because it's heartbreaking when things get pulled out from under you," he told Power. "I was pleased that Ben wanted me to do it and I thought if I am able to actually get this job — if I actually land this — it'll be, you know, the thing I've been working towards this whole time."
But once Scott landed the job, he accidentally slept in on his first day of filming with his heroes, actors John Turturro and Christopher Walken, who play two of Mark's severed colleagues.
"In my kind of excitement, [I] couldn't get to sleep and set my alarm incorrectly — set it for p.m. instead of a.m. — and you know, I was getting picked up at 5:15 a.m. and I woke up at 8 a.m. to pounding on my door from my assistant," he said.
"It was truly a nightmare because all I could think of was John Turturro and Christopher Walken waiting for me, the unprofessional a-hole who they now have to work with for months and months."
Luckily, everyone understood after Scott apologized for showing up late like a "flaky idiot."
"I also got myself one of those kind of old-fashioned alarm clocks with a bell on top of it," he said. "So yeah, I had two alarm clocks for the rest of the shoot."
Written by Vivian Rashotte. Interview produced by Ty Callender.