Severance (TV Series)

''Severance'' is an American science fiction psychological thriller television series created by Dan Erickson, and executive produced and primarily directed by Ben Stiller. It stars Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Jen Tullock, Dichen Lachman, Michael Chernus, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette, with Sarah Bock joining the main cast in the second season. The series follows employees at the biotechnology corporation Lumon Industries that have undergone "severance"—a medical procedure that ensures they retain no memories of the outside world while at work and have no recollection of their job once they leave. This results in two distinct personalities for each employee: the "innie", who exists solely within Lumon, and the "outie", who lives their personal life outside of work.

''Severance'' premiered on Apple TV+ on February 18, 2022. It received critical acclaim for its cinematography, direction, production design, musical score, story, and performances. It received 14 nominations at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards and Creative Arts Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series and acting nominations for Scott, Turturro, Walken, and Arquette; it won for Main Title Design and musical score. The second season premiered on January 17, 2025. ''Severance'' was renewed for a third season on March 21, 2025.

Cast and characters

Main

* Adam Scott as Mark S. / Mark Scout, a former history professor and a severed worker for Lumon Industries in the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department.
* Zach Cherry as Dylan G. / Dylan George, Mark's severed co-worker in the MDR department, who particularly enjoys company perks.
* Britt Lower as Helly R., a rebellious new severed employee in the MDR department at Lumon.
* Tramell Tillman as Seth Milchick, the Deputy Manager on the severed floor at Lumon.
* Jen Tullock as Devon Scout-Hale, Mark's sister.
* Dichen Lachman as Ms. Casey, who serves as the wellness counselor on the severed floor at Lumon.
* Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale, an eccentric self-help author who is Devon's husband and Mark's brother-in-law.
* John Turturro as Irving B. / Irving Bailiff, Mark's severed co-worker in the MDR department, who is a stickler for company policy and is drawn to Burt.
* Christopher Walken as Burt G. / Burt Goodman, another severed employee and the head of the Optics and Design (O&D) division who is drawn to Irving.
* Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel, the manager of the severed floor at Lumon, who outside of work uses the false identity of "Mrs.Selvig," and Mark's next-door neighbor.
* Sarah Bock as Eustice Huang (season 2), the young new Deputy Manager of the Severed floor.

Recurring

* Yul Vazquez as Peter "Petey" Kilmer (season 1; voice season 2), Mark's former severed co-worker and best friend in the MDR division, who left Lumon under mysterious circumstances.
* Michael Cumpsty as Doug Graner (season 1), the head of security on Lumon's severed floor.
* Nikki M. James as Alexa (season 1), Devon's midwife and one of Mark's love interests.
* Sydney Cole Alexander as Natalie Kalen, Lumon's PR representative and speaker for the mysterious Board.
* Nora Dale as Gabby Arteta (season 1), the wife of Senator Angelo Arteta, whom Devon encounters at a birthing retreat.
* Mark Kenneth Smaltz as Judd, a security guard at Lumon.
* Donald Webber Jr. as Patton, a friend of Ricken's.
* Grace Rex as Rebeck, a friend of Ricken's.
* Annie McNamara as Danise (season 1), a friend of Ricken's.
* Claudia Robinson as Felicia, a severed O&D division employee who is close with Burt.
* Karen Aldridge as Asal Reghabi, a former Lumon surgeon who performs reintegrations.
* Michael Siberry as Jame Eagan, the current CEO of Lumon.
* Darri Ólafsson as Mr. Drummond (season 2), an intimidating Lumon enforcer who is involved with severance operations.
* Merritt Wever as Gretchen George (season 2), Dylan's wife.
* Robby Benson as Dr. Mauer (season 2), a doctor on Lumon's testing floor.
* Gwendoline Christie as Lorne (season 2), a severed employee running the Mammalians Nurturable division.
* Sandra Bernhard as Cecily (season 2), a nurse on the testing floor.

Guest

* Marc Geller as Kier Eagan, the late founder of Lumon, who is worshipped with cult-like devotion within the company; he is represented throughout the series in sculptures, paintings, and audio recordings.
* Cassidy Layton as June Kilmer (season 1), Petey's daughter.
* Joanne Kelly as Nina (season 1), Petey's ex-wife.
* Ethan Flower as Angelo Arteta (season 1), a Lumon-backed state senator who supports legalizing the severance procedure and is married to Gabby Arteta, with whom he has three children.
* Rajat Suresh as Balf (season 1), a friend of Ricken's.
* Bob Balaban as Mark Wilkins (season 2), a new member of MDR, from Lumon branch 5X.
* Alia Shawkat as Gwendolyn Y. (season 2), a new member of MDR, from Lumon branch 5X.
* Stefano Carannante as Dario Rossi (season 2), a new member of MDR.
* Sarah Sherman (season 2) as the voice of a stop-motion water tower in a Lumon industrial film.
* Adrian Martinez as Mr. Saliba (season 2), a manager at a door factory who interviews Dylan for a position.
* John Noble as Fields (season 2), Burt's husband.
* James LeGros as Hampton (season 2), an acquaintance of Harmony Cobel from Salt's Neck.
* Jane Alexander as Celestine "Sissy" Cobel (season 2), Harmony's reclusive aunt in Salt's Neck.

Ben Stiller has an uncredited voice cameo as an animated version of Kier Eagan in season 1. Keanu Reeves has an uncredited voice cameo as an animated Lumon building in a Lumon industrial film in season 2.

Episodes

Season 1 (2022)

Season 2 (2025)

Episodes in season 2 were promoted as being released on Fridays globally from January 17, but were released in American time zones on the preceding Thursday evenings.

Production

Development

Erickson conceived of ''Severance'' in a period of depression working an office job at a door factory after he had completed his master's degree in television writing. He found the job so monotonous that he wished he could "skip the eight hours of the workday, to disassociate and just get it over with".

Erickson submitted his pilot script to Ben Stiller's production company Red Hour Productions in 2015, and it was passed to Stiller by the development executive Jackie Cohn. Stiller read it at least five years before ''Severance'' premiered, and said the project was "the longest thing I've ever worked on". He said he enjoyed the story's contributions to the workplace comedy. Erickson has described his earlier versions of the pilot as "weirder" and containing many stray elements with no backstory such as a disembodied pair of legs running by Mark, a charred floor with burnt desks, and a woman trapped in a glass cubicle. Erickson credits Stiller with grounding the show, saying "he felt that the concept was weird enough that you didn't have to throw a bunch of other Terry Gilliam-esque bells and whistles at it." According to Erickson, "Ben fell in love with the part of the show that was this weird human sadness of a person who would willingly do this to himself."

In November 2019, Apple TV+ gave ''Severance'' a series order, with Stiller directing and Scott in the leading role. Stiller was only attached to direct the pilot, but decided to direct more episodes as the series entered development. On April 6, 2022, Apple renewed the series for a second season. In April 2023, it was reported that Beau Willimon had been hired as an executive producer and writer for the second and potential third seasons. On March 21, 2025, shortly after the premiere of the season 2 finale, Apple announced the renewal of the series for a third season. The Writers Guild of America West database lists new showrunners Eli Jorne and Mary Laws alongside Erickson for the third season, replacing Chris Black and Mark Friedman, who showran the first two seasons alongside Erickson.

Writing

Media that influenced ''Severance'' include the Backrooms creepypasta, the 2013 video game ''The Stanley Parable,'' films including ''Office Space'', ''The Truman Show'', ''Being John Malkovich'', and ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'', the ''Black Mirror'' episode " White Christmas", and the comic strip ''Dilbert''. Older influences include the existential hell in the 1944 Jean-Paul Sartre play ''No Exit'' and the totalitarian dystopia in the 1949 George Orwell novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. Aesthetically, the series was influenced by the films ''Brazil'', '' Dark City'', and ''Playtime''. Erickson's siblings inspired some of the characters. In 2016, his screenplay for the pilot of ''Severance'' appeared on Blood List's survey results of the best unproduced genre screenplays.

Erickson said: "The same frustrations that led us to this moment as a country nited Statesand as a world are the ones that I was feeling when I wrote this because I was working office jobs, and I was dealing with all these increasingly insane requests that are made of workers. This was born of that ... Employees are the ones who are expected to give and give and give, with the understanding that this is a family—you're doing this out of love, but then that is often not returned by the employers in any kind of a substantive way."

Casting

In January 2017, Stiller invited Adam Scott to star. Stiller and Scott had previously worked together in Stiller's 2013 movie ''The Secret Life of Walter Mitty''. Stiller intended to appear in the first season as a doctor character, but was later scrapped because Stiller didn't think it felt right and said he's happy to be off-camera.

In January 2020, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, Jen Tullock, and Zach Cherry were added to the cast. Tramell Tillman joined in February 2020, and John Turturro and Christopher Walken were added in November 2020. Dichen Lachman was cast in December 2020. Turturro said he recommended Walken for the role of Burt because he had known him for "a long time and I don't have to really act".

On October 31, 2022, Gwendoline Christie, Bob Balaban, Merritt Wever, Alia Shawkat, Robby Benson, Stefano Carannante, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and John Noble were announced to have joined the cast for season two. Stiller offered former U.S. President Barack Obama a voice cameo role in the second season, but he declined; the role eventually went to Keanu Reeves.

Set design

Production designer Jeremy Hindle blended corporate looks from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s for the show's distinctive look, and cited modernist architect Eero Saarinen as influential for the building design. This included the John Deere World Headquarters in Moline, Illinois, and the Bell Labs Holmdel Complex in New Jersey (the latter which served as both the exterior shots and the ground floor interiors for Lumon Industries), both buildings designed as "work designed to do work" according to Hindle. The set designs of ''Playtime'' also served as inspiration for the internal sets. The main sets for ''Severance'' were created on soundstages in The Bronx. One soundstage was used for the hallways within Lumon, using around of hallway that they would rearrange as necessary, along with special effects, to create the maze-like structure. Another soundstage used larger hallways that were used in latter episodes of the first season. A second soundstage was used for main rooms like the Macrodata Refinement Division. This space was designed to create the feeling of being trapped, using a large room () with a low ceiling. Hindle also felt this room was meant to be a playroom for the newest Lumon hires, and gave it green carpeting in contrast with the whites to make it feel like grass. Other spaces within Lumon were inspired by the works of M.C. Escher.

Erickson said the mix of cars and technologies from different eras was meant to "give a slight sense of disorientation" and make Lumon "feel unmoored from time and space". To this end, the production team sourced an anachronistic collection of 400 cars, largely commonplace boxy vehicles from the 1980s and 1990s, all in relatively good condition. Each car, even in the far background, was intentionally placed to curate the retro science fiction aesthetic. Characters' vehicles, chosen to show more of who they are, include Mark's Volvo S90, Cobel's Volkswagen Rabbit, Helena's Lincoln Continental, and Milchick's Royal Enfield

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