“Severrance” Star Adam Scott could have felt any number of things after watching the first sign for the Apple TV+ series containing his face front-and-center: excitement, pride, excitement for this project he had spent months going out into the world.
Instead, his psyche took him to a little more of a panicked state: “Oh S – t,” he thought.
TV had not really seen anything like “departure” before, and it has not really seen anything like it since. A slowly boiling dystopian sci-fi drama in the frame of a bright, sterile office? Innies? Excursions? Patricia Arquette has gone gray?
Scott, who also acts as an executive producer in the series and is Emmy-nominated for the second time this year for outstanding main actors in a drama series, liked the opportunity to be in what Stiller called a creative “bubble” while creating season 1. But he soon realized that there was no way to know how the world would take it in.
“I remember I had my freak out about the specific thing,” Scott said in conversation with Stiller for the latest part of visionaries, Thewraps LongForm Video Interview Series that highlight the best artists and multihypheners of the year. “The signs went up before season 1, and I saw my face, and I was like, Oh s – t. As, What will happen? Will we just get fool off?“
“Or ignored,” added Stiller and laughed.
“So far, how it will be received by people or critics or whatever, we have absolutely no control over it,” Scott continued. “So it’s time to just shoot it out in the world and release it.”
Fortunately for Scott and Stiller, “Severrance” was anything but ignored. A critical hit with dedicated fans in season 1, the unlikely workplace drama experienced a foundation of the clever mouth-to-mouth in the almost three-year leadership to Season 2 in the middle of the double authors and actors’ labor. Now enters the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 14, the series is a front trunner with 27 nominations -A best-in-show turnout, which also includes outstanding drama series for showrunner and creator Dan Erickson and outstanding director for a drama series for Stiller.
“I remember when we were ready to post season 2, you and I were just worried about getting all season 1 viewers back,” Scott told Stiller.
“When we did the show, it was obviously setback and things like the strike. But when you are in it is the thing where you are, like having to spend time to get it right because you know people are waiting for it and we knew the audience from the first season was very loyal to the show,” said Stiller. “So that’s the struggle like, Oh, it takes timeBut if I don’t take this extra time, then it finally comes out, it will not be as good as you feel it should be. It was a constant battle.
“And so it is so unknown just like, will people look at it or not?” The director added and echoed Scott’s fear apparently shared between many creativity.
“It’s one of the things I love to work with the show, while we shoot, while we are actually there, we are always so hyper -focused, and it is at doing it as good as it can be,” emphasized Scott. “And it sounds like a simple thing, but we’ve all been on sets where it’s not necessarily the focus. And when you start to doubt the really simple thing, that’s where things can sometimes fall apart and just not be as coherent.”
Now to just beat gold again for the already expected season 3 …
To hear more about Stiller and Scott who changed stories of early career breaks (Stiller was not originally intended to direct “Zoolander”, while Scott was a last minute compensation on “Step Brothers”), Creative Jitters, the ability to “Seaverance” -creative departments and more, watch their full “visionaries”.
