Ben Stiller and Severance creator on series future: "We don’t want to say how many seasons"

Today, Stiller may be better known as the hapless everyman star of the Night at the Museum and Meet the Parents franchises – but he never lost the directing bug. He made his directorial debut with cult 1992 film Reality Bites and just kept going over more movies, most famously combining his talents to direct, produce, co-write and pout into camera for fashion satire Zoolander and its sequel.

Most recently, Stiller has spent the last five years directing the workplace sci-fi drama Severance. Created by first-time writer Dan Erickson, the Apple TV+ series follows employees at the secretive Lumon Industries, who have voluntarily undergone a surgical procedure to bifurcate (or “sever”) their work and home lives.

In the first season, we learned that the employees' consciousness is divided between their ‘innie’, who works at Lumon, and their ‘outie’, who lives in the real world; both selves are aware of each other but know nothing of the separate lives they lead.

Ben Stiller recalls the first time he read the script. "It was amazing; there was something about it that was both unique and familiar. The only thing that’s made up is the chip in their heads. Otherwise, it’s something that could actually happen." Though I assume Hollywood bigwig Stiller has never worked in an office? “Correct! I was fascinated by movies like Office Space [a 1999 American satirical black comedy], because I’ve never experienced that kind of drudgery. I know it’s what inspired Dan to write Severance.”

Erickson had the idea while working in a door factory – there’s a reference to this in the second episode of season 2 – though there were also other inspirations. "The original pilot was even crazier – it had a more heightened reality, like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil or even Monty Python," says Erickson. "At one point a pair of disembodied legs run by in the background. Ben asked me why and I had no idea! He encouraged me to tighten up the weirdness, to ensure that everything was grounded in a logic, even if it’s not the logic of our world."

Season 1 ended on the mother of all cliffhangers – no spoilers for those who haven’t yet watched it – and both Erickson and Stiller say that season 2 is darker, funnier and more interesting. Their timing is also quite something: the first season aired during the pandemic, when nearly everyone’s work/life routine changed, while the second season will air shortly before President Trump’s inauguration.

"We knew that series two was going to be coming out around the time the new President was to be inaugurated," says Erickson. "One of the show’s themes is the cult of personality, and how if you get enough people behind someone like Kier Eagan [founder of Lumon Industries] there’s a reverence and almost a religiosity to it and we explore the dangers of that. It’s relevant right now."

Stiller, though, says that the series isn’t political: "It’s about the weirdness of the corporate world, but it’s also about relationships and grief." He’s not wrong – arguably, viewers have become obsessive about the series just because it touches on many different but universal themes.

The new series also means new cast members, with original stars including Adam Scott, Christopher Walken, John Turturro and Patricia Arquette now complemented by Bob Balaban and Gwendoline Christie. "We thought about it a lot because even one new person is a crazy addition to a very controlled world," explains Stiller. "But Bob has made some of the greatest films of all time and Gwendoline is an incredible person – plus, I’m a big Game of Thrones fan."

When fellow US streaming hit The Bear became a success, actors begged to be cast – is Severance the same? Stiller laughs. "Prominent actors and musicians have reached out, which is great. I was recently talking with Al Pacino, who’s a fan. It would be incredible to have him in the next season. Maybe I’ll ask!"

Already, talk of future series to come. But how many more will they need to answer all the strange questions posited thus far? "We’ve had the story pretty mapped out since we started," says Erickson. "But we don’t want to say how many seasons; it needs to be tight and concise but have room to breathe."

Stiller, meanwhile, will say only that the process for him is utterly consuming. Despite him not acting in the series, he directed five episodes of both series and is involved in the show every step of the way.

"We’ve been averaging five or six weeks per episode, which for ten episodes is 60 weeks. It’s become my life in a way, and I love it, but I now have to step back." Is he saying that he has, in effect, become an "innie" while working on Severance? He raises an eyebrow. "It happens without you even knowing it…"

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Severance season 2 launches on Friday 17th January on Apple TV+ with new episodes airing weekly. Season 1 is available now. Sign up for Apple TV+ here.

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