But he’s not saying.
Dan Erickson ’s fender script forSeverance , Apple TV+ ’s sci - fi thriller series about role employees who undergo a routine to totally separate their oeuvre lives from their personal unity , was never hypothesize to turn into an intact show . The script was skilful — it ended up on theBlood List , the sci - fi / horror equivalent of the Black List that showcases unproduced screenplays — and Erickson was shopping it around the television receiver creation as a sampling to get staffed in someone else ’s author room . It caught the aid of none other than Ben Stiller and his company Red Hour Productions , all of whom were draw into Erickson ’s creepy , stylized fable of a corporate office pass away very , very wrong .
" I remember walking down the whorled staircase into the cellar and visualise him standing there , and it was just like , ' Oh , God , there he is , ' " Erickson told Thrillist , remembering his first coming together with Stiller . " But he now was like , ' This is the type of pilot that most people would be yarn-dye by , but then croak on , but countenance ’s just do it . Like , have a go at it it , let ’s make the show . ' "
Its irresistible mystery - box format and dynamic casting of characters madeSeverancea sleeper hit — just a few days ago it was officially reincarnate for a second time of year , a surprise to absolutely no one who has become a lover of the show . The close gives us the cliffhanger of cliffhanger , with Helly ( Britt Lower ) obtain out the truth of her sinister identity and Mark ( Adam Scott ) uncovering a huge divine revelation about his other one-half ’s not - so - drained wife just as the instalment terminate , but it ’s safe to say we have n’t seen the last of the " innies " of Macrodata Refinement or their villainous corporate overlords . Erickson chew the fat with Thrillist about his future plan for the show , the wildest Reddit theories he ’s seen , and whether or not we ’ll find out what the batch is with all those goats .
Apple TV+
Thrillist : There ’s been a enormously electropositive reception of the show . People really seem to love it . Dan Erickson : Yeah , it ’s so crazy . It ’s so exciting . I had never worked on a telly show before this . So , the whole thing has been a immense education for me . And I remember that when we were make it , we had a sense that we had something really secure and particular . But of grade , you never know until it ’s out there . It ’s wonderful , apparently , to have the good reviews , but especially just the way that mass are prosecute with it , and that fans are interacting with it online , and theories and art and discourse . I can not imagine a more fun adaptation of the response .
I have a booster who ’s been watching it who will broadcast me unearthly stuff from the subreddit . Somebody differentiate me do n’t start the Reddit door , because you wo n’t be able to shut it . And for a while I did n’t . Finally , one day , I enter the door . And I have n’t been off Reddit since then . But it ’s so fun . I get laid these thing can maturate toxic over time , which I really trust it does n’t . Because right now it ’s just beautiful . People are creating all novel art and have different ideas that had never pass to me .
What is the mad thing you ’ve seen so far on there?Oh , man . Let ’s see . I entail , I cogitate the theory that Ms. Casey is a Capricorn that ’s been transformed into a char . There ’s the buff art and some of the blastoff of Helly doing the"LET ME OUT"thing . Nobody ’s engender a tattoo yet . I will say that . I ’m not encouraging it . But I am curious when the firstSeverancetattoo will chance .
Apple TV+
You conceived the theme for this show some prison term ago . How does the final product liken to your original plan?It ’s dissimilar for sure . But , I ’m astonied how small of it I had to compromise . The very first rough drawing I ever did of it felt more likeBrazilor , you recognise , Being John Malkovich , where there was even a short bit more of a surreal bizarreness to it , and a heightened realism to it . And I think that that was the biggest change that came about through work with Ben [ Stiller ] and work with Red Hour [ the production company ] . The more we talked about it what we found the most interesting was the quiet lugubriousness at the center of the conceit , which is that these are all people who chose to do this , it was n’t wedge on anybody . These are people who , for whatever reason , decided that their life would be honest if they did n’t experience it all at once , and alternatively section it .
The initial estimate came to me while I was working a really bad business office task and going through a somewhat depressive state . And so I wanted to really protect that the humaneness is at the center of that idea , and Ben , fortunately , was all in on that . That was the matter that he was most drawn to about it . So , we pulled back a bit on the surreal stuff , and the sci - fi hooey and the thriller - atomic number 39 stuff . And we ’re sort of like , okay , what ’s the best way to use those element to service the storey and to serve the characters ' stories ? Once we had that general philosophy for what we require it to be , there was very footling that we were forced to compromise or trim . It was incredible that we have to make this as unique and uncanny as it turned out to be , because I save thinking they were going to come in and sanitize it , but they never did .
I definitely meet those shade ofBrazilin this . What other things determine you in creating this show?There was certainly a lot of inquisitive fiction that we ’ve seen in the last couple of years , theBlack Mirror , theEx Machina . It ’s not young , but it ’s very near - future or uncomfortably close to our reality . There ’s a collection of movies that all came out around the former ' ninety , like ' 97 to ' 99 - ish , where a fate of movies were about questioning reality . You ’ve gotThe Truman Show , you ’ve gotThe Matrix , you ’ve gotDark City , which is a film I make out . Even stuff and nonsense likeAmerican Beautythat was kind of about this idea that we ’re stuck in this play world , and we need to get beyond it to something more real .
AndOffice Spacecame out around that same time , which , again , there ’s not really a sci - fi chemical element to that , but it ’s about being sting in this monstrous system , and then substantiate you ’re stuck in it and then breaking out of it . That collection of movies issue forth out when I was hang in love with movies when I was a teenager and getting really into this sort of thing . So , those played a big part . And then , certainly there are literary influences like Kafka , and stagily something likeNo ExitorWaiting for Godot . There ’s just so much . That ’s where I recall a good deal of the really , really strange , fun , surreal stuff came in . I ’m a heavy Kurt Vonnegut devotee . Cat ’s CradleI read a clustering of times as we were write and producing the show .
I spoke to theset architect Jeremy Hindle , and he tell me that he require you to take in a map of Lumon and you ended up giving him this immense thing that present all these other parts of the show that we have n’t seen yet . How much of the backcloth do you have contrive out?I remember he told me , " Have a glass of wine , baby-sit down , and just just go dotty , just draw something . " And so I reap this giant ridiculous maze , fundamentally . But he was right-hand , it was really helpful to have it even though it was n’t entirely accurate to what is really on the show . There ’s some stuff and nonsense known and some stuff unknown about what ’s on the floor . I know what the design of the whole Severed Floor is and what the fellowship is trying to do and what the alpha plan is for that . But we wanted to also give ourselves room to roleplay as we continued on .
For the most part , of the departments that are on the storey , the ones you ’ve seen , when we wrote Season 1 we did n’t have any ideas for other departments that were out there . We had ideas , but we did n’t have it solidify . The goat way , for deterrent example , we know what that ’s about . And the Capricorn way is part of a grown thing . We already had ideas for a fate of that stuff , and then we ’ll discuss it further as we ’ve been building out ideas for Season 2 . There ’s plenty of material that we know , and then there ’s plenty of white maze blank space that we ’re excited to put other weird thing into as we go along .
I ’m beaming that you guy have a definite reply for the Capricorn the Goat because that really has been keeping me up . A sight of people want to hump what those goats are . That ’s a big thing . My mom really wants to know that the Capricorn the Goat are okay .
I do too!I will say you do n’t know if those are adept or regretful goats . They could be evil goats .
That ’s lawful . They ’re the plug-in . I ’m hold out to lumber on to Reddit tonight and post that.[Laughs ] The Capricorn are the board .
I love all the stilted corporate language and all the nomenclature , like " Music Dance Experience . " How did you come up with all of that?Well , I did n’t come up with it . It ’s mostly , in some cases , it ’s actually a watered - down adaptation of real stuff I encountered in the embodied world . Because there ’s just so much insanity there . The Lumon Core Principles are taken for the most part from a yoke place I worked at that had their own version of that , these empty words that were thrown out to give a mother wit that there was a rich philosophy to the lieu .
There ’s aSizzler adthat I do it that I ’ve talked to a couple mass about , but it ’s an internal commercial message that was mail around to Sizzler employee in I think 1991 . It ’s about six minutes long . It ’s this really Reagan - era , hyper loyal , soaring medicine , account of why Sizzler is the key to American freedom . And why Sizzler ’s more than a eating house , it ’s a revolution . I ’ve known people who ’ve worked at Starbucks , and there ’s similar language of , " Do we make coffee ? Or do we make a better world ? " Sometimes that ’s sincere and earnest . And other times it ’s deeply off - putting and manipulative , because you get the sense that sometimes these corporations are trying to make a cult of personality , and trick you into feel like you ’re family so that you then think , oh , what you would owe a family member ? That stuff is everywhere . It ’s just a matter of recognizing it and repackaging it . I think what we were going for with that stuff is it was so harebrained , but also felt like something you could totallybe offeredby a boss .
There are tons of revelations in that net episode , while still leaving an end that ’s open for more . How do you find that balance while also suppose , okay , here are a bunch of resolution for you that you ’ve been waiting for for nine weeks?It ’s an ongoing conversation . And we speak about what is the exact right moment to cut out on , and what is the precise amount of information . Because if the audience is climb up a cliff , you want to give them a ledge to baby-sit on for the next ten months , or however longsighted it ’s going to be . You do n’t desire to leave somebody hanging precariously and uncomfortably . We do n’t give away a lot of the big answers in Season 1 , but we ’re hoping that we give enough . We give it in musical composition , so that you get to have a little bit more of a sense of , okay , this is the playing field that we ’re operating on . And this is where maybe things could go .
In the original version of the time of year that we had planned , the extra time contingency was going to be the 2nd to last episode . And then we were go to have a whole other episode that was dealing with the side effect and branching of it . We go over that interpretation , we went over other versions , and we land on the last episodeisthe extra time contingency . We ’re discovering things along with the characters , and we ’re confused and disorientate along with them . We start to call back of it as this almost genuine - metre episode . We ’ve been so meticulous about slowly setting up beats before this , and now we ’re just gon na go , and we ’re gon na have this more splanchnic experiential version of the show for the coda . Once we figured that out , the rest was easy .
I have so many questions for you that obviously you ca n’t resolve because of the nature of the show . But , going onward , are there any grownup revelations you ’re really amped about?I reckon we have a really exciting answer to what Lumon ’s large alpha program is . And it ’s potential that that could change as the series progresses . But I do n’t think it ’s going to . We ’ve got it in mind now and it ’s going to be the direction we move toward . The challenge but also the merriment thing is what is the macro version of what they ’re doing to somebody with severance ? The idea is you may be more comfortable if you ’re separate , if you ’re breaking yourself down into more manageable pieces , you may be happier . We just seek to look at that philosophy , and how that could be an chance event on a macro grade . What is the natural evolution of this philosophy ? Once you ’ve said that , you bed , a grieving widower can cut his brain in one-half so that he does n’t have to experience it half the time , where does that go ? Where does that naturally lead us if we keep go down that path ? I retrieve we have something that is fun and shuddery and interesting , and also puts our characters on a compelling journey that will be recognizable and make sense .
I ’m honestly excited to find out what the butt are for . And I desire to have it off what Ricken ’s whole tidy sum is . Because he ’s eldritch . He ’s such a unearthly hombre . It ’s kind of a rearward spoiler , because I ’m spoiling that something is n’t the case , but I think it ’s okay . Somebody asked me about the beds [ in Ricken and Devon ’s infant ’s baby’s room ] . They were like , " I ca n’t wait to see how the seam play out . " Because he ’s have the three beds across the elbow room for the baby in the first episode . Somebody was like , " I ca n’t wait to see how that ties into the mystery . " And I ’m like , " Oh , that ’s too bad . Because it definitely does n’t . "
This interview has been edited and condensed .
