Do you may have an concept in your head of how this present will finish?
I do. I’ve a scene in thoughts that is type of principally been unchanged since I first introduced the present to Ben [Stiller] and I instructed him and he was like, “Ooh, that is fairly good.” Rather a lot has modified in regards to the plan. I will not fake that it has been this structurally excellent factor from day one. We have interrogated it and we have up to date it as we have gone alongside, however the skeleton of it and the tip level, that is form of remained our North Star from the start.
How particular is your imaginative and prescient for the tip? Have you learnt the place every character finally ends up, do you simply have type of a broad concept of what’s going to occur, or do you simply have the only final moments in your thoughts? As a result of TV is such a enjoyable medium in that it is so fluid and there is clearly the tales about Jesse Pinkman on “Breaking Dangerous,” that character popping in such a giant and sudden manner, and the entire present is completely completely different due to that. So clearly you permit your self room to vary issues on the fly, however how particular is your imaginative and prescient of the way you need this to wrap up?
Yeah, you may undoubtedly under-plan a present like this, however you may as well over-plan it. And when you’re too rigidly caught to your authentic conception of it, then you may actually impede your progress. I imply, my authentic model of the script was very completely different, and earlier than I introduced it to Ben, there was a model that was far more heightened. It was nearer to one thing like “Brazil” or nearly like a Monty Python factor the place it was darkish, however then there was this nearly magical realism. And had I been obsessively married to that, we by no means would’ve gotten the present that we received.
So you must form of take that lesson and use that shifting ahead and do not forget that there could also be a greater model of this that you do not know but and you must be open to that. And you must let your self fall in love with sure characters or different components of the story that you simply did not count on to, and be capable of suppose in your ft and weave them into the narrative and be like, “Okay, I did not count on to like this man, however now we won’t make the present with out him. So what’s his function in the remainder of this factor?”
So with all of that mentioned — and that is the final query I am going to ask you in regards to the ending — what number of seasons do you suppose make sense for “Severance” as an entire?
We now have a quantity in thoughts. I feel that is all I can say.
Okay, truthful sufficient.
We now have a fairly good quantity in thoughts that — we’re not constructive. It is like, “Perhaps we’ll do extra, however most likely it may be this quantity.”
Gotcha. Okay. So inform me about working with Keanu Reeves on the “Lumon is Listening” video within the season 2 premiere. I am fairly positive it was Keanu. He is not credited in that first episode, nevertheless it positive sounded quite a bit like him.
[slyly] Effectively, I actually don’t know what you can be speaking about. I am not really aware of that actor.
I see.
Is that the man from “The Lake Home?”
[laughs] It’s, in reality.
I do love “The Lake Home.”
Okay, in order that line of questioning is clearly going nowhere. [laughs]
