The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott - The Look of Severance (with Jeremy Hindle)

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Ben and Adam are back! And this week, they are joined by Severance's Emmy-nominated production designer Jeremy Hindle – aka The Man with All The Handles, because he's got a handle on everything. Together, they dive deep into the original lookbook for the show, how Jeremy expanded the world in season 2, and the importance of designing with emotion. Plus, Jeremy helps answer some of your burning fan questions about furniture and color theory. If you've thought to yourself, "what is up with those birthing cabin statues?" then this episode is for you. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Try fresh, healthy food at the farmer's dog.com slash severance. Hey, I'm Ben Stiller. I'm Adam Scott. And this is the Severance podcast with Ben and Adam. We're back for the next six weeks to talk with the people who make severance, and inspire us while we're making it and influence it and just all that stuff. And today we have a really special episode for you all. We're talking to Severance's Emmy-nominated production designer, the great Jeremy Hindle.

Yeah, and we've talked about Jeremy a lot probably in every episode of the show because he's so integral to the show and to the look of the show, so I'm really excited to talk to him. Yeah, totally. And the production design has a lot of specific influences that I can't wait to talk to him about. I'm also just excited to hear more about the conversations that you guys had early on. There's just so much artistry and consideration and care that goes into all of it. We've got a lot to talk about. Yeah.

How you doing, Ben? I'm good. I'm good. I feel like it's been a while since we've gotten together. It has. It's been, I mean, at least what, three weeks a month, something like that. Yeah. Good summer.

Enjoying your summer? So far so good. You know, we're getting ready to push our son out the door. to go to college. Ah, and how does he feel about that? He's excited. I'm kind of yet to be determined. I think I'm just going to freak out at some point. It hasn't happened yet, but we're leaving tomorrow. Yeah, I've been through it. I've been through it twice now. And tell me, did you have a delayed freak out, or did you freak out at the time? Like, do you have any advice for me? It's sort of like a rolling freak out. It's sort of like it comes and goes.

My son is starting his second year of college in New York. Wow. And he just moved out. Wow. Yeah, just about a month ago or so. And he just sort of like started a whole life that I don't have any idea what goes on. Yeah. And, you know, that's how it should be when they're finding their way.

And I can't really wrap my head around it at the moment. But that's the sort of thing I guess I'm going to have to get used to is just sort of letting go a little bit, letting him go out into the world. No, it's really weird. You want them to go out there and just experience life. But also, as a parent, you're like, but don't experience too much. You're right. Just don't do anything too dangerous. But then, you know, of course, it doesn't really work that way.

I know. I find myself giving him advice. And it's just, it all sounds so pat. And I'm like rolling my eyes on the inside as I'm doing it. But you have to do it. You have to say all that stuff. Well, that's cool, man. You know, in terms of summer stuff, too, I was thinking,

I wish that I was out in L.A. for that Jesus Christ Superstar Hollywood Bowl thing that just happened. Oh, yeah. That's a really big deal. Oh, my God. Yeah. So cool. I saw, you know, I've just been watching clips of it. And are you a Jesus Christ Superstar fan? I don't know. I mean, other than the big fan. I know. For whatever reason, I don't know it. This is weird, right? Did you not have musicals in your family growing up? Did people weren't into musical theater? Not really. Not until I was in high school and I was doing musicals. What musicals did you do in high school? 42nd Street and Guys and Dolls. Those are the ones I was a part of. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Both very similar kind of themed. They are. I don't know the 42nd Street story really. Yeah, I don't either. I just know that I was Pat. I was the guy that didn't sing.

And in Guys and Dolls, I didn't sing either. I was Big Julie. And I literally, lifted the performance from Al Pacino and Dick Tracy and just did that character. Oh yeah. Big Julie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, because I thought you might have been Sky Masterson because you'd be a natural Sky Masterson today. Yeah, no. If they were doing a revival of Guys and Dolls today, you could get the call for Sky. Oh, thank you. That is a great role. I just can't hold a tune. I really can't. And so it's tough. That would have been tough for the audience. Well, you know, Marlon Brando wasn't really famous as a singer. That's true. He did it, yeah.

That's true. I could have lip synced. We could have had someone backstage singing, like in stepbrothers, there was a guy singing, and I was just lip syncing. No, in the car? Yeah. Oh, my God, really? So we could have done that in high school with guys and dolls.

All these years, I thought that was you. You did, really? You thought that I was singing? I wish it was. I really do. Well, I feel bad for you that you are not in the Jesus Christ Superstar Orbi because it's really, I think, one of the best pieces of drama. fiction theater ever made. And probably the best production ever was my sister and I in

1975 when my parents had gone away to L.A. for a couple weeks and they came back and we were waiting to perform it for them. Oh, that's. Made them watch that. Wow. So this is really like bone deep for you, the Jesus Christ superstars. Yeah. And I have a real connection with my daughter on it who is kind of obsessed with it too. So it's been a fun sort of, you know, that's great. Yeah, That's cool. So something else that happened is our friend Stephen Colbert, his show was weirdly canceled. Yeah, it's very weirdly canceled. Weird timing. For what reason, unclear, though you could speculate. It's really too bad because he is really one of the best. And he's been such a great friend of the show to the Severance. I mean, he was ahead of the curve season one. He did the whole Severance parody with you guys. He came to the set and shot. Yeah. Well, at least he's still a lot. Yeah. I feel like to talk. It's just a TV show. And I bet he's going to do something else. It's going to be better. And it's, and it's CBS's loss. That's a lot of say. 100%. It's a disturbing development, but we'll always have Colbert doing something. We're lucky for it. I look forward to his next thing. It's going to be great. 100%. Anything else fun summer-wise for you? Well, you know, I wondered if there was anything about our last episode that you wanted to say out loud. I'm not going to, I don't want to

lead you to it because... You're talking about six tablespoons, 85 grams of unsalted butter, half a cup of light brown sugar, four ounces, half a teaspoon ground cinnamon, one pinch ground nutmeg, generous pinched kosher salt, three medium ripe but firm bananas, one pound split in half crosswise and then lengthwise quarter cup of white or aged rum and uh you know what that is what is it that's bananas foster that's right that's exactly what that is or should i say bananas foster a la linda loff then you listen to the episode yeah in your face lindeloff i listened to it in real time all right you did like while we were doing it no no close to real time i wasn't there. But I, I listened to it immediately after, and I loved it. It was great. That's great.

I'm happy to be talking about the show today with Jeremy. Yeah. Jeremy Hindle is our unbelievable production designer on Severance. On set, he had that nickname, the Hindleman, the man with all the handles. What? I never heard. Yeah, I don't think that's anything real that anyone said. The Hindleman, the man with all the handles? Yeah. You never heard that? It's like a point guard? I know, I don't know. He's got a handle on everything.

Jeremy, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here. Oh, thanks for having me. I'm very excited. You and I never met before we started working on this show. Do you remember when we first met? We met at the Beverly Hills Hotel. That's right. We had like a lunch at the polo. Was it the polo lounge? The polo lounge. That's classy. Yeah, you called me and asked me if I'd be interested. You sent me a script and I read it and I went, huh.

And I said, can I have a couple days to put a look together? Because I don't, what is it? Yeah. And then I pitched you that had like a little 60 page document on my iPad that I kind of pitched to you what it was. Yeah, we sat in a booth together, right? And we kind of talked a little. And what was it at that point?

What did you conceive that early on? The first thing was an image of William H. Macy from Fargo in the parking lot, that high angle looking down of this lonely guy in the snow, hence the snow. Do you remember that man? Yeah. I do. And then the next was an image of your character in front of a big sparse building. And it was just showing scale. Yeah. Like to me it was instantly like if you're, because we are so tiny and struggling and it was just to show that the scale is the emotion of it was really important to me instantly. Yeah. I knew you had done zero dark 30, which I thought was an amazing film. And when we sat down together, not knowing you, I think we sort of connected

on aesthetics, right? We did. Well, you know what? For me it was more, I, because I've seen your work, you know, all the films you've directed and I, especially if Tropic Thunder for me was to do something that's a comedy, but the scale of it and how much of a real movie it is, like that it's a real film that's shot like a real film, the sets. To me, I already, I knew you would go for something bigger and that yeah and we kind of just click you know and then playtime we talked about playtime and to me that was just the word playtime like playing in this show was going to be really fun and yeah that's the jacques tatty film that's just just visually just such a an incredible specific world that he created and yeah i remember looking at that and and i do feel like when

you first meet somebody it was just it was just interesting because like we didn't know each other but then we sort of had to kind of like leap off the cliff together a little bit Yeah. Well, it was, I remember saying if I showed you all the images, I said, if you would do this, I would do this. And you were like, yeah, let's do this. Like it was, wow. It just felt really instantaneous. I was so confident what I was showing you. I wasn't when I read it. I didn't see it at all. You know, Jessica Lee Gagne also kind of had, I think, a similar first reaction. Yeah. Yeah. And then is, and that's the bonuses when the three of us kind of connected was her images, her references were. different but similar, you know, like how she was going to shoot, how she wanted to shoot, like, it was those Lynn Cohen photographs, I remember. Yeah, she brought in the Lynn Cohen photographs, and then also the Lars Tunbjork photographs, which he did like this series of office photographs in the early 2000s in Japan and in Sweden and different places that really were some of the first images we looked at too. Yeah, and having those sort of like mid-century elements and then

connected. Yeah, that was a huge part, I think. I think that was a big part of it. I mean, I, I I feel like what you said about kind of like going for something, being willing to go for something when you're making something that doesn't have a reference point necessarily in terms of work that we really hadn't done anything like this separately. So that's an interesting thing when you're like kind of in a world where you don't have, it's not like you can say, okay, we're going to do like, you know, a military base in Afghanistan or whatever, you know, it's like it was more open-ended and you had this willingness I felt to kind of explore and that's kind of what I felt as we started to work.

together but your process I'm just kind of curious where you come from your training what you know how you got to a process of doing what you do because you kind of allow for ideas to come and you really emphasized having that space in the beginning for us to kind of just blue sky ideas and to allow for just ideas and references to look at things and not to have to commit to anything you know it's honestly for me I did commercials for so long for about 15 years and I would do these you know, $15, $20 million commercials where you'd fly around the world for 70 days for 60 seconds. And they were always with

really good filmmakers. And it was always, there'd be an agency script, but a lot of times it falls on the designer to kind of create and just run with it. I would really just kind of invent these worlds. And what was similar was, I manufactured a lot of things. I was always at legacy building things.

The designer and commercials also has to design all the effects and oversee everything. So the training is very similar to what I kind of got to use in severance. I knew the tools. And I knew how to be free. Like in commercials, there's a real freedom to, you're kind of winged it all the time. Like, you're on a plane and you're shooting in real, but you're going to London, but then you're going right to Beijing. And you're working with all these different people in four continents at the same time,

running them all in your head and keeping this idea together. And I feel that training and also the every image in a commercial is so important that I feel like we do that on severance. Like Every shot is a story, every detail, every little pen. It's kind of how my brain has been working for the last 20 years. And having the freedom to create something from the ground up, like actually come up with it and then conceive it and build it. And also, you know, like there's a really good one. I did this P&G with Alejandro Inorritu, and we went around the world.

And I remember the agency were terrified of, you know, what we were going to do. And this was Proctor Gamble for the Olympics. And it's, it's a gorgeous commercial. but I remember them always being worried about what we were going to do. And I'm like, just relax, relax, fine. And they'd be like, you're going to fix that hole in the wall beside his bed, right? And I'm like, yeah, but I didn't. Like I lied the entire time.

Yeah. And at the end of it, two months later, the vice president of Wyden called me and she said, I just want you to know, I'm so thankful that you lied to us the entire time. We knew it, but it's the most beautiful thing we've ever done. Wow. And it was learning to just trust that people can't see. I can't see it myself totally. but I'm willing to fail so badly that I think that when you take those risks,

you can't really fail. You know, you're making something that's really emotional. And I think emotional is really hard to explain to people, you know, when there's a feeling of something. And it's like you just have to stick to it. And whoever you get there, you get there. And it's painful for people, including myself, because you're putting yourself out there. Well, you're also living in not with a decision, right?

So you're living in sort of like this ambiguity for a while that you have to be willing to do. And I was looking through my computer last night, knowing we were going to do this. And just the lookbooks that you created from the beginning, I was going back to some of the really early stuff, but there were a lot of specific reference photographs that we accrued that you found, researchers, Jessica, you know, we would all bring these ideas. And you created this lookbook that then you would bring in pieces of furniture. And there was obviously the technology. So I found like the separate, the technology book that you created, you know, and that was a big thing.

I remember when we were trying to figure out how to, you know, mix the different eras and what that would be. But I think that cache of all those images is still so, I don't know, like I look at it and I still get excited when I look at, you know, it's just like a picture from like some weird Soviet meeting hall or, you know, I was looking at the original designs that you did for the wellness room. You know, for wellness. Yeah, because the original wellness was not the, we ended up with that wood and like the plant and like a warmer thing. But do you remember? I remember them all. Yeah, yeah. The original was like the more like a almost like a Korean spa or something.

Well, I just remember Dan wrote, there's a door to go in and a door to go out. And I'm like, but it's one room. And he's like, yeah, but they're just side by side. And I honestly, for me, the thing I responded to was that Dan would write these ridiculous things. Yeah. And he believed them. And that was to me was like, it's such a good rabbit hole to go down because he would say it. I'd just be like, oh, yeah.

And it made it really fun. Yeah, but those lookbooks really, it's interesting, I wish we could post them or something because they're so, you can see exactly, you know, what the inspirations were, but it became its own thing also. Like, talk about the wellness center. There's a good example of like the process on the show creatively in terms of being inspired by what Dan writes is that he wrote the two. doors, which always made me laugh too, but like kind of made sense. And then you design the wellness

outer, you know, the waiting area, and which kind of was like, I think your first design was kind of like what we went with. Yeah. And the inside changed a little bit and developed. But in season two, when we come back to wellness for the first time in the script, in 201, it's written out that Mark, you know, gets to wellness, he opens the door, the waiting room. And it was written somehow like the doors are bordered up and abandoned. Yeah. And there was like wires hanging and spritory. And barks flying. You know, like the Grinch had been there and taken everything away. That was the image in my head. And then one day, you just like called me into your office and you said, uh, or, or what about this? And then you just showed me this picture where there was like an

outline where the doors were. It's so much scarier and weirder that way. I mean, my favorite was because you didn't tell, I just remember standing there when Adam saw for the first time. And those are the moments I love. Yeah. I feel like that's what we're doing on the show all the time is trying to, because it's so real. Like you, your reaction on your face, I was like, wow. Yeah. Because I think you were, what I felt was like you were wrestling with, in your mind, it's for season two, how do I make this feel like severance?

How do I make this, the imagery in this room and like boarded up doors doesn't necessarily. They're not sloppy. Right, right. And then you came up with that idea of like the sort of the negative space. And I just, it's like, oh yeah, yeah, that's it. That's woman too. It's like nefarious and like a triple. mind fuck. Yeah, they're amazing at this. They're, like, they're so manipulative and fun and they

really mess with you guys. And then I get to mess with you guys. Yeah. Okay, we're going to take a break. We'll be right back after this. This episode is brought to you by the farmer's dog. So employees on the separate floor of Lumen industry know their work is mysterious and important. The farmer's dog on the other hand isn't mysterious at all, which is good because what you feed your dog shouldn't be a mystery. The farmer's dog makes 100% mysterious free fresh food for dogs. And they always use real meat and real vegetables which are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients and avoid the risks that come from ultra processing. Their recipes are developed by their team of board certified vet nutritionists so they can ensure that your dog's food,

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You can't get it at Lumen. You can only get it at thefarmer's dog.com slash severance. This offer is for new customers only. Hey, it's Adam. I travel a lot with my family, and we stay at Airbnb's all the time. It's great being able to be all together in one house, hanging out and feeling at home while we're away.

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Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. How you designed the offices and the workspace, do you want to talk about that, about the idea of work and why kind of a mid-century idea was what fit in with Lumen and how you approached the idea of work when coming up with all of this? I mean, I think ultimately it was, we wanted it to look cool, the show to look beautiful.

We wanted them, you know, their big pharmaceutical company, they have taste. But I always think that the 60s had better taste. They did. Like John Deere, we kind of went with the Kevin Roche, you know, Erasarin and design. And when offices were designed for real just work. Right. And you had this beautiful desk and a beautiful computer and one pen and a rolydex. And there was no family life.

and then the eight because the 80s human resources took over and it's like why do you work longer hours you can bring your family put some pictures and have a plant and they started to like became like let's take an extension of home of home so like yeah stay longer and like wait this is actually just about work so let's go back to that aesthetic which was one it's stunning and two it's just the practicality of it it's you're only there to work there wouldn't you wouldn't even you wouldn't have anything you have a coffee cup with their name on it not the one with your kids from their lacrosse game or whatever. And I just felt so natural to, and in a way that I think people could understand it, you know, it's familiar because you kind of remember it. Young people don't know it, but they're like, oh, that's interesting. Like, they kind of want that now. Yeah, for sure. And also, I think the work life balance has become such an interesting thing, obviously, you know, Dan writing it, but I think COVID really helped that too, because a lot of these young people have only grown up at home or on Zoom. So I think for them, I was like, oh, this is really, they just got really, it was really attractive to them. Yeah.

Yeah, and I remember we were just talking a lot about MDR and the space when we were starting up because we knew that so much of the show would take place in that space. So in a way, I kind of likened it to like a show like The Office, which I talked about a lot, but the idea this is their space and how do we make it very, very spare and sparse and, you know, what it should be, but also interesting. And that process, I remember you showing renderings and creating renderings for The ceiling. I remember us talking about the height of the ceiling

and just how low we could actually go with it. Seven, nine. And what's the idea behind that specific height? Because it's not oppressively low when you walk in the room, but there's something weird, and it is lower than a ceiling should be. It's very specific. So where did that come from?

I mean, that was in the script. I went back to the first, like, to the draft, and it said like the seems, like it feels like the ceiling is a little bit lower than it should be. But that was it. Yeah. And it's at a cubicle island in the middle. So I don't know.

I feel like we took that cube, but then you took it with the lighting. I mean, the whole idea of that lighting grid system above, which kind of reminded me a little bit of the stuff, you know, from the time life building back in the day. Yeah, yeah. A lot of it was based on. Yeah. I remember, like, you just like came in with this rendering and I remember standing in the space we're measuring behind the ceiling.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was like coming to life. And it was like this thing. You're like, wow, this is really weird. We're committing to this. And then you want to talk about like the walls and the color, the white walls? Because, you know, the way that white photographs, it's really hard to get that texture, especially with digital, you know, in terms of like what translates in HDR on TVs.

So there are a lot of tests. Yeah, we camera tested 26 whites. Wow. And what happens when it's the wrong white? How does that translate on camera? Like, what's the issue? It might just blow out or have no texture or it might feel like you're just like in a. kind of, you know, like almost like in space or something.

Some are really yellow. Some are really blue. They're just, it's just, a lot of them went really beige. I mean, I remember you going 26 and I'm like, I know, wait till we see it. And when we went to watch it, it was like, oh, God, oh no, no, no, no. And we came down to two. There's only two that were. Would you, would you test it by having someone walk in front of it?

Would you have an entire hallway of it? Like, how would you test it? We built a section of the ceiling. We built three walls and then we had different green carpets. So we test. And then your lot of wardrobe. all in the space. And it was so mind-blowingly surprising for everyone

and exciting and funny. You're like, but that's what whites are. They're all so different. And the green. And how the green... Yeah, how it interacts with the green, I'm sure. And the ceiling, like, the ceiling really picks up with all its angles.

We just don't know. Yeah, the ceiling would pick up the green reflection a lot, too, which didn't really look right. And then also we had to figure out the dividers and figure out their green. Yeah. So, because, but all of it was just with the thought of like, this is going to be where we're at for, you know, for many, many, many episodes. And I'd never had that experience before. I had never had to set up a series. So it was, I remember just like we were angsting over it for a while the best was none of us had. I think that's why it's good. Like, you know what? The thing I've heard the most on this show from a lot of people is always, this isn't how you make TV. Right. I go, well, I, yeah, great. And I think it's because if you knew, you wouldn't do it. Right. You always do better when you don't know the rule. One, you don't want to know. the rules, but too, they're not inside you.

Yeah, it was a little bit like we were kind of outside of the system a little in the beginning because I think of COVID and because of us being in New York and sort of in this, you know, we were just kind of like doing our thing. Even geographically, I feel like we were up in the Bronx. We weren't at a studio like sharing stages with eight other shows where you mix and mingle with other shows. We were sort of off by ourselves. Planet severance.

Yes. It's so. Yeah, we were in the South Bronx for five years on the show. And also, I remember it was a brand new stage, like the stages had never been used before. And I remember the very first thing that happened was the stage where MDR was stage three, right? We realized right off the bat that the floor was not level enough because we were doing, because we're not using Steadicam. We're using Dolly shots a lot. And so they had to build, what was it, like a six inch platform or something? It was up and down up to six to eight inches, so. Yeah. So they had to build a platform for the entire set, over the floor before we could even build the set. We ended up having to do it to all the stages. But it was more because we were doing the hallways. Like you would notice it.

Yeah, yeah, of course. MDR would never have worked. And then do you remember also with the final MDR plan? You had the plan for the stage, for stage three, where we used almost every single part of the stage, except for one hallway that would have connected all the hallways. Because no one would let, they were like, no, we can't build that anymore. I'm like, yeah. And we just slowly kept connecting the dots.

And we were like, we got to connect. We got to connect this. It's got to be all. So, and that's how the idea for the opening shot where you walk the hallways was let's see if we can use all the hallways that we connected. I mean, it was you. You kept saying, I just, I just want to keep going going and bend and turn and move. It's like, because it really was. We were trying to confuse every.

It was trying to make them not be able to figure out where they're going. It was confusing. Exactly. They were always shifting. So you would always get lost trying to get to set because the hallways were always. always evolving into different things, depending on what you're shooting. Yeah, creating little jogs and, like, you created those little sort of, like, pit stops and areas you can go.

Yeah, and it was really fun. Yeah, those weird little inlet. Yeah, I know. Honestly, it really was just fun. Yeah. But you were willing to play it. As soon as I showed you that deck, I remember, like, just the look on your face. It's kind of what you need, though.

I would have known right away if you had it, it wouldn't have worked or it would have worked. Yeah. Because you were, you know, willing to go for it. too. And it was, you know, why not? I just want to say something really quick about something you said earlier, which was the emotion of what you were creating and of those rooms. And when I first got there in 2020 and first got to New York and Ben brought me to the stage and showing me the set for the first time and walking into MDR, because we were just

starting and I was like, how am I going to do this? like trying to figure the character and the iny and the outy out and just sort of trying to piece it together. But then walking into MDR, a lot of stuff just immediately fell into place. And it was emotional. Seeing that for the first time. And I don't know if it's the ceiling or what it was, but the hallways and MDR really pieced a lot together and ended up dictating a lot of character stuff is extraordinary. I've never had an experience like that before with a set. Also because the set was, you know, it was so 360 that you were just, you were in it when

you were in it. You really couldn't get out of it. I mean, I think the key is, as a designer is to like make it, especially for this one, especially underground, like for you, everything's a first. You're a child. Yeah, yeah. And it was like, how do we make this that everyone, because they're so new. And it's, and it has to be something that you've never really seen before.

But it's still just an office, and it was how to you make something that you can believe, I think is really important. And I think that the MDR and the severed floor is about limits, limiting curiosity, limiting imagination. And I think that was moving to me when I first got in there. It was tragic and kind of really sparked my imagination. and it's also, it's not a in your face sort of thing. It's all subtlety and it's all, it does it to you. It's not telling you what it's doing. It actually does that.

It blocks you off from the world. Like when you walk out of the elevator and see a new painting in front of you, it must be so odd. It's everything. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, yeah. You know, I've never told anybody this,

but I always play all the characters on sets before they're building them. I walk and I play everybody. Wow. As much as I, not really like the dialogue, but I think of where and where I just do it. Honestly, sometimes probably hundreds of times. And it's mostly just walking and looking and thinking and trying to think of things that would either surprise you or inspire you. Yeah. Wow.

So you're actually like just putting yourself in the headspace of the characters by being in there. That makes sense to me. Totally. It's like shows. And for me, it's the most fun part to make sure that this feels real enough in just those subtle ways for you to, for anyone, to feel like they're really in a space. that is reasonable for this, you know, to happen. Yeah, yeah. What did you feel was the biggest challenge for season two going in,

knowing what we've done in season one? I mean, it was scary because we were going to see more of the outside world. The outside world does scare me because it's, you know, as you know, it's just hard because we shoot in New York. You're trying to find something that's unfamiliar. Like we're trying to find things that people, they understand it, but I can't be in law and order. Like, remember the train station?

Like, we're going to Utica. Yeah, we went to Utica for the train station where Bert, and Irving say goodbye, and that was because we were willing to kind of look outside of the immediate area, which is more expensive and challenging than you have to figure out how to make it work, but the desire, I think, was to like, yeah, not do something that maybe you had seen before or that was very specific to the show. And I think, you're right, the outside world here, even in season one, you know, a lot of time was spent trying to figure out the look of that place. I was looking, again, at our reference that we pulled a bunch of amazing,

Gregory Croutson photos, his exterior night shots, which are very cinematic and beautiful. We're very inspiring, too. Then in season two, yeah, we had episode 204 where we had the orpoh. And I remember, like, our first conversations were like, we should go to Peru or something. We were talking about Argentina. Oh, my God. We were talking about everywhere. And I was like, how am I going to build this world?

I have to go three hours where it's, I think I walked, I don't know, Brian and I must have go to 25 days walking and walking and walking and walking like no and then because I remember like reading it and he starts I think he woke up in the forest and I remember I said yeah shouldn't he wake up on the lake yeah this is the thing I think this is fun about the show is when you have you or John Tachiro when you have actors of this caliber as a designer you immediately go well it's John Tuchero on a frozen lake is going to be really you just know yeah you can do it yeah and have to do it and we did it in Lake Minowasca which is you know like two hours from New York and wanting to get that scale.

And then, you know, the combination of getting very lucky with the weather where we actually had real snowfall, which I think made a huge difference, like the dead seal. Yeah. Oh, the dead shot. The wide shot, the dead seal scene, which I think the snow was only falling for like three or four hours that morning. But we got the whole scene. It's funny how fast you can shoot when you need to shoot.

Yeah. When fresh snow is falling. Yeah. But that was, that was another challenge for season two. And I think you're right, like the feeling of like, how do we. keep making Keir and the outside world as interesting and as specific, which has always been something, you know, that's kind of challenge. Finding something is not recognizable to everyone. There's so many shows that shoot in anywhere.

And it's, I think it's just that you don't, if you connected it, it would be, I think it would take it away. Like, you really need to feel like, I don't know, like the train station, but I kept saying, it's in Poland. It doesn't, like, we don't know where it is. And it shouldn't be anywhere. I always thought, you know, when we, it did in Newfoundland like you don't really we should never think okay i'm in this place it would take away from the story right well that yeah that's been the challenge in right yeah to create a space that feels familiar but is not specific to anything we know necessarily and then just to talk a little bit about 207 that's the incredible work you did with jessica directing you know the challenge

of creating the testing floor yeah and that process and i know that started very early on in the development of the season. Talk a little bit about how you and Jessica began that process because it was so great because obviously, you know, Jessica having shot the show, too, you know, it was all just sort of like, there was nothing that had to be explained or anything. It was like, okay, we all knew what the reference points were and were going for something. Yeah, it was just like, what's the extension of this? And I think the key was that it was a medical floor to me was like the clinical nature of it was the experimentation and it felt like doctor like, Dr. Mauer and her.

And I think that was that for me, the most important thing was that she walks to a door and then when she severs, when she goes through, it's like, okay, how does she not see what's through the door when it opens? So it's like, okay, we have to create it on an angle. So when she walks through, because otherwise she would remember that one split second

of what, I'm like, oh, the wall has to be on an angle. And then she walks in and it's like, what the fuck is just a white wall? And then left or right is the real space. So that rule just was the guide for... That's so true. I never quite understood why that way. Every time I walked into one of those, it's like, okay, well, now I got to...

Yeah. And it's because it's only just as it wipes open, she has a second. And then once she steps through, it doesn't remember. And also when she would come out, so it's just that rule. By the way, that's something that you wouldn't think about in reading the script or even as we're right and then becomes very real, like a real issue. when you're actually having to create the set. Like, we really do try and work on the math. Like, that you really, that it's as functional as possible

if anyone really wanted to think of. I find it's, it also creates some of the absurdity because you kind of have to do those things. Yeah. That's the reality of it. You and Jessica really were like mind melding on it and this challenge of like creating something the same but different. And like the question of like, should the hallways be another color?

Yeah. You know, like what? And we came back to like, no, no, it should be kind of similar. but the scale is different. The angles are different. They're wider, it's higher. And the angles. Yeah.

You came up with these really great sort of triangular angles. Yeah. It's always like, I think it's really just designing with emotion. Like she's walking these halls and it's creating a violence to things like sharp angles. They make you feel something and you're not. I find it's really kinetic more than cerebral. It's like people feel things as they're watching it. And you're watching her very tiny human walk through these hallways and all of a sudden just sharp.

Just I really find it's just so powerful. Well, you're coming from like character and emotion. Yeah, when you're thinking about it in terms of the characters in the story, that's going to be the most, there's the most there because there's so much feeling there that you're, if you're putting yourself in their place. Yeah. It's funny. I didn't note until I'd always design like this until I really, until after this season, I didn't realize how emotional I was responding to things. Like, that's how I was thinking, but it's a show like this that you start to really see what it really does do.

Yeah. You know, you do it all the time. Like, you scale is the most important thing in designing. But this one, you really start to feel like how you can play with people's emotions and how you feel when you're on a set and you see it in you. And I mean, I feel like it really is, it's such an interesting way to help infer things that, you know, emotionally. Yeah, because that floor, it is about trauma and violence. Yeah. and were introduced to it through Gemma's eyes.

Yeah. And this is a place where she is, where it's, that's all it is to her. Like her little desk where she said, her little table, like I was like, how do I make this table violent? So it's like, oh, it's for two, but I made it, I just thought everything has to have some sort of violent nature to it. But you put a little, you put a little chunk in the table. Yeah, where she smashed it out.

Yeah. It was like the history of at one point she had thrown some. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's always trying to, um, I mean, it's, it's playtime. I don't know. I feel, I honestly, I feel really lucky that we get to do something like this. It's, you know, making art is not something that's the biggest commodity out there these days. And I do feel like that openness that you have in thinking and talking about this stuff, like openness to ideas, to new ideas, just sort of like allowing space for something to show up.

Yeah, I mean, you and Jess and I just clicked in a way that was so interesting. You guys already had your dynamic and I could already see it, but you guys were quite, you're so well. And what I loved was, Jess is insanely impaninated. You are insanely impaninated. I'm insanely opinionated. But none of us are, we're fragile in a way about the art. You know, like we can be hurt, obviously. But it was more, the art was the important part.

And I love that one of us can just say, and that doesn't work. And we would just all let go of it. We'd be like, yeah, you're right. And it just became a really natural for me to work in that environment. Yeah, and look what we got. Yeah. It's such a great experience when you have that, that when you have that trust with so on. And then I just had to say, like, things that you

would just incorporate, like, in the birthing cabin, at the fireplace. Yeah, can you talk a little bit about that? I mean, amazing. So the set was, we were super happy with the set. And I was, I'd actually gone to this pottery place in New Jersey. And I was looking at different ceramics. And I had this idea for these ceramic sculptures that, I'm like, there has to be something here that's very key. What is it? And I called Dan, I'm like, if I was going to make two sculptures in front of the fireplace. I know what they look like. I just need to know who are they. They need to be two people. And immediately with, like it so quickly said, Mrs. Keir pregnant with child, Mr. Keir pregnant with industry. And I hung up. I didn't even say,

I just hung up. And Panko, like within two days, we'd made those things. And then I didn't, I didn't tell anyone. I didn't tell you. I was just like, I love these little surprises. And you walked in and Patricia at the same time and Patricia went to it and started hugging it it. And I'm going, what the fuck is this? It's though. But it's it's it's the connection that we have like the fact that Dan can come up with something like it's in his orbit. It's just right it's having the right vessel to use. But you ask the question. It's just like it's just sort of a fun process to have that back and forward and ping pong ideas and then something comes out of it. And that for me when I saw that it blew my mind because it was like oh that's

just so weird, so interesting and so specific that I was determined to make sure we get a cutaway a close-up at some point of it just to have it in the scene. I just kind of thinking there's something that needs to be there for you. Yeah. You're going to be in this room and there's obviously it's a room, but it's like what's the thing that's, they're always planting some torturous thing to happen. Yes. So what is it? What seed is this? I love that set so much. And I remember walking in for the first time and the fire was going. Because when the fire lit up, I mean, It's a beautiful room, but then when the lights went down and the fire went up, it changed completely. Yeah.

And just knowing we were going to be in there for, what, three or four days doing these really difficult material and then walking in and being like, oh, this is so cozy and weird. It was the perfect place to be doing. Yeah, huge. Huge. Ridiculously big. Yeah. I mean, I think it was interesting. And it's like, because all of this comes from Ben, too, because Ben plants little seeds in me that this is half an episode, dude.

Yeah. Like, and you, in that, that, that pressure is like, oh my God, holy fuck. That's a long time. What is it? What is it? What is? And it has to be spectacular. Yeah.

And we also built off of the location where the original birthing cabin was that set that you created was based on an idea of the, of the actual location, but you embellished it and kind of made it better. Made it work for us. Yeah. No, and it was more, it was more, once again, the scale like in playing and trying to make it, it's inviting and comfortable. But what's that little.

what's the moment that's, these people are nasty. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back after this. Jeremy, you're awesome. We're going to do some hotline questions now. Yeah. Where people call in and ask questions. Would you like to answer some with us?

Of course. Yeah. But let me ask you, Jeremy, before we do that, for you, if you were going to go, somebody advice who wants to do what you do and be a production designer in films and what would your advice be to them go to every gallery you can go to go to every museum listening to music 24 hours of it's like literally absorb art i i notice everything uh tree bark leaves like i literally am obsessed with anything in the world i think you have to be a nice cyclopedia of art and and really

And a lot of music, too. I really believe designing emotionally and kinetically is really, it's not from your head. It really comes from inside you. And I didn't, I realize it more and more. And this show really, I woke up to it, that that's the process, that that's what I do. And I think because I'm so obsessed with textures and fabrics and clothes and literally everything, you have to just be a sponge. Well, we feel it directly from you.

So thank you. Incredible work. Thank you. The show has been a nice sponge bath. Exactly. We're all playing ping pong, and I love that. I do think it's the most important. Yeah.

All right. Let's do some hotline. Hello, this is Momo G. I'm calling in regards to the beautiful mid-century vanity featured in Gemma's room. It's making me fall in love with not just the show, but the set design equally. And I have to ask, because I've noticed it, the color theory as well. If you could tell us more about why certain rugs are certain colors or any insight to the set design, that would be amazing. The vanity, well, I could answer that first.

You know, I'm obsessed obsessed with furniture, every piece of furniture. I have thousands and thousands of images in my phone, and I save everything I see. So it's like a data bank. And I also have an amazing researcher and Decorator David. And I find the key is that because we like to make a lot of our own furniture and obviously we design the sets. But sometimes putting one really special piece of furniture that 99% of the world don't know, but there's a few that do really elevates the sets to such a different level. Like the chair in Mr. Milchicks. Mr. Milchicks.

Oh, that's his redecoration that he did. So that's from a Chanel showroom from the 60s. They were customers, 12 of them in the world. Wow. And they were designed for just the Chanel showrooms. And those pieces are, there are pieces of art. And they elevate something so far beyond. And they kind of help synchronize all of our work.

And I added some authenticity too. And I also think I actually like, I think there's a really cool way of educating people and design too in the show. We're lucky to do it. Those little things that just make people appreciate that there's really a lot better things out there. And you should be more careful of what things are and take your time. and there's so much effort in those objects. Yeah.

So I do have an appreciation for always, like, highlighting special pieces. The colors of, I, you know, the colors are always blue and green. And for me, the emotional part of green is always the same. It's like every hospital has green. It's, it's calming. It's natural. It's the color we see everywhere, leaves and grass. And it's just, it's the one color we always respond to that is just emotionally comfortable.

It's where you feel if it was red, it would have felt, insanely different or like I love in the show when we use red just once or twice and yeah the first time is you know for me is when in the Chinese food restaurant like the most crazy scene ever you two talk but there's that red and it's like it's the love but it's not love it's like violence it's all those things together yeah yeah the zoo food scene yeah and I love that you're like you're talking to her and it's like they love each other but they don't know each it's so odd yeah red is and alarm yeah Do you remember we found, you found the Chinese restaurant? Brian and we were up scouting for something, I guess.

I think it was probably for episode four. I don't even remember. So now we saw this Chinese feed restaurant. Like, can we use it in the show? And we just started to go into the data bank of things that could eventually become. Yeah, I feel like we had another scene that was going to take place there. It was like some other shorter scene. I can't remember.

But then getting into that restaurant, which was just, it's such a cool restaurant because it's really like, you know, set in time. But the lighting on the. was severance. The ceiling is literally the hallway light. Yeah, it's the same, which was like, it almost felt like it was like meant to be or something. I love that location so much. It was amazing.

It had such a severance. That's the other thing, I love when I say, it's not severance. And everyone's like, you gotta stop saying that. But it's true, it's, that is just severance. That we walked in and we're like, we have to shoot here. Yeah.

What will it be? And I think it just got placed there eventually. You put it there. And then when the red came in in that scene, it's sort of harken back to 101 for me, the Hellie and Mark scene before, you know, that you have in the kitchenette during the party. And we play the same song, the same song is playing in that in 108

and in the Zufu scene too. Man, you guys are good. Yeah. But no, but that was, I'm just saying it because it was like, it kind of led, one thing led to another. It's like, oh, this, we were watching and editing the scene. It's like, oh, this kind of feels, you know, Mark and Hellie. This is, you know, outy Mark and Helena.

But it felt like that scene. And so like that triggered off. figured off different decisions that all were kind of like just what we're talking about sort of the one thing feeding off another. Yeah, there was like an unexpected intimacy to both of those scenes that I don't think either of them anticipated in both scenes. It's interesting. Cool. Let's do another question. Hi, I'm Kayla G from Baltimore, Maryland. And my question is, so I made a letterbox list that is called Helena Egan's watch list a couple weeks ago. go and just filled with different movies that I think she would like because I feel like she needs something to watch other than just a security camera footage in Lumen. So I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of movies that I should put onto that list. Thank you so much.

Praise gear. I mean, The Shining, I feel like Helena would, you know, not a great father in that movie. Yeah, father, daughter stories. I think of, like, her in this sort of weird corporate world that just is so cold and specific. It kind of like makes me think a little bit more of like some like 90s sort of thrillers, you know? Disclosure. Yeah, disclosure, basic instinct. For some reason, I thought of Anibaba. I just, I love how violent that film. Do you ever, isn't that Japanese film?

What is that? Oni Baba? No. Amazing movie. It's a woman who's in a mask and she's haunting this man in a, in a hot. It's a, in the 60s, Japanese black and white is stunning. But it's really, really cereally violent. But she wears this crazy mask and she's scary as shit.

Helena really scares me. I think that sounds like a Helena choice, 100%. Maybe tar? Tar, yes, that's a great one. Great choice. Yeah, she is tar. That's a good one. Maybe devil wears Brata.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right, let's do one more. Hey, Ben and Adam. This is Amanda Lynn. I'm from Quebec, Montreal area, and I love Severance. Thank you so much for this show and for this amazing companion podcast. And I wanted to ask if your in ease were in the choreography and merriment department,

what instrument would you hope that they play? Thank you so much. I can't wait for season three, three skewer. Well, that's an easy one for me because I am a drummer. Shooting that sequence was so much fun for me to be. I love marching bands and drum cores. So for me, I'd be, I'd be, you know, one of the snare drummers. And by the way, we had some of the most amazing musicians on that track and in that scene.

And there's a drummer named Ralph Nader, who's one of the main drummers who you see when you see like the snare cam where you see him playing. You know, you just see the sticks kind of like right up against the edge of the drum. He's just incredible. And it was just so much fun to watch those guys do their thing. So that's for me, it's drums. What about you, Adam? I would shred on guitar.

I'm kind of attracted to the pheromon. I've never, I'd never seen one, and I felt love with it. Guys, guys. Marching bands don't have pheromans. Oh, in a marching band. Oh, sorry. Oh, I guess I'm going to play. Oh, a choreography in Merriman.

Yeah, sorry. I guess I'm... Unless you're a separate division, you guys are. I would be marching out front, shredding on guitar with a little portable amp like those on Venice. Like in Mad Max when he's on the front of the truck? Yeah, yeah, yeah, just like that. That's what I would do. Cool.

I guess I'm going to play a trumpet. You shred on. trumpet. Yeah. All right, man. Well, this is great. So much fun talking to you. Thanks, Jeremy. Thank you. It was so fun. And Jeremy, I just want to say also before you go, like, I have such good memories also of you and I kind of like walking around the set when it was first built, kind of like geeking out a little bit like going like, this is just like Star Trek. It is like Star Trek. It is like, except they only had half of the set. We actually, we did go 360. They had to go back and forth. But I remember we were both like kind of like, this is so cool. It's always. It's, you know what? It really is a

spaceship. It is designed like a spaceship. Yeah. It's fun. It's so much fun. Anyway, thanks, man. Thank you, guys. Okay, that's it for the episode. The Severance podcast with Ben and Adam will be back again next week with an episode you don't want to miss. Let's just say we're getting the entire gang back together. Yeah, very exciting. It's going to be good. You can stream every episode of Severance on Apple TV Plus. The Severance podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott is a presentation of Odyssey, Red Hour Productions. and Great Scott. If you like the show,

be sure to rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your other podcast platform of choice. It really makes a difference. If you've got a question about Severance, call our hotline. [phone]. We just might play your voicemail

and answer your question on the podcast. Our executive producers are Barry Finkel, Gabrielle Lewis, Naomi Scott, and Leah Reese Dennis. This show is produced by Ben Goldberg. It's mixed and mastered by Chris Bates, We have additional engineering from Hobby Cruces. Show clips are courtesy of fifth season, music by Theodore Shapiro.

Special thanks to the team at Odyssey, Mora Curran, Eric Donnelly, Michael LeVay, Melissa Wester, Kate Rose, Kurt Courtney, and Hillary Schuff. And the team at Red Hour, John Lesher, Carolina Pesikov, Jean-Pablo Antimetti, Martin Valdoruten, Ashwin Ramesh, Maria Noto, John Baker, and Sam Lyon. And at Great Scott, Kevin Cotter, Josh Martin, and Christy Smith at Rise Management. I'm Ben Stiller. And I'm Adam Scott. Thank you for listening.