Directed and executive produced by Ben Stiller and created, written and executive produced by Dan Erickson, the 10-episode second season of Severance premiered on Apple TV+ with the first episode on Friday, 17 January 2025 followed by one episode every Friday through 21 March 2025.

In Severance, Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries, whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. This daring experiment in “work-life balance” is called into question as Mark finds himself at the centre of an unravelling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work… and of himself. In season two, Mark and his friends learn the dire consequences of trifling with the severance barrier, leading them further down a path of woe.

Severance Season 2 reunites its ensemble cast of stars including Emmy Award nominee Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Zach Cherry, Jen Tullock, Michael Chernus, Dichen Lachman, Emmy Award winner John Turturro, Academy Award winner Christopher Walken and Academy and Emmy Award winner Patricia Arquette, and welcomes new series regular Sarah Bock.

Check out our review of Severance Season 2 by heading over here.

We interviewed Ben Stiller and Adam Scott.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

How has Severance Season 2 changed from the first season?

Ben Stiller: I think season two, you know, just story-wise, we wanted to kind of expand just based on where we left off the first season. And, you know, I think the visual aspect of the show has always been important to us, and trying to sort of create some, you know, new environments that are important to the story, that still, you know, maintain the vibe and the feeling of the show.

And that was a fun aspect of working on the season. And, you know, just having established after the first season, understanding now what our language was for the show, so it was really fun to kind of try to build off of that for sure.

How do you maintain your own work life balance in real life?

Adam Scott: Yeah? I mean, I tend to have very little balance between the two, because I don’t necessarily have hobbies to reach for when I’m not working, like I either work or I’m home hanging out with my family, and so and I love working. I love that I get to do this, so that sort of fulfils that, like hobby-shaped hole in me is that I get to do make TV and movies and stuff. So my balance is completely out my work-life balance is completely out of whack and upside down and all over the place, and I really don’t know if it’s healthy or not, or if I need to learn how to play tennis, or what I need to do build model airplanes. I’m not sure.

Ben Stiller: I build model airplanes and play tennis. No, I mean, it’s an interesting sort of thing, because working on the show for the past five years, which is what it’s been, has kind of taken over my sort of work life. But it’s also been something I’ve been able to do a lot of the time being at home, except when we’re on location, since I live in New York and so even editing the show, a lot of times we’re working remotely, so it kind of crosses over, you know, and sometimes it’s still hard to find that balance, but I do feel my family has been an important part of the show, even in just showing episodes, yeah?

Because, you know, there are very few people when we’re working on the show over the course of a couple years, to be able to show as, like a focus group, you know, just get some feedback. And so my kids, my wife, I’ll show episodes too and get feedback from them.

Adam Scott: Ben’s family is like, the best barometer, yeah, for how episodes are land true, yeah. And so, that’s kind of been a nice part of the, sort of like the work process on this, and I do feel like it’s kind of integrated in the way.

The opening of Season 2 of Adam Scott’s Mark running through the corridor is a great sequence, as well as the secret goat room. Can you elaborate on that?

Ben Stiller: Oh, man, yeah. I mean, you know, it was fun to sort of figure out what the opening of the first, you know, the first episode would be. And it really all relates back to the story. And, you know, the idea of this news that Mark got at the end of the last episode. So Adam, I even talked about it, and we were like, you know, I remember saying, like, well, what would you do? Yeah, if the first thing you would do when you got this news, when you find yourself back at Lumon, and in his mind, it was like, go to try to find wellness, trying to find Casey.

And so that’s what sparked the idea for him running and then it was just like, technically, well, maybe we can try to, like, build off of that first shot we saw of Adam when he went to work in the first episode of the first season, where he’s walking to work and sort of, you know, kind of like, for the audience, have a little fun and sort of echo that, but on in a more, sort of like, you know, hyped up, sort of like, this is going to be on another level of energy. So that was really fun to work on and have a bunch of different tools. Great Steadicam.

It’s actually, no Steadicam in there at all. But great, great work by camera operators. The actual elements of the baby goat room, the goat room, which hopefully we’ll keep secret and so on. That was, you know, that actually was not shot inside, that was shot outside. And we put some walls up outside to be able to have that space.

Adam Scott: That was an unbelievable few days shooting that the quote, unquote goat room, was incredible.

What can you tease about Mark’s journey in Severance Season 2?

Ben Stiller: Yeah, it’s a good question, and again, hard to sort of answer without too much or anything. But I think the idea of the news that Mark got at the end of the first season, you know, which I guess we could say, could send the trailer, but spoiler, if anybody hasn’t seen the first season, that you know, Mark’s wife is alive, and Mark’s Innie that would just spur so many things you know, in the story. And basically, like, what does Innie Mark do? What does Outie Mark do about that?

And really, I think that’s a focus for the season, is, you know, how does this news affect both Innie and Outie mark, in terms of his quest to, you know, obviously he’s grieving his wife, and then find this news out. Is it even true that his wife is alive, and how can he somehow harness, I guess, you know, get, get his any in some way to be aware of that. I don’t know. It’s, it’s hard, it’s hard to talk about without giving.

Adam Scott: Yeah, I mean, any mark discovers it at the end of season one, and so at the beginning of season two he has this explosive piece of information. What does he do with it down there? Does he somehow communicate it to his Outie? If so, how does he do that? There’s a number of different directions and also, what? How does this affect his identity down there, knowing that this company will go to these lengths. How does that affect his already disillusioned feelings about this place and about the people down there?

Ben Stiller: And also, you know, the part of the season is just sort of, you know, these questions about what they’re doing, you know, yeah, what is it we do? I think that’s something that’s an important part of the storytelling in season two, to hopefully give some answers to some things and hopefully pose some other new questions too.

You were the animated voice of Kier Eagan in Severance Season 1. Are you hidden somewhere again in Season 2 and would you ever be open to a bigger acting role in Severance in the future?

Ben Stiller: I don’t know if I we’ve ever confirmed that I’m the voice of Kier Eagan.

Adam Scott: I don’t know. Can’t confirm or deny.

Ben Stiller: *laughs* Just, you know, Lumon employee agreements are very airtight. You know, look, every once in a while there’s been a, like, a thought or question about, like, being in the show, but I honestly, you know, I don’t want people to have to deal with that. I’m like, I feel like there’s a world in the show any actor, I think, you know, it’s such a, I think it’s such a fun, cool show. Like, of course, I would want to be in it. But I also feel like doing what I do on the show keeps me really busy.

Adam Scott: And, I mean, you’re already there.

Ben Stiller: Yes, I’m there.

Adam Scott: You may as well step in front of the camera.

Ben Stiller: *laughs* Well, I’m there, like jumping into frames like, you know, in outtakes you can see me. I usually have a mask on.

Adam Scott: I think he should play or do something on the show. I agree 100%.

How do you think Severance reflects anger against corporations?

Ben Stiller: I mean, I feel like, you know, it picks up on a lot of different themes in the show, and there are different metaphors and different analogies and different, you know, just kind of areas that it resonates. And I think the idea of this sort of faceless corporation is is definitely one of them. But you know, what I think is cool about the show is there’s a lot of different things that people can read into the show and pick up on, and that’s definitely one of the themes.

And yeah, that is out there in the world. And I think it’s a very real thing. And, and, you know, it’s interesting you make something, you know, we’ve been making the show for a few years, and where it sort of times out with the zeitgeist, and what’s going on in the culture when it comes out is sort of a random thing. And, you know, it’ll be interesting to see how the show sort of interacts with what’s going on in the culture now.

Adam Scott: Yeah, there’s certainly a feeling of, you know, with some of these corporations, companies, they’re so massive that there’s sort of a, you know, when you think about a change, or turning, you know, an ocean liner around as a metaphor of any sort of change, there’s sort of a futility to it, and that might be something that people tap into when thinking about, you know, this group of two or three or three or four people kind of trying to go up against this enormous company, in this enormous Corporation.