Do you could have an concept in your head of how this present will finish?
I do. I’ve a scene in thoughts that is sort of principally been unchanged since I first introduced the present to Ben [Stiller] and I advised him and he was like, “Ooh, that is fairly good.” Rather a lot has modified in regards to the plan. I will not faux that it has been this structurally good 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 kind of remained our North Star from the start.
How particular is your imaginative and prescient for the tip? Are you aware the place every character finally ends up, do you simply have sort 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 an enormous and sudden means, and the entire present is completely completely different due to that. So clearly you permit your self room to alter issues on the fly, however how particular is your imaginative and prescient of the way you need this to wrap up?
Yeah, you possibly can positively under-plan a present like this, however you may as well over-plan it. And in the event you’re too rigidly caught to your unique conception of it, then you possibly can actually impede your progress. I imply, my unique 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 obtained.
So it’s important to kind 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 it’s important to be open to that. And it’s important to let your self fall in love with sure characters or different parts of the story that you simply did not count on to, and have the ability to suppose in your toes 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 stated — and that is the final query I will ask you in regards to the ending — what number of seasons do you suppose make sense for “Severance” as an entire?
We’ve got a quantity in thoughts. I believe that is all I can say.
Okay, honest sufficient.
We’ve got a reasonably good quantity in thoughts that — we’re not optimistic. It is like, “Possibly we’ll do extra, however most likely it will 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 certain it was Keanu. He is not credited in that first episode, nevertheless it certain sounded lots like him.
[slyly] Properly, I actually don’t know what you possibly can be speaking about. I am not truly conversant in 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]