Ben Stiller recalled his early dealings with Apple in the process of selling the company Severance during a panel discussion Sunday at SXSW.
“When we first sold the show to Apple TV+,” Stiller recalled, “I said, ‘What’s Apple TV+?’, because you guys didn’t exist yet, you were just starting out, and it almost didn’t seem real.”
Despite the uncertainly, “We said, ‘Okay, let’s pitch to them.’ And it’s become this amazing creative relationship,” Stiller said.
Eddy Cue, SVP of Services at Apple (the division that houses Apple TV+), appeared onstage with Stiller, who is executive producer and director of the popular and surreal workplace drama. The two lobbed questions at each other at the session, exploring the theme of “Moving Culture Through Innovation and Creativity,” as the panel’s title expressed it.
“It been amazing for me and Apple, and an incredible honor to work with you on this. We couldn’t be prouder,” Cue said. “Apple picks its projects very carefully.” With glee, he added that “people can’t get enough” of Severance as the series barrels towards its Season 2 finale later this month.
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While his executive perch brings the perk of being able to binge the entire season to the end, Cue said he prefers to wait until episodes drop weekly. He asked Stiller if he could spill anything about the March 21 season finale, but the response was oblique.
“So, things are being figured out,” Stiller said after two brief clips of the next episode flashed on the venue’s screen. “I don’t know what you can get from [those] scenes, but … things are going to happen.” Stiller added, “I mean, what can I tell you? The season is going to end soon and hopefully people will be along for the ride.”
Adam Scott stars in the series as Mark Scout (aka “Mark S.”), a former history professor and a severed worker for Lumon Industries in the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) division. Lumon employees have “outie” versions of themselves when they leave work and “innies” at Lumon. A running theme of Season 2 has also been Mark’s “reintegration” of his innie and outie via an underground surgical procedure. The relationship of the two versions, who are meant to have no recollection of each other, provides the show’s main tension, along with the mystery of what is it that Lumon actually does.
“It’s funny because people talk about, ‘Oh, wow, you know, Apple is a huge corporation, and Lumen is a huge corporation.’ And, you know, so, I always felt like, yeah, this is actually the perfect show to be on Apple, because there’s something in the esthetic, there’s something in the ideas of what’s going on,” Stiller joked.
“But I’ve never once ever gotten any, you know, like notes or anything from Apple about anything we do … By the way, How is Apple doing? Because sometimes I worry. You guys doing okay?”
“It’s a competitive world,” Cue replied, “but we’re doing all right. We’re like you, trying to try to be our best and create new things that people really love.”
“Okay, okay, good. Because sometimes when we, you know, we go over budget a little, they’ll say to me, like, ‘Come on, guys’ and then I start to worry for you guys.”
“I appreciate that,” said Cue.
“You guys are in the black?” Stiller pressed.
Cue responded, “If you keep doing this as well as you’re doing, I think we’re gonna be okay.”
Severance, created by Dan Erikson, also stars Britt Lower, John Turturro, Zach Cherry, Tramell Tillmann, Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette and Dichen Lachman.