S1EP7: Defiant Jazz (with Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard)

Summary

Episode Summary: S1EP7 – "Defiant Jazz"

The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott dives deep into Season 1, Episode 7, titled "Defiant Jazz." Featuring special guests Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard—both avid superfans of the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning series—the episode offers an insightful, behind-the-scenes exploration of the show's intricate narrative, character development, and directorial choices.

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1. Introduction and Guest Welcome (00:46 – 01:54)

Ben Stiller and Adam Scott warmly welcome listeners to the seventh episode, emphasizing their admiration for their guests, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard. They humorously acknowledge the challenges of memory retention during podcast appearances, with Kristen noting, “One of the highlights of our last seven years was talking to you sincerely” (02:13).

2. Exploring Memory and Podcasting (02:00 – 05:06)

The conversation kicks off with a light-hearted discussion about memory lapses during podcasts. Adam shares his frustration with forgetting details, while Dax humorously admits, “I have to see it written down like in a yearbook” (04:11). Kristen highlights her knack for remembering details like dogs' names, enhancing social connections on set.

3. Impact and Reception of Severance (05:06 – 07:44)

Kristen Bell praises the show’s tone and discipline, stating, “The amount of discipline on display in the show is so impressive” (08:28). Dax complements the unique aesthetic, noting, “to use... does it still have it feel a little unique? Like it could only exist there.” The guests discuss their fascination with the show's ability to maintain suspense and audience engagement without traditional feedback mechanisms.

4. In-Depth Episode Analysis: "Defiant Jazz" (07:44 – 32:50)

a. Directing and Writing Excellence

Kristen lauds the show's singular voice and consistent tone, mentioning, “When you really think about it, they're not like putting in doors overnight, but they're pulling off the covers” (22:07). Ben commends the writing quality, comparing Dan Erickson’s brilliance to that of someone who has “cracked a trilogy or something” (14:02).

b. Character Development and Performances

The episode delves into character arcs, particularly focusing on Mark's emotional turmoil upon learning about his family's severed memories. Kristen reflects on the philosophical questions raised by the show: “we wouldn't ever relegate someone else to eight hours in a room with no memory” (29:36). Dax and Kristen discuss Irving's unexpected depth, highlighting his struggle between his work persona and underlying emotions.

c. Key Scenes Breakdown

• Milchick’s Dancing Sequence: Dax and Kristen express admiration for Zach Cherry’s portrayal of Milchick, especially his spontaneous dance moves that add layers to his character. Kristen remarks, “He has some showbiz in his background. He's got some Broadway or something” (35:02).

• Mark’s Emotional Breakdown: Ben and Adam dissect the intense scene where Mark, under the influence, tears up a picture of his deceased wife. Kristen emphasizes the raw emotion conveyed: “You have to imagine being drunk and actually accessing the thing you did last night” (64:00). Ben highlights the meticulous directing choices to ensure the scene's believability, noting the use of Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” to underscore Mark’s sorrow (66:12).

5. Themes and Philosophical Insights (32:50 – 47:19)

The discussion moves to overarching themes of identity and memory. Kristen Bell muses, “The show's about identity. It’s like all these things we think are intrinsic to us, but really how much of us is this memory we have of the things we've done” (46:24). Ben agrees, adding, “There are so many metaphors or analogies that you could think of for what Severance is in terms of how people deaden pain” (30:28).

6. Behind-the-Scenes Anecdotes (47:19 – 62:25)

Kristen and Dax share amusing stories from the set, including Patricia Arquette’s memorable performance as Cobell. Kristen praises Patricia’s versatility, saying, “I was gonna call that exact thing out. That would normally be a scene that you got eight episodes to work up to as a character” (32:34). They also discuss the practicalities of shooting intense scenes, such as maintaining continuity and the challenges of improvisation.

7. Fan Interactions and Voice Memos (62:25 – 76:15)

The podcast features humorous and candid voice memos from Kristen and Dax, where they express their frustrations and excitement about upcoming episodes. Kristen’s voicemail, mocked hilariously by the hosts, adds a light-hearted touch: “We sent all these voice memos to Adam and Naomi at night when we're pissed” (07:20). These interactions highlight the camaraderie among the podcast hosts and their guests.

8. Concluding Remarks and Final Thoughts (76:15 – End)

As the episode wraps up, Ben and Adam express their gratitude towards Kristen and Dax for their enthusiastic participation. They reiterate their excitement for Season 2, teasing upcoming discussions: “Next up is episode eight. What's for dinner” (76:36). The hosts encourage listeners to continue watching Severance on Apple TV+ and engage with future podcast episodes for more in-depth analyses.

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Notable Quotes

• Kristen Bell on Directing Tone:
  “The tone is so bulletproof, it's almost impossible... the aesthetic is so wonderfully bright, boring and brilliant and subtle and somehow unique.” [08:28]

• Dax Shepard on Character Memory:
  “I do not forget a dog under any circumstance.” [04:55]

• Adam Scott on Mark’s Emotional Shift:
  “He receives that love for... and everything changes.” [46:07]

• Ben Stiller on Acting and Directing:
  “I’m gonna love that because it’s so specific and triggers everybody else in the scene to have their own version of what they would do.” [35:02]

• Kristen Bell on Identity and Memory:
  “We wouldn’t ever relegate someone else to eight hours in a room with no memory.” [29:36]

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Insights and Conclusions

"Defiant Jazz" serves as a pivotal episode that deepens the narrative complexity of Severance. Through rich discussions, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard emphasize the show's exploration of identity, memory, and the human psyche. They highlight the meticulous craftsmanship behind the scenes, from directing choices to character development, underscoring how these elements cohesively build the show's suspenseful and thought-provoking atmosphere.

The podcast episode not only dissects specific scenes but also delves into the philosophical underpinnings that make Severance resonate with its audience. By analyzing character motivations and directorial decisions, Ben Stiller and Adam Scott, alongside their guests, provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of what makes "Defiant Jazz" a standout installment in the series.

Overall, this episode of The Severance Podcast offers both fans and newcomers an engaging and informative breakdown, enhancing appreciation for the show's depth and the collaborative effort behind its creation.

Transcript

[Ben Stiller]

This episode of the Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott is brought to you by Confluence by Atlassian, the connected workspace where teams can create, organize and deliver work like never before. Set knowledge free with Confluence.

[Dax Shepard]

What is Dax, are you tracking all.

[Kristen Bell]

Our cars on Carvana Value Tracker on all our devices? Yes, Kristen. Yes, I am.

[Dax Shepard]

While I've been looking for my phone.

[Kristen Bell]

For In Dax's domain, we see all. So we always know what our cars are worth.

[Dax Shepard]

All of them?

[Kristen Bell]

All of them. Value surge trucks up 3.9%.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a great offer.

[Kristen Bell]

I know. Sell.

[Dax Shepard]

Sell.

[Kristen Bell]

Track your car's value with Carvana Value Tracker today.

[Ben Stiller]

I'm Ben Stiller.

[Adam Scott]

I'm Adam Scott, and this is the.

[Ben Stiller]

Severance Podcast with Ben and Adam, where we break down every single episode of Severance.

[Adam Scott]

Today, we're recapping season one, episode seven, Def Giant Jazz, written by Helen Lee and directed by Ben Stiller.

[Ben Stiller]

Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Adam Scott]

Applause, applause. The one and only Ben Stiller.

[Ben Stiller]

By the way, every time I say we break down every single episode of Separate, there's only nine episodes that people have seen, right? And I just want to acknowledge that.

[Kristen Bell]

Okay, on this show, we mount the insurmountable.

[Adam Scott]

That's right, exactly. We climb the mountain of all episodes. Okay, we have two very, very special guests here to talk through episode seven with us. They're not technically involved in the making of Severance, but if you believe, like we do, that the fans of Severance are spiritually involved in the making of Severance, there could not be two more appropriate guests for this show than Severance superfans Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell.

[Kristen Bell]

Oh, thank you. Yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

Well, thanks for having us.

[Dax Shepard]

Thank you so much.

[Adam Scott]

Thank you.

[Kristen Bell]

This is as close as we're ever gonna get to being on the show.

[Dax Shepard]

So we're very excited.

[Adam Scott]

You don't know that.

[Ben Stiller]

You don't know that. And also, by the way, you guys are both expert podcasters in addition to being incredibly talented actors, too.

[Kristen Bell]

Thank you.

[Ben Stiller]

And so I'm a little bit like, I wanna learn from you just by being in your presence.

[Kristen Bell]

Okay, well, that's flattering. I gotta say. One of the highlights of our last seven years was talking to you sincerely.

[Ben Stiller]

Really?

[Kristen Bell]

Well, both of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

I have this thing. I'm curious for both of you. When you do podcasts, maybe this is just something in my brain, but I will do a podcast and talk and have a great time as a guest and then not remember anything that I said. The whole, like, I'll Remember, like, bits and pieces. Do you remember every. You've done so many of these. You both have done. Do you remember everything?

[Kristen Bell]

I largely do. And I'll say you are in the minority. Cause most often guests leave and they replay everything they said and then they text me. And Adam's sitting right here and he just did it a week ago, right?

[Ben Stiller]

Oh, Detroit. Yeah, I do that too. I do that replay to my head. But luckily, since my memory is so bad, I can't remember the embarrassing things I said. And I just say, okay, it's gonna be out there in the world.

[Adam Scott]

Well, I also find that these podcasts are so sometimes like a 90 minute, two hour conversation. So you say so much and then people out in the world say stuff to me like, oh, that's so cool that you used to go to the Del Mar Theater in Santa Cruz. I'm like, when would I have ever told anyone about how long would I.

[Kristen Bell]

Have been interviewed before I got to that detail?

[Adam Scott]

There's just so much that you end up saying.

[Dax Shepard]

But Dax is a steel trap. I mean, I've done far, far. I've dipped my toe in podcasting and done his a couple times, but he's certainly the absolute expert. But he's the same way podcasting as he is at home, which is like, will, I don't remember any name of any person I went to school with. It just doesn't. I have to see it written down like in a yearbook or something. I mean, other than my handful of friends. And Dax will be able to still explain, you know, how the speed of sound works from his intro college class. Or like he does not let go of any information.

[Kristen Bell]

I'm so glad I came. I do wanna say Kristen's memory's a little more charming than that, if I can say, because we will be meeting someone and this is an actual example. She remembers everyone's dog's name.

[Ben Stiller]

I'm a child, not them.

[Kristen Bell]

So titans of industry. She'll go, oh, I know that person has a dog. They have no clue what they're the chairman of, but knows their dog.

[Adam Scott]

That is a charming memory. It is, exactly.

[Ben Stiller]

It is.

[Dax Shepard]

Until you're living in it and you're at some event where you need to remember someone who could give you a job. But I do genuinely wake up, like Groundhog's Day every morning, which is kind of nice for my mental health. Cause I'm like, well, nothing's wrong. But then I find out throughout the day what's wrong in the world, what's wrong in my Life. But I do not forget a dog under any circumstance.

[Ben Stiller]

People love their dogs. And to remember somebody's dog, actually, that's something that you connect with on some. You know, I think people appreciate that, I'm sure, more than even remembering their actual name, if you remember the dog's name.

[Kristen Bell]

But conversely, if you don't own a dog, Kristen will never remember you. So there's also the flip side of that coin.

[Ben Stiller]

The other side. Yeah.

[Kristen Bell]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And the other. Great. Here's the great thing about Dax. I remember dogs. Dax will absolutely mangle everyone's names. He cannot tell the difference between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Not on screen or in person. And there's always.

[Adam Scott]

That would be so confusing for you.

[Dax Shepard]

It's always a hybrid of two people and. But I speak deck, so I can usually.

[Kristen Bell]

Alan and Glenn. Do not believe you for one second when you say that.

[Adam Scott]

Do you guys ever find yourselves being in entertainment? You see someone, like, across the party and you know you're gonna run into them and you Google them to remember their wife's name or husband's name?

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah.

[Adam Scott]

Yep.

[Ben Stiller]

Every single non stop.

[Adam Scott]

Okay, great. I'm not alone.

[Kristen Bell]

I wanna steal. Seth Meyers has a really funny story about this where he was on a vacation in Israel and then he got invited to meet the. I don't. The prime minister or the second in command. And so he googled this person to find out and thought, oh, yeah, we should meet them. And then took this kind of awkward meeting, then asked where the bathroom was. And as he was told, he walked by the guy's desk and he could see up on his computer was the Wikipedia for Seth Meyers.

[Adam Scott]

Wow.

[Kristen Bell]

So it was like both of them. I think so many of us are just having meetings with people. We shouldn't be having meetings. If you have to Google the person, why is anyone even meeting?

[Ben Stiller]

That's what Wikipedia was created for, for people having meetings with each other. Can I just say, also, I know you guys are friends and we don't really know each other, but it was so cool to hear that you guys are fans of the show because it's always fun and exciting to hear people who you know and are fans of are fans of something you work on. And I just think that's so great and so cool and it was just exciting to know that you guys were watching the show.

[Dax Shepard]

We do more than watch the show. This show has been disruptive to our lifestyle. We've lost many a night's sleep over.

[Kristen Bell]

These cliffhangers, which we then assault Adam With. We send all these voice memos to Adam and Naomi at night when we're pissed. And we're like, God, I hope he plays them for Ben. We want Ben to know, too, so it's mutual.

[Adam Scott]

Well, I covet those voice memos. And we have them. And maybe we'll just play them all at the end of the episode.

[Ben Stiller]

We should definitely play them.

[Dax Shepard]

Absolutely should.

[Kristen Bell]

They're very hostile. Yeah, they're a side of America's sweethearts you don't really wanna see.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah, it's really. It will take you aback. So what about the show kind of landed with you guys? Let's just start there.

[Kristen Bell]

There's so many things to be proud of. It's a really, really huge accomplishment. And I'm not being hyperbolic. The tone is so fucking bulletproof, it's almost impossible. And I think if we could really geek out. When you're evaluating how much you like a director, I think the key ingredient is, like, do they have a singular voice they can inject into the funny scene? And the sad scene, is it unified? Is it unwavering? Does it create rules? It never breaks. The amount of discipline on display in the show is so impressive. The aesthetic is so wonderfully bright, boring and brilliant and subtle and.

[Dax Shepard]

And somehow unique. Like, to be able to strip something down so much and use. You know, there's four pieces of furniture you see throughout the show, but does it still have it feel a little unique? Like it could only exist there?

[Kristen Bell]

And then the cast is so wonderful. Cause there's people we know and there's people we don't know. And everyone is equally brilliant. So you want to see the ugliest side of Kristin and I. It is in bed watching tv, which we do all the time because we've been doing it for 25 years, so we'll notice. Why are they shooting this scene from a bird's eye view? This is not just two people talking on a couch. This is an actual example. We're watching a show and they're shooting it from high and behind. And then they go to the coverage.

[Dax Shepard]

Friend. The coverage.

[Kristen Bell]

They go to French's that are, like, on the ceiling looking at the floor. And finally, we play this game where we're on a set. So I have my walkie talkie on my.

[Dax Shepard]

And I have mine. And what we're doing for the listeners. Sarah, can you go to two on two?

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah, I'm with the director. He wants to know if we're gonna be able to look up at any point.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Kristen Bell]

Where is the ceiling?

[Dax Shepard]

No, why? So we went to lunch, remember? And we're back, and we lost the ceiling.

[Kristen Bell]

You lost the ceiling somehow at lunch?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, it was there before lunch. And then we're back, and it's.

[Kristen Bell]

So we're locked into shooting the floor.

[Dax Shepard]

For the rest of the day, unfortunately. Yes.

[Kristen Bell]

Okay. I'm trying to tell him that. You can go back to four.

[Dax Shepard]

Thank you.

[Ben Stiller]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Going to two is the most fun part of our relationship.

[Kristen Bell]

If it weren't for going to two, we would be.

[Dax Shepard]

We'd probably be divorced.

[Ben Stiller]

Can I just throw in a couple of little reference points for audiences who are not in show business? Frenches are French overs right over the shoulder. Shots that are behind the actors. Going to two is the two on the radio, the other channel, for, like.

[Dax Shepard]

When you need to say something other than main information.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah. You're surrounded on a set with PAs that have earpieces in and microphones on their collar of their shirt. You'll be mid conversation with them. You think they're listening to you, and they immediately just go, yes, going to two. And you realize they weren't listening to you. And then someone from wardrobe that has a question about maybe an actor's wearing their personal hat in a scene. That's another thing we'll do. We're watching. And some piece of wardrobe looks that has to be a personal item. So we'll go. Gary, go to four. Yeah. Is that a personal hat we're seeing? Cause we haven't cleared. There's a logo on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I tried this morning, but Derek. Or is it Derek or Daryl?

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah, the day player.

[Dax Shepard]

The day player. And he said he couldn't take it off. There was something about it. And because what we shot yesterday, we're.

[Kristen Bell]

Gonna be in grace if we'll shoot the fuck.

[Adam Scott]

Okay, you know what? One of my pet peeves is with wardrobe, where if it's abundantly clear that the wardrobe is brand new, that you still see the fold creases, it was just taken off the rack on the actor in front of the camera.

[Dax Shepard]

But that's a great bit to go to two with because you asked Janice from wardrobe why the steamer wasn't available. And you talk about how the trucks weren't allowed to be parked on the street, get here early.

[Ben Stiller]

The Jenny's down.

[Dax Shepard]

The Jenny?

[Kristen Bell]

Well, how long is the Jenny gonna be down? We gotta steam this shirt.

[Dax Shepard]

What about the backup Jenny?

[Adam Scott]

Okay.

[Kristen Bell]

All that to say that was way too long of a preamble. But there's no going to 2 on severance, which is almost impossible. We even do it, you guys, on the holy of all holies, Game of Thrones. But this is more selfish. We're watching it and you'll see this huge wide and there's 65 people on it, and there's a couple of the main stars and they're buried deep in the background. And we see a scene like that, we're like, oh, fuck. They had to be there for six. The whole time in the background.

[Ben Stiller]

In Ireland or wherever.

[Dax Shepard]

They were freezing from being on set. If the camera can see you, you have to be there for the entirety of the scene. If that scene's gonna take a week to shoot, you have to push your body behind someone in the background and be like, well, I just. No, but I was here. I was here.

[Ben Stiller]

That's one of the first lessons of show business. If you can see the camera, the camera can see you.

[Adam Scott]

That' so find a spot where the camera cannot.

[Ben Stiller]

Where you get to go home at some point.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah. Most great actors want to talk about their character. I'm constantly like, don't you think my character would have run out right before action to grab something? Because this seems like a scene we're going to shoot for three days.

[Ben Stiller]

I feel like I'm very. As a director, I'm very sensitive to that. When I hear an actor go that route, like, I can tell right off.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, you would not like working with us.

[Kristen Bell]

No, you would hate it. We're not.

[Dax Shepard]

We like to be home for dinner.

[Ben Stiller]

In the beginning of your career, you wanna be in the scene more. And then as time goes by, you're.

[Adam Scott]

Like, is there anything else I could be doing? Or is there anything you going up to directors asking for direction. Is there anything you need me to do?

[Ben Stiller]

Right, well.

[Kristen Bell]

And I don't think he'd mind me telling this story. In fact, I know he wouldn't. But I directed Tom Arnold in a movie, and we were between takes and he was clearly so miserable. And I said to him, how long have you hated acting? And he goes, for a long time, buddy.

[Adam Scott]

Like what?

[Kristen Bell]

The craz paradox with actors is all they want is to get jobs, and then once they have them, they do not want to be doing the job.

[Ben Stiller]

I've had that experience too, where that actor just wants to. Wants to get it done and get out of there.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

Adam Scott.

[Adam Scott]

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, that's me. God, I wish.

[Kristen Bell]

But anyways, the acting's phenomenal. The writing is so next level. It blows my mind that Dan only had a single writing credit on Lip Sync Battle. That's so impressive. Truly. You think you're like, you're dealing with someone who's cracked, you know, a trilogy or something. It's really impressive.

[Dax Shepard]

And you're doing so much with so little because it's not like a chatty bantery show. Like, there's often just stretches of silence. And I'm still riveted. I don't like. You know, you can always judge something good about whether or not you think you have to pee during it or you look at your phone. And we just do not. We are riveted when they're walking through endless white hallways because the tension and the tone that's built and every single character is watchable. Cause there are a lot of shows we watch where you'll go to a character and they're just not as interesting, but you've developed everyone in such a way that it's just. It's a ball to watch.

[Ben Stiller]

Well, that's. That's nice to hear. I mean, you know, it's. When you're working on something, when you're in it, you just have no perspective. Right. When you're working on it, other than you're just trying to do it. And we did, you know, we did work in a bubble for so long in the first season. The whole thing. I think this whole thing in streaming now of that you do the whole thing without any feedback can be like, good and bad. You know what I mean? Right. Cause you're just doing. We completed the whole thing, the whole season. And I remember thinking by the end of it, like, okay, this is like, we did this. Oh, my God. Is this like any. Is anybody gonna like it? Is anybody gonna watch it? It could just be awful, too.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

You just don't know.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah.

[Adam Scott]

Sometimes when I watch a show, like the very first season of a show and that turns out to be a big hit like Friends or West Wing, I try to pinpoint. And it's usually like four or five episodes in the moment when they started airing and were a huge hit. And you can kind of try to pinpoint the confidence and the kind of swagger of the actors.

[Kristen Bell]

The shift.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. When they're just like, we're gonna be here for a while. And I don't know if it's actually there or not, but I'm always thinking of that because. And on Parks and Rec, it was like this too. Where you shoot an episode and it's like, what, five weeks and then it airs. It's just wild. It's so wildly different than kind of the modern streaming Process.

[Ben Stiller]

What does that feel like? Cause I've never really had it, because anything I've ever done on television has been like this, or if I'm not in it, directing it or was canceled and never went that far. So never had that feeling of being on something that's a hit, that's successful. And you're doing it in real time, right?

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. Ben Stiller show. Did you guys make the entire thing and then just.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, we made the entire 13 episodes, and they aired 12 of them, and that was it. The whole thing was done within, like, eight months.

[Dax Shepard]

They shelved the finale.

[Ben Stiller]

It wasn't even a finale. I know. It was an amalgam of sketches.

[Kristen Bell]

I could bore you by going through every one of my favorite sketches from that. It's such a great show. But I have a really arrogant question to ask you, Ben. I've done some kind of armchair analysis of your recent work, and this is. Again, this runs the risk of offending you, but I told Adam this. I feel like with Tropic Thunder, you were like, let me show you I can make a fucking humongous movie. Like, let me show you. I can have the action and the explosions and that. These comedies can also have this layer. And let me demonstrate. I have that skill set. That was accomplished. And I feel like Dannemora, which, by the way, apologies, we just watched for the first time last month, and we fucking loved it. But to me, Dannemora's like, now let me show you I can do a very gritty drama. And that was accomplished, I think, with flying colors. I feel like severance again. I have no business having this opinion. I feel like you've proven you can do everything, and now there's this confidence to. When it wants to be funny, it can be funny. When it wants to be dark, it can be dark. It's just. It feels like everything's been proven. And there's a confidence to this where I feel like the funny side of you gets to come out and all the other sides. It feels really just even in that way.

[Ben Stiller]

Thank you for even taking the time to watch that stuff. And I really. And honestly, I appreciate that. I think it's sort of what you're talking about is basically severance allows this, you know, this tone, and this story allows for that in a great way. And maybe there is. Look, honestly, I think we've all been working for a long time, right? After a while, there's a certain amount of like, okay, here we are in life. Life's going by. We're getting older. You know, fuck it, right? I just want to do stuff that I really enjoy, and that makes that I want to see. And, yeah, I care about how it's going to be received, but at the end of the day, I just want to, you know, express myself and go for it a little bit. If I have the opportunity to do in a way that is not worrying about. Like I was just saying before we made it in this bubble, at the very end, I thought for a second, oh, wait, I hope this is good. I hope people. But, like, we had a great time making it within the bubble of doing it. So I think it's just that what Dan created allowed. It was a confluence of events, of allowing for a tone that could sort of have all those things in it. And I personally think with, you know, when something's in one genre, it's very constricting, Right. Because you're not allowed to do certain things. And what's great about having humor or comedy in something like this is people aren't tuning in, expecting to laugh. So you don't have the pressure, as we all know, in comedy, that's a lot of, like, to be funny. Because people, even Tropic Thunder people, that was a comedy. And I remember having a first screening and thinking, okay, I think we made this really cool kind of like, action. Yeah. You know, kind of thing that has, you know, some satire and all that, but it's like a thing. And people were just like. The first audiences were like, well, they said it's a comedy where the. Like, they wanted the laughs to be there. You know, that's the first thing that they're looking for in the format.

[Kristen Bell]

They were superstitious.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah. But it's just sort of in the framework even. Not if it's like maybe how it's marketed or how people put it out there, Right. This is a comedy or. So there's something that's very freeing about having a genre that is not as defined. Cause then you can just have it be whatever and allow people to find what they find in it. And that's been great to work on. And I think that starts with what Dan wrote in his pilot, which got me so excited. And then we kind of went from there on it.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah. Cause the stupid moment. I think it's in seven with the doors have been installed and our man is. What's our man's name?

[Ben Stiller]

Milchick.

[Adam Scott]

Milchick.

[Kristen Bell]

Milchick. Milchick's checking them, right. But boy, he's checking the fuck out of them. And those doors are Clanging. I mean, the speed is impossible. And I'm imagining being at Video Village. It's not lost on you that this is hysterical and what's going on and why are we gonna see it closed so many times?

[Adam Scott]

Well, those doors were effects, right?

[Ben Stiller]

No, well, they were real, but we sped them up. But it's so funny cause I was literally watching this last night 7 preparing for this with Christine and she's like, boy, he's really checking those doors.

[Kristen Bell]

Yes, yes. And I'm like, you know, behind the monitors. This is funny.

[Ben Stiller]

I mean, it was just something.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

And that's stuff like, again, like there's no, you know, there's no kind of test screening or anything like that. So there's just like a freedom to go like, oh, this seems funny or like interesting or whatever. And you just kind of go with it and try to go with your instincts.

[Kristen Bell]

You know, it's the moment like the dad is using a tie down strap on something. He's packed some luggage and he gives it like 25 pulls before he goes. Yeah, that ain't going nowhere. Like, that's what it felt like with.

[Adam Scott]

The doors, like, but it also, it tells you so much about Milchick too. That's what I loved about that little sequence is that this is that guy. And we get these further dimensions of Tramiel's character.

[Ben Stiller]

There's also an interesting little part of the story there, which is that what those guys are doing is they're pulling away the, you know, the sort of like, you know, border around the entrance to reveal these doors. They weren't installing those doors. Those doors were there before. So that's, you know, I mean, when you really think about it, they're not like putting in doors overnight, but they're pulling off the covers that. So that's just an interesting layer of like, whoa, I wonder what those doors were doing before.

[Kristen Bell]

Oh, I didn't catch that.

[Adam Scott]

Okay, let's pause here and take a quick break and when we come back, we'll get into episode seven. At Lumen, things are not always what they seem. Mark, Dylan, Helly and Irving in MDR make a great team. But what else lies beyond the four white walls of their department? There seem to be more questions than answers as the secrets of Lumen are slowly revealed.

[Ben Stiller]

There's definitely a lot more going on than you see. It's a little bit creepy.

[Adam Scott]

I agree. There are more Q's than A's in this place.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, for sure.

[Adam Scott]

But luckily your workplace doesn't have to be so dysfunctional. Thanks to Confluence by Atlassian.

[Ben Stiller]

I feel like something like Confluence could really help those severed workers. You know, they're kind of always organizing and trying to come up with group ideas and things that need organization and back and forth and a lot of creative interaction in the workspace.

[Adam Scott]

Confluence is the connected workspace where teams can collaborate and create like never before. Where teams have easy access to the relevant pages and resources their projects call for while discovering important context they didn't even know they needed. A space where AI streamlines the things that normally eat up their time, letting teams generate, organize and deliver work faster. In fact, with Confluence, teams can see a 5.2% average boost in productivity in one year.

[Ben Stiller]

I think any boost in productivity, especially with a group like the Severed group, imagine how many more files they could.

[Adam Scott]

Complete if they had Confluence Set knowledge free with Confluence. Learn [e-mail] confluence that's a T L A S S I A N C O N F L U E N C E.

[Kristen Bell]

I'm Anna Garcia with True Crime News the podcast Every crime tells a story. Every story demands justice. True Crime News the podcast covers breaking.

[Adam Scott]

Crimes, investigating high profile and under the radar cases.

[Kristen Bell]

Every week we dive beyond the headlines, exploring the effects of of violent crimes on victims and search for justice. We hope you join us as your weekly source for true crime news. Listen to and follow True Crime the podcast on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Adam Scott]

Okay, so the first scene is between Mark and who we know as Ragabi, played by Karen Aldridge, the great Karen Aldridge. So there at the college campus, Is it the college campus and the shop?

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, they're at Gans, which is where.

[Adam Scott]

You used to teach. Oh, you're at Ganz.

[Ben Stiller]

Mark used to teach there. And she basically leads you to this sort of like secret little lab that she set up down in the sort of the bowels beneath. This is really weird. This was during the pandemic we shot at Pfizer Pharmaceutical in New Jersey while they were developing the vaccine.

[Adam Scott]

Right.

[Kristen Bell]

Did you try to get an early dose from anyone?

[Adam Scott]

We just started jabbing ourselves with any.

[Dax Shepard]

Hyperdemic needles we could find breathing deep in every hallway.

[Adam Scott]

That's right, that's right.

[Ben Stiller]

It was really weird. And then also they had shot other stuff there and I actually on the floor I found like an old little mini sides from the show manifest and I got really upset that manifest had shot where we were.

[Adam Scott]

Ben does not like to hear that any other show or movie has shot at any location we're at.

[Kristen Bell]

I get It. And they love to start telling you when you're there, and you're like, no, I hate it.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

And whenever we go on a location scout with like my group, like the person who's. When they start saying, oh, yeah, and we had this shoot there and that everybody looks at me because they know that that person has just basically made this place a place that we don't want to shoot.

[Adam Scott]

But the building in Jersey, the old Bell Labs building that is Lumen, was never on film until.

[Ben Stiller]

That's the crazy thing. That's the crazy thing.

[Kristen Bell]

What a jewel. I mean, there's a few things. You guys have a few assets that you gotta wonder what the show is without them. And that's one of them.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah, completely.

[Kristen Bell]

It really grounds the. Just that wide of that bill. It's like the Pentagon. The wide of that buys you so much into your belief of what Lumen is as like a monolith.

[Ben Stiller]

It was actually the first location that we found and that was really informed a lot of the design of the inside because it still had all of that mid century architecture on the inside of it. And. Yeah. So then she takes you down there.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. And then she's kind of talking to me and Doug Graynor shows up and the shit hits the fan and he's talking to me, and she comes up behind him and hits him over the head with a baseball bat. So this was really brutal, really brutal piece of violence. And kind of the first one of the show, right?

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah.

[Adam Scott]

How did you approach that?

[Ben Stiller]

I mean, we knew that we didn't want to ever have the show go into, like, people with guns and cloak and daggery kind of stuff. And that was something we were really sensitive to. So we were trying to figure out some way that she could take him out that would feel messy and kind of shocking. And so that's where the baseball bat came up. And yeah, it was weird because we had never had anything like that happen on the show before. And it just felt like, okay, how do we do this and make it feel believable? But, you know, you just do it like a scene like that. Right? You just do it like what would really happen?

[Kristen Bell]

All I was thinking, I got really distracted by thinking of blocking the scene when you guys first showed up. Like, how's it gonna be a reveal? We saw her on the left side of this set. It's not a set. It's a practical location. But now there's this exchange. How are we gonna get her behind him? And the notion that this practical location, you Were at had a way for her to walk around that loop. Around.

[Ben Stiller]

That's amazing. You guys are so observant.

[Adam Scott]

I know.

[Ben Stiller]

I'm not kidding. That's crazy.

[Adam Scott]

I don't remember if she actually did or if that was.

[Dax Shepard]

She came from behind him.

[Kristen Bell]

It looked practical and it seemed to be a oner.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, you're right, it wasn't actually. And we wanted to believe that there was a way to get back there. But when we got to that location we saw, oh, there's this interesting kind of thematic thing where there's like a hallway on one side and then there's the room on the other. And Mark's point of view could be looking at this sort of almost severed image. Right. And then, you know, the surprise of her coming up behind him. And we tried to make sure that the way we cut it was that, you know, we don't see her for long enough that you could believe that she came around behind him.

[Dax Shepard]

And she did mention that she severed him as well. I think that's an important detail because she says she reintegrated pd but she also mentions in that scene that she was the one who severed him. Which just gives you a lot more intel on how high up she was and why you kind of go like, oh, she must have a reason to use this baseball bat.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. And she knows a lot about Mark and the procedure. And it's kind of the first time you can tell the way she's kind of poking and prodding Mark that he hasn't really given much thought to his innie. He hasn't really considered this person very much. And she's kind of poking him, saying what about, you know, this is a person down there?

[Kristen Bell]

Well, that's the fun philosophical question, I think. Well, there's many. But the one that I am most intrigued about by the show is this notion that we wouldn't ever relegate someone else to eight hours in a room with no memory. But I would do it to myself because I don't pity myself. I don't have any empathy for myself. I'm a piece of shit and I deserve to suffer and I'm gonna suffer at work anyway. So it's just interesting. I think it begs this question of like, we are meaner to ourselves than we'd be to other people in a way.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah. And do things to ourselves. Right. More self destructive things or things that are, you know, that, you know, cutting off. I mean, there's so many, I think, you know, metaphors or analogies that you could think Of. For what severance is in terms of how people deaden pain or just want to avoid pain.

[Kristen Bell]

And it's just I imagine myself someone saying, you're like. You're being really mean to Dax some eight hours of the day. I go, who gives a fuck? I kind of deserve someone to be mean to. Like, if you told me I was being mean to a stranger for eight hours a day, it would affect me. But I actually imagine being Adam in that scene, and I don't think I'd really give a shit if a version of me was unhappy.

[Adam Scott]

It's interesting, right?

[Ben Stiller]

And we see how you're sort of equivocating, too, in that scene, and you're sort of like, I'm not a bad person. But it's, you know, I mean, Mark is just morally very complicated, I think the whole first season.

[Adam Scott]

That's right. And the fact that she is the one that actually did the severing is super interesting because it kind of tells us that she's on some sort of redemption path of some sort.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah. Well.

[Dax Shepard]

That she got so much information that she changed her perspective.

[Adam Scott]

That's right.

[Kristen Bell]

It also suggests that the stakes of Lumen are much higher than just someone being severed for eight hours of the day. If she's willing to brain a dude, there must be something hugely nefarious happening beyond just the severing of people.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah. Yeah. And I thought Karen, she's such a good, interesting actress. And Michael Kumsey plays Graner. Just the way they played that scene. I thought he was so creepy in that scene. Cause he's so smiling and kind of nice. And the way he talks to your Audi, it's just so creepy.

[Kristen Bell]

And so he has a very 80s video drone. Scanners. There's something.

[Adam Scott]

He would fit right in with those movies, for sure.

[Kristen Bell]

The Cronin.

[Adam Scott]

And he's the sweetest, gentlest guy, too. It's so wild.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah. And he's just, as we said this before, he has such a great face and understands how to use it and just knows how much power he has and just being still.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. And Karen Aldridge is, like, you said, fantastic.

[Ben Stiller]

And also, that was Karen's. You know, as you guys know, too, like, people come in for a day on a show, right? And they. You don't have any rhythm, anything, you know, making you comfortable. It's just like you come in and you gotta do a scene. That was her first day on the show, and she had to do that scene.

[Kristen Bell]

I was gonna call that exact thing out. That would normally be a Scene that you got eight episodes to work up to as a character and she had to rappel in and have her crescendo character moment on day one and not make it too.

[Dax Shepard]

Because again, when you have that challenge of like, oh, I gotta make this something. This is my first scene, you can often overdo it and you become arch or some like, I need to be villainous or something. But she wasn't. She was like serious and driven and you wanted to take her seriously and you wanted to know more. And she kept. She was like very there. But also I felt like, kept a lot to her breast to where I was like, I need this girl on screen again.

[Adam Scott]

I wanna know more totally super specific and different. Cause you're right. You could just do like CBS guest spot, drop in exposition and just be uninteresting. But she really managed to kind of give it a lot of texture.

[Ben Stiller]

It's great.

[Adam Scott]

I love her. I love Karen. She's fantastic.

[Ben Stiller]

Okay, so we come back to MDR and you know, they've got the new doors and everybody's sort of stressed out about that. This is when Milchick shows up because helyar has hit 25% and she's gonna get a music dance experience, which is one of the big perks. What I like about the scene is that it's the weirdness of what's going on, but we're also trying to tell the story within it. And it was a chance for the actors just to. Every actor in that scene is doing such specific stuff. I mean, every single person. I can just go. I'm sure you guys have feelings about it.

[Kristen Bell]

We have a lot. And in fact, there was a behind the scenes debate between Kristen and I that this scene created. And this is where you get lucky or you don't. Right? You didn't. The actor who plays Milchick, you didn't ask him to dance in the original audition. And then you get to set on this day and you realize, oh my God, we have a fucking professional. I could watch him dance for two hours. I said to Kristen, we watched that scene. I go, okay, my man, let me just tell you, his ass is so good. He is the best ass I've ever seen in pants. He moves suspiciously well. Kristen. I'm like, he has some showbiz in his background. He's got some Broadway or something. And we went and did a deep dive on that actor because we watched him dance. And I was like, there's something going on here. This guy's too fucking good and fun to Watch.

[Ben Stiller]

He's trained.

[Dax Shepard]

He's trained.

[Ben Stiller]

He taught his body.

[Adam Scott]

He's incredible. Trammell.

[Ben Stiller]

It's crazy. You're right. He does have a great butt. And he's got a great. I mean, the guy is just so talented. And it was a revelation to me. I knew he was good as an actor, and I knew he moved well within the scenes. But when you. This is episode seven. When we got to this, it was like, okay, let's figure out what we could do here. And we had a choreographer who came, but basically, Tramiel just kind of went off and said, I got some ideas. I have some thoughts. And then they just showed me this dance that he came up with. And, I mean, it just makes me so happy watching it. It's just incredible.

[Kristen Bell]

It's a big gift he gave you, right? It's like you have all these. These tools at your disposal. You know, you got the lights. You know, you can do some inserts of the record player. That's cool. You can go to the list. You have these all these ways you're gonna make this interesting, and this motherfucker shows up and just starts letting loose. And you go, oh, I don't need any of that. I'll have that stuff, but I don't need it. Cause this is now all about this guy dancing.

[Ben Stiller]

It's so weird and specific, and it also, I think, sort of triggered everybody else in the scene to have their own version of what they would do in this situation. It really just brought out the best in everybody, I think, because I love Adam. How Mark is, first of all, so curious and excited about the music dance experience. Like, literally, like a kid, almost like, oh, wow. You know, like, wanting to see the table and what's there and what are the different instruments? And, like, you're like a kid.

[Adam Scott]

Well, it's a huge deal. And we're all in the midst of this whole disillusionment with Lumen and all of this, and kind of putting this, you know, the pieces of this. Well, we haven't started putting the plan together yet, but we're all kind of. It's a little disarray as far as Mark's feelings about Lumen, but still, something like this comes in, and it's like, oh, man, the MDE is about to happen. There's. It's like a celebrity walked in the room or something.

[Kristen Bell]

You have, like, almost the first playful smile you have in the show at work. Why do you decide that's how Mark feels about that?

[Adam Scott]

Well, I think at that point, there had Been just a couple little instances of kind of stimuli that come in from different directions. And just assuming that stimuli is hard to come by down there. This machine rolls in with 45s and musical instruments. And I figured it was something Mark had heard about but hadn't experienced yet, so couldn't wait to get his hands on just the feelings of the mde. One thing I love about the sequences is that it's completely rooted in character because, you know, Milchick is just trying to cover his ass and provide distraction. And we should say it's a. The MDE is a creation of. Of Mark Friedman, one of our writers and co showrunner of season one. And it's a really great path for Miljick as well as. And then it turns into this sort of just show stopping moment in the show. And it's just like Ben said, it really provides this great pathway for all the characters to kind of come out of their shells a little bit, Dylan included.

[Dax Shepard]

But it also highlights the, like, you see so many spirits, specific character traits when you see them have this stimulus. But if you zoom out, it also highlights the monotony and the loneliness and the suffering that. Oh, a cart, an Ikea rolling cart with a record player on it and a maraca is what is gonna get these people to smile.

[Kristen Bell]

It's like a monster truck show. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

It really highlights the suffering that they experience on a daily basis. That you sort of like, you don't lose track of it all, but you sort of. Because you've seen it before. I like that it was highlighted here that like. Yeah, they're just in those white hallways. There is nothing. There are no labels on the soap in the bathroom. There's. Everything is just so barren.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, yeah. And also the other thing I was excited about when we shot it and I remember thinking about as we were going through the season was like, oh, I knew we were gonna do this thing with the lights. We were gonna change the color of the lights. And I remember thinking, oh, I hope people. First of all, I hope people buy that and think that's, you know, it doesn't seem too like kind of over the top or break the reality. But it was so exciting to me to think at some point in seven episodes in, we're gonna see that the lights can change colors and they can do like A Saturday Night Fever in reverse or whatever. Like ceiling.

[Adam Scott]

You saved that. And we didn't know that the lights were gonna change until we were shooting the scene.

[Ben Stiller]

I think I tried to hold it back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I Remember also when we had a test for it, when you guys weren't there with the crew, we did a test, and then we had, like, a little dance party. Cause we were, like, timing it out to the song, and it was really fun. Cause it would get very oppressive on that set because the ceiling is so low. And our set, that's literally like, the MDR room is in the middle of all the hallways. So it's like, you really are, like. It's very claustrophobic after. I know Turturro used to go crazy because he's the tallest. Like, Dax, you would not like it there because it's. It's very low ceiling. I mean, I'm assuming you're tall.

[Kristen Bell]

So that's how you're getting out of inviting me there.

[Ben Stiller]

Okay, so I'll be. That's fine. I'm short.

[Kristen Bell]

We love to have you.

[Dax Shepard]

Doesn't need to be on the show.

[Ben Stiller]

But Turturro's the tallest cast member, and I know he used to get to him.

[Kristen Bell]

That's funny. You'd bring up the lights, because that was gonna be a really nerdy, specific question for you, Ben, which is you want the lights for obvious reasons. It'll make the scene more interesting. And then, though, you've got to play through the logic. So you go, okay, Lumen installed these lights to be multicolored. And then you have to maybe create some reason in your mind where you don't feel like you're jumping the rules. Right. And I just wonder. I can imagine that would be the kind of decision that you'd really mull over a lot more than people might guess.

[Ben Stiller]

Yes. We're constantly thinking about things like that all the time. And to me, it makes total sense in terms of the world of Lumen that they would do this because it's something that they are able to do to as a reward that just as the audience would be surprised, that the people, the employees would be surprised too. And we're always thinking about, what would Lumen do? How would Lumen approach this? But it was really fun. And then I have to say, Adam, your bad white man dance, as he's approaching you, it makes me. I always think of Billy Crystal. There's, like, the white guy.

[Adam Scott]

White man in Mobite.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah. It's just there's, like, first you do one kind of stilted move, and then the second one is you kind of get into it, and you're kind of like, okay, I can do this. And it makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.

[Adam Scott]

I Remember when I started doing that one, stepping into it. Cause we were trying to get to me putting my hands in my pockets to discover the key card. And so I started doing a thing like this. This is great for a podcast, demonstrating the dance moves, but he's putting his.

[Ben Stiller]

Arms up in like sort of a robo robotic motion.

[Adam Scott]

And you loved it so much. You're like, don't forget that. Do that. Like, you loved the walking in place thing, so I was sure not to forget it. Yeah. That was so fun. It was so fun. I mean, it was an entire day, obviously, and it was a blast. Especially watching Trammel dance.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah. It was two days. It was two days and one day we started the dance and then the second day was Dylan's blowup. And you know when Milchick gets behind him and starts sort of like doing this sort of like almost like this devil over his shoulder. It's just crazy. And it was really great to see Zach be able to really own that scene. You know, a guy who's just. He's such a good actor who's never really played scenes like this before because he gets cast a lot as like the funny guy who's a brilliant comedic actor, but he has so much inside of him. And that scene after he's attacked Milchick where he's just got so much of that sort of residual energy. It's so believable and so raw.

[Kristen Bell]

This episode could be called Dylan's episode because we've also just learned he's a dad, which is really not what I was expecting. He's so blue all the time and adolescent in his humor. Yeah. To find out that he has a child that loves him is kind of a mind blowing detail all of a sudden. And then that has awoken in him, this now person who's going to get violent at work.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. And it's interesting because up to this point on the show, there are all these examples of weaponizing different office supplies around the mdr, but this kind of discovery that he's a father turns, you know, it just shifts Dillon so much. There's something primal that shifts in him. And then he ends up biting Milchick, like going for tackling him, obviously, but then he bites him. How was that sort of figured out? How did you guys land on that? Ben?

[Ben Stiller]

It's sort of the social experiment aspect of the whole thing. Like, what if you learn this knowledge that you have a family on the outside, you know, like, it's like, it's just he can't control it. It's just bubbling up inside of him and he's stuck. I think it's like the claustrophobia of being stuck in this place that he can't get out of knowing that he has loved ones. And it's so. It was just like, what can we have him do? And I think it was probably in the script that Mark had that he bit him. The part I always enjoyed, too, is Milchick's sort of. He's very upset and, you know, says the Music Dance Experience is officially canceled.

[Adam Scott]

Oh, my God. I remember him doing that and just thinking, tramiel is a superstar. Just on point. Incredible.

[Kristen Bell]

It's a moment of hopefulness, though, too. Cause when you're watching the show and you're. I mean, that's why it's a great show. You're playing out this fantasy. If this was happening to you the whole time you're watching it, or we are, and you're wondering, what is the thing that can't be severed? Right. That's like the human hopeful thing. You'd like to believe that love for something couldn't be severed. That's the hopeful message that kind of is revealed in a very bizarre way. We want to believe there is a part of me you couldn't ever sever. And I like to think, as a parent, that would be the thing.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Scott]

And now it's not severed anymore because he's immediately in love with this kid.

[Kristen Bell]

Yes.

[Adam Scott]

He receives that love for. And everything changes.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's what's interesting for the actors throughout the show, is that they're always able to be asking those questions about what is coming through, what isn't coming through for every scene. Yeah.

[Kristen Bell]

I mean, the show's about so much, but it's about identity. It's like all these things we think are intrinsic to us, but really how much of us is this memory we have of the things we've done? And we'd like to believe there's some intrinsic quality to us that couldn't be severed. And. I don't know. That's always on the table with the show.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. And there is a moment for each of the four characters in MDR where everything changes once they get a taste of, or a feeling for an experience. Love of some sort. Each one of them, it causes them to have a shift and have a need to get the hell out of that.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah. We get two doses of it. Cause Irving also shows a side of himself we would have never thought was in him. Through love as well.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. Which at first was down there with him. So everything's a okay. And then it's taken away.

[Kristen Bell]

You know what it made me think of? I know we're jumping ahead, but I remember listening to this great New York Times podcast, Rabbit Hole, and it tracked people. Did you hear that?

[Adam Scott]

Yeah.

[Kristen Bell]

It had their YouTube history and it could show where they started and where they ended. And a lot of these people started with pretty benign people they were following. And then there's this trajectory and it involves Jordan Peterson and Sam Harrison. And these people ultimately end up getting very fundamentalist. Well, most of them white nationalists.

[Dax Shepard]

Radicalized.

[Kristen Bell]

That's where it's radicalized. And it leads to there. But they're interviewing one woman about leaving QAnon and they were talking about, for her, when one belief butts up against another belief, that's just a little bit more powerful. So for her it was, she was an atheist. She started in Occupy Wall Street. So QAnon felt right and it felt right until all of a sudden there was biblical scripture being put out by QAnon and her atheism was stronger than the QAnonism and it broke it. And so for Irving, it's like it finally butted up against one thing truer and more powerful than his belief in Kir.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah.

[Adam Scott]

Okay, we are going to to take a quick break and we'll be back to talk about the Melon Party.

[Ben Stiller]

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[Adam Scott]

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[Ben Stiller]

Before Dax, you were talking about how Irving's feelings of love kind of overtake anything else in him. And I think, you know, that's for this moment when he comes to see the O and D retirement party for Bert is when he really, I think, you know, we've been seeing him sort of slowly become more and more affected and getting to this point, but when he sees that Burt is just gonna be basically sent off into the sunset, you know, it really triggers something for him. And in terms of Chris Walken and Turturro, you talked about that relationship being something that really kind of gives you some respite from the, you know, the starkness of the show. I love this scene because it's so much about the pain of. Of a person you wouldn't think was necessarily someone who could fall in love at this point in his life in this environment and an unlikely couple. But really, it's a very human thing.

[Kristen Bell]

No one would ever predict we would hear Irving say, you smug motherfucker. You're like, oh, Irving knows that word. I didn't think he did.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I also believed this relationship more, and I said this to you the first time we watched it, between Irving and Burt, more than I have believed many a relationship I have ever seen on television.

[Kristen Bell]

The only comparable chemistry to theirs is you and Adam Brody's.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah, that's right.

[Kristen Bell]

Two high water marks for chemistry in.

[Adam Scott]

The great Netflix show. Nobody wants this.

[Ben Stiller]

That's right. But the Chris Walk and Turturro relationship is based in their actual relationship in life, in terms of their friendship, and they enjoy working together. And Chris was Turturro's idea to play Burt.

[Kristen Bell]

I was gonna say that the show's so brilliant written, we don't need to applaud it anymore. But I'll say that. I guarantee if you were to just read any of the scenes with them in there. None of what you're feeling is in text. Those scenes aren't particularly mind blowing in what the exchanges are.

[Dax Shepard]

It's what they're doing around the words.

[Adam Scott]

Those guys are unbelievable. And you can just. When you're just around them, even if they're not working in a scene, just them as guys, you can just feel the affection they have for each other.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, well, Irving saying, you smug motherfucker. To me, that's such a. Also classic John Turturro line for some reason, it's just like, I just think, you know, I'm into like, you know, Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing and, you.

[Kristen Bell]

Know, some people can swear at an Olympic level, and he's always been one of them.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, yeah, let's take a look at that scene. You're all just gonna stand here and let him die? Having. What are we being punished for? Defying the guidance of the founder, Burt's Audi is retiring. It'll happen to you too, someday, you smug.

[Adam Scott]

You're not severed.

[Ben Stiller]

You walk out of here with. With your memories. You carry them home with you every night.

[Adam Scott]

No one can rip them away from you.

[Ben Stiller]

Snuff them out like they never existed. Like you never existed. That's enough.

[Kristen Bell]

You will go back to MDR.

[Ben Stiller]

Mr. Milchick, please. It'll be so wonderful to have him here.

[Adam Scott]

Don't say anything more.

[Ben Stiller]

You can stay for Bert's party and support his transition, but only if you behave in a manner that brings no shame upon yourself, the founder, or his progeny. I don't know what's gotten into you people today.

[Kristen Bell]

It's crazy how good it is just the audience.

[Ben Stiller]

But you know what? That made me think, just listening to the audio. And John is a fan of his. There's a little bit of Burt Lancaster in there. I don't know if you've ever seen Sweet Smell of Success, which is one of my favorite movies, but he's just got his cadence a little bit. It's just something in there that reminds me of that.

[Kristen Bell]

Can I just say one thing about the scene prior to that explosion by Irving? We see the video that Burt's Audi has made. Correct. Just before Irving's explosion.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah. This is kind of strange, but a lot of things about this job are. You all know that better than me, I'm guessing. And of course, I don't really know any of you, but the man standing there with you now does. He's worked with you for nearly seven years. And I hope they've been good years. I don't know what they've been like or what exactly I or he has been doing with you. But I do know how I feel every day when I come from being with you. I come home feeling tired, but fulfilled. I feel satisfied.

[Kristen Bell]

I must like you very much.

[Ben Stiller]

And though today is my last day with you, I'm certain you will remain with me in spirit, in some deep yet completely inaccessible corner of my mind.

[Kristen Bell]

And here's another moment where you're just riding this line. There's so much comedy. He's on the verge of saying, I don't know any of you guys one too many times. It's the perfect amount of him pointing out he has no idea who he's talking to. I mean, he's talking to imaginary people.

[Ben Stiller]

I love that you picked that out because it's one of my favorite Chris Walken moments in the show. And for a couple of reasons. One, because it's so fun. His timing is just brilliant in the way he reads that. Yeah. Even though I don't know any of you at all, but it's like, it.

[Kristen Bell]

Keeps vacillating between being really sincere and then pointing out the obvious that I have no fucking clue who I'm talking to.

[Ben Stiller]

And I remember, you know, when we shot that, it was. It was also just one of these experiences I'm sure you've had with actors who you're a fan of and, you know, maybe idolize, look up to, like, Christopher Walken came in the morning, we did that, and he just had that monologue down, first take, boom. Had it. We did it. Like, maybe, like. I don't know, like, maybe four times. But, like, he had it from the first one. And I was just. I literally, like, had this moment where I was like, this is the best thing in the world to have Christopher Walken reading these lines. And he's such a pro at this point in his career. The guy comes in totally prepared and nails it. It was just. I was so happy. I was just like, this is the reason we do this, to have experiences like this.

[Kristen Bell]

He keeps negating himself. I don't know the exact words, but he's like, you've been so nice. And it's been such. Although I don't know any of you.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, he kills it.

[Ben Stiller]

And he.

[Dax Shepard]

Because he says, I have no recollection of actually ever meeting you. No idea of your names or any of your physical characteristics or even how many of you of you there are. Anyway, that Is the cherry on top or even how many of you there are?

[Kristen Bell]

It's useless. But here we are.

[Adam Scott]

But then he says at the very end, he says, and Burt, I see you. Congratulations to himself.

[Ben Stiller]

But he also points to the right the wrong way on the monitor. Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I loved that.

[Adam Scott]

That's great.

[Dax Shepard]

He points to Milichick.

[Kristen Bell]

It's kind of reminiscent of his Watch up the ass scene, in a sense, because it's like this weird mix of sincerity.

[Ben Stiller]

One of the great film monologues. Yeah.

[Adam Scott]

It's also the first time it's kind of introduced in the show that when someone leaves the job for any reason, they're effectively dead. For all intents and purposes, down here, they are dead and buried.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah, it's like the ultimate Munchausen, where it's like they've convinced them to celebrate this, but they won't experience it.

[Adam Scott]

They're gone.

[Ben Stiller]

All right, so let's check in with Cobell Selvig up at the house. And she's been at Devin's house as Mrs. Selvig. In her hand that rocks the cradle mode where she shows up as the lactation consultant, which I just. I just love everything Patricia does in this little sequence. How insane she is.

[Kristen Bell]

And I would be mad at myself if I didn't say in public, we're just coming off of Dannemora. The fucking delta between those two performances is so huge. She is such a queen. God fucking bless Patricia Arquette.

[Dax Shepard]

My God, they're also. One of my favorite moments of the whole show is when she's doing the lactation example, and I do like this. A soft breeze. And then she's doing it so sincerely and seriously. And then this smile comes over her face and she takes the rubber baby and flings it to the side, ostensibly looking like she's broken its neck. No, you try. And there's this huge smile on her face, but she's whipping the baby with such a level of violence.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah, now's a great time to introduce that. In addition to going to two when we watch things. Kristen is an incredible mimic.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, I have.

[Kristen Bell]

Sounds exactly like her. And there's always a character in a show that she latches onto. And so I hear Patricia Arquette's dialogue twice. Every single time she says a line, then Kristen next to me and Beth says it. Yeah, it's a tick.

[Dax Shepard]

It's really your inefficiency in free range chicken. Roaming is ultimately your responsibility. I mean, she. Her.

[Kristen Bell]

She's mine, guys.

[Dax Shepard]

She's her. Oh, Ma. Her. Omar's are. I live for them.

[Ben Stiller]

And when she sees him outside, by the way, the scene between the two of you outside in the snow where you. Where she says, hey, let's have some lavender tea later. And you're like, I'm just gonna see how the tape develops.

[Dax Shepard]

And she says, jack Frost needs a new dandruff shampoo.

[Adam Scott]

Yes, that. I was trying to remember where that joke came from. It's so ridiculous.

[Ben Stiller]

It was either an improv or a pitch in the moment. I think that is either an improv.

[Adam Scott]

I think I remember you coming up with it then.

[Ben Stiller]

And Trisha, maybe she came up with. But she came up with in the episode where she says open or close when you're leaving. And she says, both. Yeah, that was her improv. I mean, she's just brilliant. That's an amazing impression.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah, it's only one of a thousand she can do.

[Ben Stiller]

No, but we go around our house saying, mark, Mark everywhere.

[Adam Scott]

And this story she's telling when we kind of come into this scene with she and Jen is so insane.

[Ben Stiller]

Oh, yeah. When she's talking about aiming her boob like an angry fire hose.

[Dax Shepard]

It's insane. Unless it's happened to you. I found it very on the nose. I've expressed in a public bathroom into the toilet paper. Yeah, but, yes, absolutely. You have to. Well, it's like, you guys, it's a faucet. There's a reality and a practicality to it. It is a faucet. And if you don't let it out, your skin will pop.

[Kristen Bell]

So can I pitch something to everybody to lighten the load on Patty's plate, which has gotta be immense? Let's have Kristin do all of her adr.

[Adam Scott]

That's a good idea.

[Ben Stiller]

I love that.

[Adam Scott]

I'm sure Patricia would love it.

[Dax Shepard]

That's my favorite place. Is that ADR booth?

[Kristen Bell]

Watch.

[Ben Stiller]

I feel like Cobell might have some relatives or something. I don't know.

[Kristen Bell]

Time travel element.

[Dax Shepard]

Watch this.

[Adam Scott]

Oh, that would be great.

[Kristen Bell]

All right.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

And anyway, and then she also has in that scene where she's basically, you know, Devin's telling her about, you know, meeting the state senator. And then Patricia's like, oh, wow. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Wait, what does she say?

[Ben Stiller]

She's so crazy.

[Adam Scott]

Should we play the scene?

[Dax Shepard]

It's a great line.

[Kristen Bell]

Why? We have Kristen right here.

[Adam Scott]

What a snoot.

[Dax Shepard]

That was it. What a snoot.

[Adam Scott]

Wait, can you read. Can you read the Clark Gable?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah. Well, I don't think I'd remember even Clark Gable if I'd just given birth.

[Adam Scott]

So you guys already. That's wild.

[Ben Stiller]

I'm having to hold.

[Kristen Bell]

This is like the dancing. This is like Milchick's dancing. You had no idea this was coming your way, severed.

[Dax Shepard]

Why do you think Mark did it?

[Adam Scott]

Oh, my God. So good.

[Ben Stiller]

So like, the combination of your impression and it's one of my favorite scenes that Patricia. It's just perfect.

[Adam Scott]

And Clark Gable is such a weird. It's such a reference to Jack Frost's.

[Dax Shepard]

Dandruff and Clark Gable, like, who the fuck. Where are we pulling these things? What's your zeitgeist?

[Adam Scott]

It's so weird.

[Kristen Bell]

Jack Frost's diander, though, to me is. This is the first time we've seen her. She's lost. She's losing control.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Kristen Bell]

Like, I don't think she makes the Jack Frost dandruff joke any other time, but she's like. She's losing control for sure.

[Adam Scott]

That is correct.

[Kristen Bell]

That's a desperate joke she's making.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

So, okay, so back at Mark's house, Mark is pretty drunk. And you know, again, I just want to say, Adam, you never have tried to make Audi mark someone that the audience is endeared to. You just play him as a real human being. And I feel like that's so important. I mean that in a good way. The audience cares about you because they see a real person. But Mark is not in a good place here. And. And actually, this is probably one of the toughest scenes, I think, to feel for your character, because when Alexa shows up to get her phone. Right?

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. You're a real being. Gross.

[Ben Stiller]

You're awful to her.

[Dax Shepard]

Very uncomfortable. That scene is very uncomfortable.

[Kristen Bell]

You do drunk really, really well.

[Ben Stiller]

I do.

[Dax Shepard]

It's so hard to do drunk.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah, People get. Sometimes people get real happy when they're feeling the exact opposite, but the drink kind of provides that for them. I remember in acting school there was a teacher that told me to play drunk. All you have to do is pretend you're balancing a bowl of water on your head. And that's not what I do.

[Ben Stiller]

But it's always hard.

[Kristen Bell]

But also it's always harder for me to do, to imagine than being drunk, which I've done 10 million times.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I like that. Practical trip. I was doing it right.

[Kristen Bell]

Now imagine this thing you've never ever done to actually access the thing you did last night.

[Adam Scott]

Exactly.

[Kristen Bell]

It's going to be fucking nuts if I can call out that acne teacher.

[Ben Stiller]

Anyway, so it's really hard to watch, really, because. And you do this awful thing where you pull out a picture of Gemma and you tear it up in front of her. And even in rewatching that, I was taken by. We also put that picture right in front of the audience. And I remember just having to trust that it would be out of focus and people wouldn't be able to see. And then you immediately feel awful about what you did and come back in and start to tape it back together.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. And you chose I'll Be Seeing youg by Billie Holiday for this sequence, for him taping the pieces back together.

[Kristen Bell]

And that's cause you own a piece of that library. Right, Exactly.

[Ben Stiller]

That's how I make all of my musical choices.

[Kristen Bell]

Sure, sure.

[Adam Scott]

It's just whatever's going to bring in the green.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah.

[Adam Scott]

For old Ben.

[Ben Stiller]

My grandfather produced that track. But, yeah, Adam, you just are so good in that scene where you're putting that picture together. I love how the scene looks to Jessica. Lee Gagne, our cinematographer, did a great job. It's just very kind of stark. And when we're making the show, we don't really have anybody to show it to when we're in that bubble of making the show. So the only people I showed it to was my kids and Christine.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

And I remember showing them the rough cut of that episode as we were in process, you know, and them going like, whoa. And having that reaction. That was the first time I saw anybody react to that, you know, twist. I felt, okay, well, maybe this is gonna be something people, you know, respond to. But it's also like, you know, when you do make a choice like that, I also am. So I always think, like, are people gonna go along with this too?

[Adam Scott]

Right?

[Dax Shepard]

We did. We absolutely did.

[Kristen Bell]

We were shook.

[Dax Shepard]

You're also coming off of one of the most uncomfortable because the smile on your face when you think that ripping up this picture in front of her is gonna land. And just her grounded reality of ultimately kind of like sad pity and a little bit of disgust is.

[Kristen Bell]

You're pathetic.

[Dax Shepard]

So hard to watch because you have a smile on your face when you're ripping it. And it's like, oh, my God, he's ripping a picture of his dead wife in front of this new girl. Oh, my God, this is so uncomfortable. And then you take. You guys really take your sweet ass time when you tape that picture together. Waiting, waiting, waiting. So you almost don't know what to feel. Which I loved. Because there's no. There's always a sort of tip of the hat you can get from the director of, like. I know. Here's the Music is swelling now. You're about to feel this or, you know, and when you're taping that picture, there's just kind of this. This pause of watching it and going, like, is something gonna happen or am I just gonna watch? There's a nothingness, which I think actually packed when we first watched it. A huge punch. Because you didn't know that you were gonna see the picture directorially.

[Adam Scott]

It wasn't teed up like we're about to reveal the long asked question, who was Jack? Exactly at all.

[Dax Shepard]

Or it's not like you showed it three times in an insert with Adam's finger over it. It was. It was just there. If you had ended the episode on Adam taping it together, looking at it and crying, I still would have thought that was a decent ending. But the fact that you gave us that twist, I think makes it worth it.

[Kristen Bell]

Well, it has a really implicit motor to it, which is, of course he's gonna tape a picture back together of his dead wife. Like you have a red herring or something, you know, like you're certain you already understand what this is about. So you're not. Your radar's not up for that moment.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, that's what it was.

[Kristen Bell]

But we did miss a moment to go to two. That could have been the only moment we would have gone to two on.

[Dax Shepard]

Severance, the taping of the picture.

[Kristen Bell]

Mike, can you go to two?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. On two.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah. The mag just ran out, so they're bringing a new mag in. I didn't think this was gonna go on for 12 minutes, this shot.

[Dax Shepard]

Can you.

[Kristen Bell]

I don't think anyone in camera knew.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right. Can you let me talk to props real quick? Because last they said we had one roll of scotch left, one roll of scotch tape. And if we. If he.

[Kristen Bell]

Well, what's the reset? I need to know what the reset is. Cause they're bringing a new magic.

[Dax Shepard]

It's 1:45 in the morning, so the Duane Reade is closed. But listen, I can we have. What we have is double sided. Can we make that work?

[Kristen Bell]

I'll ask Ben. There's no way Ben's going for double sided on this.

[Dax Shepard]

Can I pitch you? Can I get you for one more pitch?

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

We got a ton of gaff tape, all different colors. Is there a.

[Kristen Bell]

He might buy that. Okay, we'll just put the mag on and then I'll talk to Ben about the gaff tape.

[Dax Shepard]

Thank you so much.

[Adam Scott]

I'm pretty sure it was 145 in the morning, by the way.

[Ben Stiller]

I. I'm Hiring a new ad team.

[Dax Shepard]

Nothing gets by us. Nothing.

[Ben Stiller]

Oh, my God.

[Adam Scott]

But also the voiceover is this listing of stuff about his wife. Almost, like, from the point of view of. It's like something Ms. Casey would read off about.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah. What does he say? She.

[Adam Scott]

Should we play that?

[Kristen Bell]

She sneezed twice?

[Adam Scott]

Yeah, she would sneeze twice. Should we.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, let's play that. Let's play that.

[Adam Scott]

My wife was allergic to nutmeg, and when she sneezed, she always sneezed twice.

[Ben Stiller]

In everything that's light and gay.

[Adam Scott]

My wife liked other people. My wife thought cardigans looked ridiculous. I loved all these things about her. Equally.

[Dax Shepard]

Also the resonance of equally.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

When you've severed something because you're trying to get rid of the bad. Because everything in life is both. Right.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

It's happiness and sadness. It's all the things, and you like them equally.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah.

[Ben Stiller]

All right, well, I think that's it.

[Kristen Bell]

I think that sucks. I don't know if it's airable, to be honest.

[Adam Scott]

Oh, you know, we should play these voice messages you guys sent.

[Ben Stiller]

Oh, we really can hear them. Seriously?

[Kristen Bell]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I would kind of love.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah. Okay, let's.

[Ben Stiller]

Oh, my God.

[Adam Scott]

I believe this is the first one, I think.

[Kristen Bell]

All right. You son of a. You wanted the compliments. Where. Here comes the complaints. Belle and I just sat here on the edge of our seat waiting to find out what happens when you guys.

[Dax Shepard]

Come to you Prick.

[Kristen Bell]

Piece of prick. And that goes for Ben, too. Losers. Oh, buddy, are we pissed that this episode just ends. So you wanted the cake, and now you got to take the rat poison, too, you piece of.

[Adam Scott]

Okay, here's another one.

[Ben Stiller]

Oh, my goodness.

[Kristen Bell]

Quick update you'd probably find funny. My wife just ran through a plate glass window off the second story of our home and was rushed to the hospital. You probably want to know if she's still alive. I will tell you next week.

[Ben Stiller]

Okay, that's my favorite one. That really brings home the pain of the.

[Adam Scott]

That's right.

[Ben Stiller]

Cliffhanger. Yeah.

[Adam Scott]

Here's another one.

[Kristen Bell]

If you're listening to this message and you're not on set, fuck you.

[Adam Scott]

That was like a hurry up and make the second season type.

[Kristen Bell]

Yeah, you got to play your response, though, where you had us over a barrel. That's a really good one.

[Adam Scott]

All right, Dax, just in response to your unbelievably ridiculous and insulting audio message, not only am I not filming right now, I'm sitting in a Jacuzzi, relaxing. So, so far, so far away from even being close to Filming. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, again, eat shit.

[Kristen Bell]

Adam's go to is always eat shit, which you really nailed it.

[Dax Shepard]

But there's a great one when you digest. Yeah.

[Kristen Bell]

Having us over a barrel. Yeah. Ben, do you want to give us your phone number? Would you like to be included in this?

[Dax Shepard]

Do you want to be in on this?

[Ben Stiller]

I so want in. I want in on this relationship.

[Dax Shepard]

We send a lot of voice memos from bed at night especially, and it usually comes from us watching someone on TV that we know. And we'd be like, wait, let's tell them.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah.

[Kristen Bell]

We're like, oh, my God. We know these people. We can tell them we love this.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah, I want it. Yes. You're getting my number. This is so good.

[Adam Scott]

This might be okay.

[Kristen Bell]

This is Adam's response.

[Adam Scott]

So I'm here in New York working on the show, and it'll be ready when it's ready. Okay. I heard your message on February 25th. I listened to it and then I brought it in. I played it for Ben. We listened to it together, and you know what we decided to do? We decided to slow the down. That's right. We're gonna take it real easy. So you're just gonna have to wait a little bit longer. You eat. Secondly, how dare you? How dare you conduct a perfect interview with David Letterman. God damn you to hell. I'm going to listen to it several more times. Fuck off. Where did you. All right. I think that when season two starts airing, we have to continue this tradition without question.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it's gonna happen from us. It's just whether or not you're gonna wanna play still.

[Adam Scott]

Oh, I will. I will. Cannot thank you guys enough for coming all the way over here. And it makes such a difference that you're here. It's so fantastic. So thank you.

[Kristen Bell]

Oh, honestly, we're flattered to have been invited.

[Ben Stiller]

You guys are awesome. This was so much fun.

[Adam Scott]

So fun.

[Dax Shepard]

We like liking things and we really.

[Adam Scott]

Like severance and the detail that you guys are thinking of. It's just so smart and just lovely. So thank you.

[Ben Stiller]

Yeah. And now I'm gonna to be saying go to two to people and they won't know what I mean.

[Adam Scott]

I know. That's such a good bit.

[Kristen Bell]

That's why you can only marry someone else who's been on set for 20.

[Ben Stiller]

Years, because what else should we talk about? Yes.

[Adam Scott]

And that brings us to the end of episode seven of the severance podcast with Ben and Adam. Defiant Jazz.

[Ben Stiller]

Next up is episode eight. What's for dinner.

[Adam Scott]

Stream all episodes of season one on on Apple TV right now and season.

[Ben Stiller]

Two premieres on January 17th. Eat shit shit.

[Adam Scott]

The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott is a presentation of Odyssey, Pineapple Street Studios, Red Hour Productions, and Great Scott Productions.

[Ben Stiller]

If you like the show, be sure to rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, the Odyssey app or your podcast platform of choice. Our executive producers are Bari Finkel, Henry Malofsky, Jenna Weiss Berman and Leah Rhys Dennis. The show is produced by Zandra Ellen and Naomi Scott. This episode was mixed and mastered by Chris Basil. We have additional engineering from Javi Cruces and Davey Sumner.

[Adam Scott]

Show clips are courtesy of fifth season music by Theodore Shapiro. Special thanks to the team at Odyssey, Morris Curran, Eric Donnelly, Michael Lavey, Melissa Wester, Matt Casey, Kate Rose, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Schuff.

[Ben Stiller]

And the team at Red, John Lesher, Carolina Pesakov, Gian Pablo Antonetti, Martin Valderudin, Ashwin Ramesh, Maria Noto, John Baker, and Oliver Agar.

[Adam Scott]

And at Great Scott, Kevin Cotter, Josh Martin, and Christy Smith. At Rise Management.

[Ben Stiller]

We also had additional production help from Gabrielle Lewis, Ben Goldberg, Stephen Key, Kristen Torres, Emmanuel Hapsis, marielexa Cavanaugh, and Melissa Slaughter.

[Adam Scott]

I'm Adam Scott. I'm Ben Stiller and we will see you next time.

[Ben Stiller]

Hey, Adam.

[Adam Scott]

Yeah?

[Ben Stiller]

Is your experience at work a bit dysfunctional lately?

[Adam Scott]

I don't know. I think it's. It's okay.

[Ben Stiller]

I'll take that as a yes. Your team could undergo a highly controversial surgical procedure that would mercifully sever any and all memories of that work experience from your home lives. Or you could try Confluence by Atlassian.

[Adam Scott]

Oh, my God. Well, if it's a choice between those two things, I think I would 100% choose confluence by Atlassian.

[Ben Stiller]

Confluence is the connected workspace where teams can collaborate and create like never before, where teams have easy access to the relevant pages and resources their projects call for, while discovering important context they didn't even know they needed. A space where AI streamlines the things that normally eat up their time, letting teams generate, organize, and deliver work faster. In fact, with Confluence, teams can see a 5.2% average boost in productivity in one year.

[Adam Scott]

So that would equal out, like, if we're playing with, like, let's just say, 100%. 5.2 of those percentage points. Yeah, that's the improvement.

[Ben Stiller]

I mean, I'm not great at math, but that sounds very close.

[Adam Scott]

Well, I'm doing the math in my head right now as we speak, and I think that's great.

[Ben Stiller]

So why not keep your team unsevered in Confluence, the connected workspace where teams can do it all set, knowledge free with Confluence. Learn more at atlassian.com confluence that's a T L-A-S-S S I-A N.COM C O N F L U E N C E.