"Longest thing I’ve ever worked on"- When Ben Stiller spent years on Severance and called it his most time-consuming and rewarding work

The award-winning show Severance is returning for a second season on January 17, 2025, on Apple TV+. The dystopian sci-fi thriller is created by Dan Erickson and co-directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle. Stiller, who directed six episodes in season 1, also serves as the show's executive producer and played a prominent role in the show's development stage.

A day after the series premiered on February 18, 2022, Stiller spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his experience bringing the story to life, from script to screen. He called it his "longest" project and added that he put his "all into it."

"I think it's the longest thing I've ever worked on. And when you work on something that long, you get so used to it just being something that exists within the small group of people who are working on it.....I definitely have that feeling that we put our all into it."

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Ben Stiller explains the reasons behind Severance's delay

Ben Stiller told EW that he received the pilot script written by Dan Erickson in 2017 at his production company, Red Hour Productions. Impressed with Erickson's writing, he brought the script to Apple and was told to produce a "bunch of scripts" before Apple TV+ greenlit the series in November 2019.

Soon after, the show's casting was finalized, and pre-production was underway when the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a standstill. Filming for Severance eventually took place between November 8, 2020, and June 23, 2021. The Tropic Thunder star shared that the pandemic "shut down" production "a number of times" and added:

"We were about six weeks away from starting to shoot in March of 2020, which was when everything got upended for everybody. We eventually ramped back up and started shooting in November of 2020, and then we were shooting through the pandemic......we had to shut down a number of times during the shoot for COVID protocols."

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What is Severance about?

An image of the stars from the hit Apple TV+ series Severance (Image via Instagram/@mradamscott)

Severance revolves around Lumon Industries' employees who participate in the company's severance program, which splits their consciousness into two parts by inserting a chip in their brains.

The "innie" represents the work persona that emerges in the office, while the "outie" refers to the self outside the workplace. The two parts co-exist in severed individuals without ever overlapping. Trouble starts when the innies try to learn about their respective outies and, in the process, risk exposing the workings of the sinister corporation.

Severance is led by Adam Scott and features Zach Cherry, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Christopher Walken, John Turturro, Dichen Lachman, and others in supporting roles.

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Ben Stiller was last seen in Nutcrackers in 2024

Ben Stiller's latest acting role was in the comedy-drama film Nutcrackers. David Gordon Green directed the movie from a screenplay written by Leland Douglas. It premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival on September 5, 2024, and was released in theaters on November 29, 2024.

Ben Stiller plays the protagonist, Mike Maxwell, who moves to rural Ohio to look after his nephews after the death of his sister and brother-in-law. His co-stars in the film include Linda Cardellini, Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson, Atlas Janson, Arlo Janson, Toby Huss, Edi Patterson, Tim Heidecker, Maren Heisler, and Alexander Louis, among others.

Nutcrackers received mixed reviews upon its release, but most critics praised Ben Stiller's performance.

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Viewers can stream all episodes of Severance season 1 on Apple TV+.