In a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Severance
producer and frequent director Ben Stiller revealed that Keanu Reeves
was not the first choice to voice the animated Lumon building in the first episode of season 2. While his cameo is uncredited, Stiller confirmed on Kimmel that it is indeed Reeves’s “warm, inviting voice” addressing the innies of Macrodata Refinement.
When asked if there was anyone else considered for the cameo, Stiller said it was a short list of people, and he asked one other person before Reeves: former president, Barack Obama. Stiller explained that he had a connection to Obama’s lawyer, so he was able to message the former president with the request.
“So I wrote an email to [Obama], saying ‘hey, we have this show,’ whatever, and like two days later, I get an email back from President Barack Obama saying, ‘Hey Ben, big fan of the show, love Season 1, can’t wait for Season 2. Don’t think I have time in my schedule to make this happen.'”
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Stiller then joked, “What’s more important than doing the voice-over for the animated building in Severance?” He added, “But it was pretty cool that he responded.”
Severance creator Dan Erickson previously commented on the importance of having a “warm presence” for the Lumon building, as the intent is to convince the MDR team that the company is friendly. While Reeves ended up being a genius bit of casting, it’s easy to hear the smooth and reassuring voice of Obama delivering lines like, “No running in the halls… It tickles.”
‘Severance’s Most Recent Episode Raises Numerous Questions
Kimmel also asked Stiller if he knew how Severance ended, to which Stiller replied that he did, though he indicated that the path there wasn’t necessarily set in stone. Fan theories about the direction of the series have been rampant and varied, especially after the episode 7 reveal that Gemma (Dichen Lachman) seems to be imprisoned by Lumon — or, if she originally came there voluntarily, she regrets it now, and desperately wants out.
Adam Scott, who plays Mark, recently praised Lachman for her performance in the episode, which also shows us glimpses of Mark and Gemma’s married life prior to her supposed death, particularly their struggles to have a child. Lachman gets to play a range of innies in the episode, each of them being tortured in perversely banal ways, like enduring hours worth of dental work, or writing Christmas cards until her hand cramps and her writing becomes illegible.
Episode 7 raises so many questions, most of them revolving around Lumon’s true intentions. Why are they putting Gemma’s multiple innies through these bizarre and cruel experiments? And how does all of this relate to Mark and the MDR experiment? Would they ever allow Mark’s outie and Gemma to reunite? What is the ultimate endgame here?
With just three episodes left to air — on Mar. 7, Mar. 14, and Mar. 21 — and with so many mysteries left to unravel, it seems likely we won’t learn everything about how Gemma ended up in her current predicament. But that may just mean we’ll have more of Gemma to look forward to in season 3.
Source: Jimmy Kimmel Live / Variety
