Ben Stiller addresses on-set drama rumors surrounding Emmy-winning sci-fi series Severance

Get the Full StoryThe Emmy-winning Apple TV sci-fi series Severance has returned to the streamer for its second season, but not without hints of on-set discord and drama between cast members and crew. Actor Ben Stiller, who also directs the show, opened up about the rumors during an interview with The New York Times podcast The Interview on January 11. Watch now: Severance on Apple TV Stiller shot down the idea that friction and tension is necessary to create art. I never really believed that idea of you have to have friction or something on a set to keep sort-of tension, he explained. I really believe the show comes out of the different creative perspectives of the people who work on it. What happened on the set of Severance? View this post on Instagram A post shared by Severance severanceappletv The rumors were sparked by a 2023 article published on Puck News that the show was delayed due to disagreements between the series showrunners, Mark Friedman and Dan Erickson. In his What I m Hearing section, Matt Belloni wrote Severance has been plagued for months by pricey problems, including scrapped scripts and the dreaded showrunners who don t speak to each other. The discord allegedly impacted scripts for the series but Apple was committed and approached Stiller about a third and fourth season, Belloni continued. Stiller also brought in Beau Willimon, who created House of Cards, to helm the show s third season. What is Severance about? View this post on Instagram A post shared by Severance severanceappletv The Apple TV Plus series debuted in 2022 and stars Adam Scott, Britt Lower, John Turturro, and Zach Cherry as coworkers who all share a bizarre reality: they ve voluntarily undergone severance, a brain surgery that allows them to separate their personal lives from their work lives. Patricia Arquette and Tramell Tillman star as their superiors who clearly have something to hide. They live as innies, their work selves who clock into and out of a windowless building and perform menial tasks, and outies, their selves who live outside their workplace, Lumon. The innies and outies do not share memories, but the outies live robust lives with family, friends, and loved ones. On its surface, this could sound like an excellent step toward true work-life balance, but the reality is far more sinister. The crew soon begins to unravel a series of mysteries that involve Arquette and Trammell but aren t limited to either . The series is part of Apple s original programming. The streaming platform launched in 2019 but has yet to gain the type of mass appeal enjoyed by Netflix and Prime Video not that it seems to have slowed the production side of things much at all.

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