The miraculous origin story of the ‘Severance’ script
The film industry can seem like an impenetrable and impossible place to break into, with years of stories about talented filmmakers and actors who struggled to have their voices heard and slowly faded into oblivion, never getting the chance to realise lifelong dreams of having their stories and performances heard or seen by others. It can seem cruel that there are some who succeed and many who don’t, with an exclusive club at the heart of the industry, while others scratch at the walls desperately.
But for one screenwriter, the path to success became miraculously illuminated after a shot in the dark that led to one of the most acclaimed television shows of this decade, with Adam Scott discussing the fateful encounter that led to the production of Severance.
The success of Severance was like no other show, sparking an obsessive cult following as fans grapple with the trails of clues and pore over each detail in the Lumon universe, becoming one of the most gratifying and frustrating shows in recent history. The story of Mark, Hellie R, and the battle between their innies and outies (a sentence that sounds completely baffling to anyone unfamiliar with the show) stole the undivided attention of anyone who watched it unfold.
With each episode, new and precisely calibrated details were revealed that added more depth and mystery to the show, creating one of the most captivating and terrifying tales about a dystopian future in which capitalism completely takes over and we all lose sight of our humanity at work.
While the show seemed to spring up from nowhere, Kristen Bell and Adam Scott were recently discussing its origins for the Variety Actors on Actors interview, with the former sharing her shock at the show’s tale of inception after hearing it from the producer, Nicholas Weinstock. The actor said, “From what I heard, it was a favour. A nephew of someone called Nicky, who was partners with Ben, and said, ‘Will you read my nephew’s script?’ And Nicky, who’s a wonderful guy, was like ‘Of course I will’. You have to be helpful to people if they’re creative and need help. Nicky read it out of the goodness of his heart, thinking he would just throw someone a bone and a favour to give some notes. Discovered Severance, but it was a film, and said ‘This needs to be a TV show’.”
It’s a truly bizarre story, with Scott confirming this by saying, “It was sent as a writing sample, not as a ‘Hey, we want to make this’ or ‘We think this is something that would get made’. It was ‘I’m a writer, just look at something I’ve done to prove I can write’. And Nicholas Weinstock and Jackie Cohn really liked it, threw it to Ben [Stiller], and Ben was like ‘Yeah, this is a great writer, but what about this?’”
Sending a script to someone can feel like an extreme shot in the dark, not knowing if it will even be opened and knowing that it will most likely be ignored and added to the growing pile of stories from writers who are desperate to see theirs come to fruition. But for Dan Erickson, the writer of Severance, this chance-taking happened to be the thing that changed his entire life, perhaps giving hope to all those who will try this technique.
