Ben Stiller reveals the 10 year struggle to bring Severance into existence

Severance's success has been a surprise to both the director, Ben Stiller, and the lead, Adam Scott. Considering the 10-year struggle that went behind bringing the show to existence, they really weren't expecting it to become the cultural phenomenon that it did.

In a recent conversation with Variety, Stiller talked about his decade-long struggle to bring the show to the screen and its unexpected success.

Severance director Ben Stiller talks about the decade-long struggle that went behind the show coming to life

When Stiller was on his promotional tour before the release of Severance Season 2, he was hoping to rally the viewers who'd watched Season 1 into tuning in for the second season. He had no idea the second season would blow up the way it did, becoming a cultural phenomenon with posters all over the world and the internet going crazy over the innies and the outies.

Stiller recounts how he first read the Severance script by Dan Erickson almost a decade ago and was instantly in love with it. The initial script revolved around Mark Scout, who undergoes a procedure that completely severs his home life from his work life, separated by an elevator ride in the biotech company Lumon Industries.

Ben gave me the quick rundown — for lack of a better term, the elevator pitch, I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a year and a half until I read the script.

Stiller reminisces about how the script reminded him of so many things he loved about workplace comedies, with a weird, eerie thing that was going on in the back:

"It reminded me of so many things that I loved in terms of workplace comedies, But then there was that other weird, eerie thing.”

The originality of the script convinced Stiller to bring it to life. However, his falling in love with Erickson's script was not enough for it to make it to our screens. Pitching the show turned out to be the most difficult part, as nobody wanted the script except for Apple, which was not even established in the business then. It was just a company that made technology.

"Nobody wanted it except Apple, which didn’t even exist yet as a streamer. It was a little bit like, ‘Oh great, the computer company!' "

However, a decade later, Stiller is glad nobody else wanted it because Apple TV turned out to be the perfect spot for Severance, and Severance turned out to be the perfect breakthrough opportunity for Apple TV as well.

"Thank goodness we didn’t end up at, like, Showtime or something."

Season 3 for Severance is underway, and a writers' room has already been established in Los Angeles, with Stiller and Scott being actively involved in this process as executive producers. They also revealed that Season 3 of the show will not be as long a wait as Season 2, and there might be some updates regarding the next season soon.

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