The premiere of Severance season 2 included a cameo from Keanu Reeves as the voice of an animated Lumon building, but the John Wick actor wasn’t Ben Stiller’s first choice for the role. While speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Stiller said he originally reached out to President Barack Obama to see if he wanted to take the role in Severance. That was not who I was expecting.
“There was one person that I asked before [Keanu Reeves], and he said no: President Barack Obama,” Stiller said. “I didn’t ask him in person. I knew someone who knew his lawyer. So I wrote an email to him, 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.’“
Stiller joked that he wasn’t convinced. “What’s more important than doing the voice-over for the animated building in Severance? But it was pretty cool that he responded.“
Severance stars Adam Scott as Mark Scout, who leads a team at Lumon Industries “whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. This daring experiment in ‘work-life balance’ is called into question as Mark finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work… and of himself.”
The second season of Severance debuted on Apple TV+ in January, and from the sounds of things, it’s just as good, if not better, than the first. Our own Alex Maidy was full of praise in his review, “The second season of Severance does not disappoint and achieves the rare feat of improving upon the debut season,” Maidy wrote. “The cast is exceptional, and the direction, led by Ben Stiller doing the best work of his career, improves on what came before it. This is such a rich world that has deepened what the audience knows without sacrificing any quality along the way. Each episode is full of character development that makes you care deeply about what happens to each member of the MDR team and even gives reasons to care about the antagonists as well.“
