Ben Stiller Reveals 'Severance' Season 2 Opening Scene Took Six Months To Film

For an opening scene that seems pretty seamless, Ben Stiller has revealed that season 2 of “Severance” was the result of months of work.

After ending the first season on a massive cliffhanger, the drama series returned after almost three years to a two-minute-long sequence that looks like it takes place in one take. However, the reality was anything but smooth.

Many fans were wondering where season two would pick up, and it commenced with shots of Adam Scott’s character Mark sprinting down the hallways of Lumon. Although it looks like it took minutes to film, the reality was that they shot it in a few different parts over the course of a few months and then put it all together.

“It was actually filmed in a bunch of different parts,” Stiller told CinemaBlend following the show’s premiere. “I think it was about 10 different parts to it, and each part usually had a different piece of equipment to get it done for whatever piece we needed. But it was actually shot also over the course of probably, like, five or six months, when we would have different sections of the set that were ready.”

With three years to speculate, fans had three years to try to figure out how the show would return. However, none of them could predict that the season would begin with Mark running up and down hallways.

Stiller said that the decision “all came out of this idea, really, that when Adam and I talked about the opening of the season, that, you know, this impetus that Mark would have to run and figure out what was going on based on this news he just heard.”

The scene was technically difficult to shoot, as the “Night of the Museum” star explained how they used a “bolt arm” to capture his movements. He said that the swinging arm was actually “very dangerous” and “a little bit scary” for all of the cast and crew involved.

“But making it was a really fun puzzle that all of our department heads collaborated on,” he continued. “And, you know, it was one of those things that took a very long time to actually finish, and when we got to the end of it, we were like, ‘We completed this shot.’ I think we even had a wrap party for the shot.”

Although Stiller was focused on the safety of using the bolt arm to film the scenes, actor Adam Scott was worried about maintaining his stamina during all those months. He joked that he consumed a lot of Gatorade to run for that amount of time, even though the scenes were filmed weeks to months apart.

"Like Ben said it took five or six months to get through it," he recalled to CinemaBlend. "And every time I thought we were done with the opening running sequence, someone would be like, ‘Okay, so for next week, which color Gatorade is your favorite?’ [I’d] be like, ‘Oh, my God, is there more running?’ It's like, ‘Yeah, there's another part.’"

He admitted that he was "exhausted" when he finally finished filming all of his running scenes, but looking back, he thought that the process was "super fun."

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, creator, writer, and executive producer Dan Erickson confessed to reading the “kooky” fan theories that pop up on Reddit. However, he revealed that no one has been able to guess everything correctly… at least, not yet.

"I love all of them and some of them are kooky, but the show is kooky, so it makes sense," he said. "I would not say that I've seen anybody get it totally right.”

“We are trying to lay down the seeds of where it's ultimately going, and I do think that people notice that. 'They said this in episode 2, and so I bet that's going to pay off in this way,' and sometimes that lines up a little bit with what we're doing,” he continued. “But I don't think that I've seen anything where I'm like, 'Oh God, they got it. Time to leave the country and change my name.'"

“Severance” season 2 premiered on Friday, January 17, on Apple TV+.