Last January, the Severance team promoted season two by staging a marketing stunt at the NYC’s Grand Central Terminal.
Now, the series director, Ben Stiller, opened up about how the idea came into being.
“The idea was to do something that would just be almost a performance art piece — to put this cube in the middle of Grand Central at rush hour and put actors in there at their cubicle,” he said at SXSW.
“When it was pitched to us, it was cosplay actors dressed as the team. Then Adam Scott said, ‘Wait a minute. We have to go in there. We have to do this,'” the National Treasure star said.
Earlier, Ben revealed he had contacted former president Barack Obama to voice the training video of the Lumon.
“I didn’t ask him in person. I knew someone that knew his lawyer, and his lawyer said, ‘I can relay the request if you write an email,’ so I wrote an email to him,” the 59-year-old shared.
He continued, “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.’ And like, come on, what’s more important than doing the voiceover for the animated building in Severance? But it was pretty cool that he responded,” Ben concluded.
