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Adam Scott has revealed he prepared for the heart-pounding running sequence that opens the second season of Severance by watching Tom Cruise movies.
The Apple TV+ sci-fi thriller recently returned to screens after a three-year wait, earning strong reviews with one notable caveat.
The lengthy opening shot of the first episode appears to be a single take of Scott running, but director Ben Stiller revealed on the official Severance podcast that the scene is actually made up of about “10 different pieces.”
Scott then added: “We shot those 10 different pieces over a period of five months.”
Stiller explained that the scene was difficult to pull off technically, saying: “Each one had a different need in terms of what had to be done with the set.
“So there was one where we had to do it completely with green screen and have you on a treadmill and have a motion control camera. There was one where we had to pull one of the walls out, and we were using this machine called a Bolt arm, that’s a motion-controlled robot arm with the cameras on.”
Scott said he hadn’t done any specific training before shooting the sequence, joking: “Of course, I should have trained. You know what? The training was doing it. I got into good shape from doing all of this running.”
When Stiller suggested he should have studied Cruise, who is famous for the many running sequences scattered throughout his filmography, Scott responded: “Which is actually what I did. Anyone that wants to train for running of any kind, just watch Tom Cruise.”
In a five-star review of Severance season two, The Independent’s Annabel Nugent wrote: “Severance remains a neat analogy for corporate life that manages to skirt the heavy-handedness you’d find in a lesser show. The same is true of its satire of cult-like company cultures made manifest in Lumon’s religious reverence for its founder: ‘We serve Kier!’ Its light touch has much to do with the playfulness of its script; when outie Dylan interviews for a job at a door manufacturing company, he is asked inane questions like: ‘How old were you when you knew you loved doors?’
“Bottling the bolt-from-the-blue brilliance for a second season is infinitely tougher, but Severance pulls it off with style, balancing its various tones as expertly and effortlessly as a waiter during a Friday night rush. Thankfully, it is still one of the best shows on TV – certainly, one worth rushing home from the office to watch.”
