SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 6 of “Severance,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
In the world of “Severance,” the line between one’s two selves — good and evil, innie and outie — can be imperceptibly thin.
For Helly R. (Britt Lower), it was one insensitive joke about Burt (Christopher Walken) and Irving’s (John Turturro) relationship that gave her away as Helena Eagan in Episode 4. “What you said to me last night, it was cruel,” Irving tells Helena the next morning, before attempting to drown her. “Helly was never cruel.”
“Someone can be charming and then they’re a monster,” Turturro tells Variety ahead of the season’s sixth episode, which sees Irving, after being permanently dismissed from Lumon, get a long-awaited glimpse at Burt’s outie life as a married man. At an awkward dinner with his innie’s crush and his husband Fields (John Noble), Irving begins to piece together who Burt really is.
“Irving obviously is the kind of person who knows how to track certain things,” Turturro says, mentioning that a potential military background, briefly alluded to in the first season, is one likely reason for his perceptiveness. “If he’s not sure about something, he’ll track it and he’s mathematical in that approach, saying, ‘Well, this doesn’t equal that, so maybe it could be something innocuous or it could be something threatening.’”
Irving smiles politely and slowly sips his wine when Fields mentions his ominous nickname of Attila for Burt (a reference to the militaristic ruler of the Hun empire) and lets it slip that Burt has worked at Lumon since long before the first severed office opened.
“Burt is glad to see Irving, but maybe not so glad that his husband is sitting at the same table,” Walken tells Variety about that tense dinner scene. “Burt’s husband knows things about him that other people don’t, that maybe he’s not as nice as people think he is.”
Walken continues, “It’s like one of those terrible holiday family meetings where somebody wants to talk about politics, and somebody else says, ‘No, let’s not talk about politics.’ And it becomes one of those kind of dinners from hell.”
The dinner scene is the longest amount of time we spend with Irving and Burt’s outies. “To me, it was like meeting somebody you’ve seen in the movies 20 times, and so you’re standing with them at a party in somebody’s house and you think this guy’s really very different from the parts he plays,” Walken says about how he approached playing Burt’s outie. “When you see Burt on the outside, he’s still Burt, but he’s burdened with a difference. He’s Burt plus Attila.”
Below, Turturro talks about collaborating with longtime friend Walken for that tense “threesome” dinner, his unique techniques for getting into the right emotional mindset and working with Lower on that heated drowning scene in Episode 4.
What was your first reaction when you learned that Irving was going to be permanently dismissed from Lumon — that his innie would essentially die — at the end of Episode 4?
We talked about all different things. Ben [Stiller] had all kinds of scenarios with Dan [Erickson], and they were throwing them to me and then what would go on after that. I was very pleased with where they wound up because it was very active. And when you’re in a group show you want to have active things to do. I don’t want to be just coming in and out, in and out — I’m too long in the tooth for that.
What did your input or collaboration look like with Ben and Dan for that scene?
They did eventually do what they wanted to do, but I just said, “Hey, it’s important that we build in [Irving’s] background. Whether you acknowledge it or not, that [his past] bleeds through.” Irving obviously is the kind of person who knows how to track certain things. That’s something in his training. If he’s not sure about something, he’ll track it, and he’s mathematical in that approach, saying, “Well, this doesn’t equal that, so maybe it could be something innocuous or it could be something threatening.”
In that scene, you make a sharp turn from aggression toward Helena to an immediate gentleness once she switches back to Helly. How did you find the moment to flip that switch, and how did you approach it?
I think that was built in because Britt and I have a very nice relationship, and I wanted to make sure she could be very safe when we did that. We didn’t have stunt people do it — except in the water sometimes because it was so cold, and then some other stuff in a pool. But we had to be really careful. So we did it like a dance. I said, “We’re going to go step, 1, 2, and then I go left, and then you go right.” Once you get it together, and you know you have to care for the other person, then you can build it. Sometimes people think they can do the whole thing and not help the other person, and they’re wrong. They’re wrong in every way and shape because you can go way further in the aggressive thing emotionally once you know you’re working together. Because we’re going to do it more than once, and you don’t want to hurt each other.
I think Irving’s awareness is that one person is threatening them, and the other side of that person isn’t and once it’s off, that was his objective. That’s the person I can be with and not this other person who’s threatening me. So it’s in the writing, but you have to make that switch. I think the further you go out one way, the more you can shift. And shifting is part of interesting acting.
How do you prepare yourself to get in the mindset for such emotionally complex scenes?
It’s like music. If music is repetitive, you get bored. So I listen to music all the time, even popular music. It doesn’t have to be classical music. If it has variation and melody, you can listen to it many, many times. I mean, you can listen to Joni Mitchell’s album “Blue” a million times and it remains. It’s like there’s an offering. It’s all there, and it’s so complex. And that is a great example of someone using themselves. They’re a poet. The music’s beautiful. A voice is beautiful, but it’s consistently surprising when you see her sing, and it’s like someone is just opening their body up. And so that, to me, is what inspires me to be able to become a conduit, in a way.
Why does Irving go to Burt’s house?
There’s a lot of things. Curiosity, maybe a feeling about who he really is in real life. Insecurity. Jealousy. It’s different when people put themselves out there at a certain age. It’s hard at my age when the stakes are high and your time is limited and you don’t have 50 years in front of you. If you explore that, I think that’s great. That was one of the things that drew me to do the show, that the guy had a relationship, because it’s kind of fascinating.
When you see it in [older] people you go, “Wow, they actually still have this. They’re still alive in that way.” I think young people like to see that too because they go, “Oh, it’s not all right now. I don’t have the pressure. I don’t have to do everything right now. I have somewhere I can go and still be a human being.” Maybe you’re not going to have the same amount of energy for it, or same amount of craziness for it. But it’s human connection. It’s like air, it’s like music. You need it, and when you have it, it’s a wonderful thing.
And that’s why I wanted to do it with Chris, because I don’t really have to act that much with Chris. I mean, we have to act in the circumstances, but the feeling between us is like we’re little kids. And if you can do that, you can do imaginary love as well.
Chris called that scene a “dinner from hell.” The loving scenes are probably more natural for you and Chris given your guys’ familiarity. How was it switching to being in a more tense scene with him?
Well, there’s another person there. It’s a threesome! And also that actor [John Noble] was the new person in our world. It was a different dynamic. It was complicated. I’m glad I don’t have to go through that in real life. It was weird for me and Chris doing it because there’s this new person, so naturally they’re an outsider. We try to make the person feel better, but they’re the outsider no matter what they do because me and Chris are … you can’t really replace that. When you’ve been through stuff together and you like each other, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes you work with someone and you go, “Well, that’s it. Once is enough.” And there’s other people you just enjoy.
Are we supposed to know who Irving is calling in that phone booth?
No, not yet, but you will eventually. It’s probably connected to his hunt. You know that he’s looking for something. We see the paintings, right? He’s searching for something or someone. He knows something.
This interview has been edited and condensed.