One Severance Scene Took 5 Months And a Tom Cruise Reference to Film
It’s impressive, though.
Apple TV ’s Severance is back after a 3-year-long break, and the hit sci-fi show has just made a truly epic entrance with the second instalment’s first episode.
The highly anticipated continuation for the story made work-life balance great again when Severance’s cast including Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry and Tramell Tillman went into full work mode, bringing their office to some kind of pop-up space in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal around a week ago.
The second season’s first episode then showed up just a couple of days later, kicking its run off with quite an abrupt opening sequence which, according to Scott, turned out to be quite a challenge.
Season 2 Episode 1 Opening Scene is a Nod to Tom Cruise’s Iconic Ethan Hunt Run
The sequence that lasts several minutes straight and sees Adam Scott’s Mark Scout running down Lumon Industries’ labyrinth-like white halls was probably the hardest task the actor had to face on set — just because the scene was inspired by Tom Cruise’s run which he got to demonstrate numerous times throughout his career.
Talking about Severance’s second season on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert recently, Scott called Tom Cruise “the best runner in the world” and continued, saying that, in order for any other actor to replicate Cruise’s iconic action, “you gotta get the blade hands, you gotta get the knees up, and he’s always running in uncomfortable clothes, so I had a suit and dress shoes and had to run an enormous amount.”
The Opening Was One of the Most Challenging Scenes in Severance S2
Though Adam Scott might have seen Cruise running around tens of times in tens of movies, doing the same in Severance wasn’t easy enough to nail it during the first shot.
Apparently, the series’ crew was pretty much determined to have the work done properly, so, according to Scott,“it took almost five months to shoot that sequence — off and on, for five months.”
The actor added that the opening scene owes it all to director Ben Stiller who never let the idea go, and eventually all the hard work was well rewarded since “we had our own little wrap party when we finally finished the running sequence.”