“Severance’ Part 2’s intense opening scene took 5 months to film, Ben Stiller is even more in awe of Tom Cruise’s running ability in Mission: Impossible, admitting he was his running inspiration.
The premiere’s opening scene quickly catapults us back into the high-stakes environment of Lumon’s Severed Floor by showing Mark (Adam Scott) sprinting through the blinding white halls in search of his Outie’s wife, Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman).
And if the visual masterpiece that is Mark’s twisty 1:22 hallway marathon blew your mind, give the Severance team a round of applause, because that scene alone took a whopping five months to film.
On the January 17 episode of The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott, the star and director/EP recapped Season 2, Episode 1 (“Hello, Ms. Cobel”), chatting with Mr. Milchick actor Tramell Tillman, and gave behind the scenes insight into standout scenes like that ambitious opening feat.
“My first knee-jerk reaction was, I would just start running and trying to find her. I would just run towards the Wellness Center,” Scott replied. So that’s what Mark does! To help set the mood and establish the proper urgency and mystery within the scene, it’s set to Les McCann’s “Burnin’ Coal” and Theodore Shapiro’s iconic Severance score.
Scott also admitted that now, years after the scene was filmed, people are asking if he trained to do the running in the sequence. Although he claims he didn’t do anything specific to get in Hallways Sprinting Shape, he did cite Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible as his running inspo. Classic.”