-Welcome back. Ben Stiller is joining us right now.
Ah, we love you.
Ben, I want to talk about your new show,
your new series, "Severance."
It's on Apple TV+.
I love it. It's getting great reviews.
Congrats, by the way. -Thanks, man.
-Adam Scott, who I love as well.
It's a trippy concept.
-Yeah, I'm not in it.
I directed it with another director.
Aoife McArdle, a great director, and produced.
But it's Adam Scott starring with Patricia Arquette
and John Turturro, Chris Walken.
A great cast.
But he plays the guy who works at a company where you get
a chip implanted in your head.
And when you go to work, you go in the elevator,
and the trip gets triggered.
And you don't remember anything about your life
when you go down to work.
And then, you do your work day,
and then, at work, you leave,
and the chip gets triggered again,
and you don't remember anything that happened at work.
So, it's --
-Yeah, so, it's a trippy thing.
-It's not really sci-fi, but it's like
a weird alternate reality.
Yeah, which was also kind of, you know --
working on it in our own alternate reality
we've all been living in -- -With COVID.
-The last couple of years has been interesting.
-It must have been trippy doing that.
-Yeah, because we ended up shooting for a long time.
And it has been really hard to do stuff --
to make productions -- just in terms
of all the protocols and everything.
And the show take place in this
sort of weird maze-like environment
of these white, nondescript halls that are below
The main buildings where everybody works.
So we would go to work in the sound stage.
And you'd get to the sound stage,
and then you'd have to walk down these long, white,
maze-like halls to get to the sound stage
that was long, white maze-like halls.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
And then waiting for you when you got all the way to the end
of the long maze hall was John Turturro and Chris Walken
with surgical gloves and masks.
Which was actually a nightmare I had as a teenager.
It was definitely challenging, but it was also --
It kind of I think contributed to the vibe of the show, also.
-It's fantastic.
It's so well-directed and so well done and well-lit.
But those hallways, like you're saying.
There's one scene where you don't really know
what's happening that first 20 minutes of the first episode.
In 10 minutes, I go, "What is happening? I'm into this."
I'm so -- I'm like -- And then --
Who -- There's a new actress. I don't really...
-Britt Lower, who plays Helly. -Oh, my gosh.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-She's unbelievable. -Yeah, she's great.
-And so it starts with her, and you go, "Okay."
And then they're going down this hallway,
and the hallway doesn't really end.
-Right. Right. -And then eventually it does.
-She realizes she can't leave. She's the new employee.
So, yeah, it's a little bit nightmarish.
But, you know, it was also really interesting
working with these consults because the actors
are at these workstations
and their characters don't know what they're actually doing.
So -- But the workstations actually work.
So, we had these numbers on the workstations
that they could then... -You could click and drag.
-They could click and drag.
-I tried to figure it out, too. -Yeah, yeah.
They got really good at doing it,
thought they had no idea what they were doing.
-And it really isn't doing anything.
We don't know. -Yeah. Exactly. We don't know.
-We don't know. How many episodes are there?
-Nine episodes for the first season.
-There's two out right now. They're both awesome.
I just finished the second one yesterday.
Every Friday they come out, right?
-Yeah, yeah. -On Apple TV Plus.
-And you gotta check it out. It is awesome.
-Can I just say, congrats, man on that movie?
It's so amazing. -Of course, of course.
-Thank you. -So amazing.
-[ Cheers and applause ] -As a -- Yeah.
I worship you as a drummer and a musician
but also now as a filmmaker.
And I grew up in New York, so, like, just to have
that experience of seeing that whole event that happened,
not knowing anything about it,
and the emotionality of that movie was just beautiful.
So congrats, man.
-That's awesome. That's how you do it right there.
I want to show everyone a clip.
Here's a look at the first episode of "Severance."
Check this out.
[ Keyboard clacking, computer beeping ]
-So I'll never leave here?
-You'll leave at 5:00.
Well, actually, they stagger exits, so 5:15.
-Hm. -But it won't feel like it,
not to this version of you, anyway.
-Do I have a family?
-You never know.
-And I have no choice.
-Well, every time you find yourself here,
it's because you chose to come back.
-[ Scoffs ]
-Ben Stiller, everyone, right there.
New episodes of "Severance"
can be seen Fridays on Apple TV Plus.