By Scott Detrow

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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

If life mirrored the hit show “Severance,” two of its stars might hear this phrase – your outie is an Emmy winner. The drama on Apple TV+ centers on a shadowy company called Lumon, where some employees have their consciousness split between their work persona, known as an innie, and the lives they lead outside of work, known as an outie.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “SEVERANCE”)

TRAMELL TILLMAN: (As Seth Milchick) You’re an inquisitive one.

BRITT LOWER: (As Helena Eagan) I don’t want to be in there, do I?

TILLMAN: (As Seth Milchick) You’re learning that you do. Hey, when we heard you were coming here, it was like a miracle. It’s amazing what you’re doing.

SHAPIRO: The second season was nominated for 27 Emmys and took home eight last night. That includes a history-making win for Tramell Tillman, who you heard in that clip. He is the first Black man to win outstanding supporting actor in a drama series. And he started his acceptance speech with a nod to lessons from his mother.

(SOUNDBITE OF 77TH EMMY AWARDS BROADCAST)

TILLMAN: You remember what you want to remember. You make time for what you want to make time for. Do the work, show up. And most importantly, for the love of God, don’t embarrass me in public.

SHAPIRO: Tillman’s scene partner we heard there, Britt Lower, also won for outstanding lead actress in a drama series. She plays someone who has undergone the “Severance” procedure – essentially two characters in the same body.

(SOUNDBITE OF 77TH EMMY AWARDS BROADCAST)

LOWER: Thank you for this. And thank you for Helly R. for choosing me.

SHAPIRO: Helly R. is the name of her innie. Our co-host Scott Detrow spoke with Lower and Tillman earlier this year ahead of the Season 2 premiere of “Severance.”

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

SCOTT DETROW: Tramell, you play the company man, Seth Milchick, who’s Helly’s supervisor. I’m curious – and I’m obviously not going to ask you what it is – but how up to speed are you? How read in are you on the broader picture of Milchick as you approach the role each season?

TILLMAN: I find that I’m learning it as I go, you know? What’s really lovely is that this process of “Severance” from the very beginning has been incredibly collaborative. And in a very interesting way, it feels so much like Milchick. In Season 1, he has some answers, but he doesn’t know all the answers. And as he progresses in Season 2, we see that he’s promoted and he has access to more information. But I think there’s so much more that he is unaware of in this world of Lumon.

DETROW: And we’re going to come back to some of those moments he finds himself in in Season 2 in a moment. But, Britt, I want to ask you a question about your approach to acting this role because you play Helly, you’re playing Helena. And as the season goes on, it’s clear that both of those roles – one of them, in particular – is even more complex than it was before. And I’m wondering how you think, how actively you think, about the body language and the posture and just the way that you present these characters who are physically the same person but mentally and spiritually very different people.

LOWER: I kind of started from a place of what they shared, which is they’re both trapped. For Helena on the outside, she’s trapped within a company she was born into, and she’s often being observed. Anytime you see Helena, there’s someone else in the room with her. So that…

DETROW: Yeah.

LOWER: …You know, affects the way that she behaves. And then for Helly, she’s kind of the complete opposite. And she’s moving through the world on a really clear mission, a really physical mission – especially in Season 1 – to escape at all cost. And much like Tramell was saying, that there’s this meta quality of, you know, what bleeds through from the innie to the outie and what bleeds through – the information of what Britt, the actor, knows and what the characters know – there’s a shared subconscious, there’s a shared body. And so, yeah, there’s this kind of cool meta quality of what information is available to both consciousnesses.

DETROW: Tramell, I want to ask you a couple questions about a really interesting plot point that I’m going to try very hard not to give too many details about. But there is a point where Milchick, as a Black man and leadership in a company that has literally deified its white founders, is made aware that he’s a Black man at a predominantly white company. And I’m wondering how you thought about this plot arc, how you approach these scenes and these moments for this character.

TILLMAN: Well, in order to answer that question, I have to speak to where we started in Season 1. I remember having conversations to talk about the racial makeup of the town of Kier, which I started to see was very diverse, and also to speak about the racial dynamic of Lumon. And so my question to the creatives was, does this man know that he’s Black? And what does that mean as he steps through a culture that looks very different from him? And are we going to address that? So the charge was then, how do we tell this story without losing focus on the journey of the innies but still pay homage and respect to the fact that this man is a Black man who knows that he is Black in a world that he stands out?

DETROW: And I think this particular moment gets to a lot of the interesting stuff about the show because Lumon makes an overture to Milchick that is incredibly garish and shocking. And yet, a lot of the stuff in the show is actually, like, pretty close to actual workplace culture, which is horrifying to think about.

TILLMAN: Absolutely – which I think is so alarming because this instance, this circumstance, is very familiar.

DETROW: Do either of you see the upside of a “Severance” procedure, like, when it’s spelled out? Is there any part of you that thinks, like, I could see some of the appeal to that?

TILLMAN: I get it. I understand, you know? And especially in the world that we are in, we all need a reprieve.

LOWER: That’s a very Milchick thing to say, Tramell.

TILLMAN: It’s a – it’s very, you know – I appreciate that. Thank you.

LOWER: (Laughter) All of a sudden, you’re selling “Severance” to me.

TILLMAN: (Laughter) The question is whether or not it’s working.

LOWER: I’m like, oh, that voice is so soothing. But, Tramell, did you see that long – that very long needle that they put into my brain? Did you see it?

TILLMAN: But you didn’t feel a thing.

LOWER: (Laughter).

TILLMAN: You felt nothing. It was a dream. I was – Milchick was there to hold your hand, to support you.

LOWER: I don’t know. That drill going into the skull? Like, you can’t forget that.

DETROW: Nope.

TILLMAN: Can’t unsee it.

LOWER: But to Tramell’s point, I think there – yeah, of course. Like, that’s such a human thing – right? – to be like, oh, man, I wish I could numb myself to this uncomfortable part of life, whether it’s a part of your identity or a part of life that’s just a bummer or something really dark or grief. And I think the question that the show poses is, you know, is it worth skipping over those parts of life or is moving through those things part of your identity and what makes you whole?

SHAPIRO: That was Britt Lower and Tramell Tillman, two of the stars of “Severance” on Apple TV+, speaking with our co-host Scott Detrow. They each took home their first Primetime Emmy Awards at last night’s ceremony.

(SOUNDBITE OF THEODORE SHAPIRO’S “THE BALLAD OF AMBROSE AND GUNNEL”)

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