Severance creator Dan Erickson has revealed the true inspiration behind the hit Apple TV + show.
Season two of the surreal psychological thriller concluded a few weeks ago and fans are already eager to learn what will happen in season three, which still doesn’t have a release date.
Although fans will have their theories about what is actually going on in the show, Erickson has shared the experience that helped him conjure up an idea for the critically adored drama.
Appearing on a live episode of the Soundtracking with Edith Bowman podcast, the 41-year-old said: “Well, I had this experience that I think is pretty unique to me, which is that I was working a job I hated.
“And yeah, I found myself walking in. I’ve said this a number of times, but it was a door factory. And I was working in a little office cataloguing hinges and deadbolts and other door pieces.”
Erickson added: “I just found myself walking in one day and thought, I don’t want to do this anymore. And if I have to go in today, I would prefer to just skip ahead to the eight hours and disassociate. And then the whole thing just kind of came from that.”
Erickson then explained how he managed to expand the idea with the help of Ben Stiller, who works on the show as an executive producer and has directed the majority of the episodes.
“As I thought about the idea, and especially once Ben came on, we wanted to be sure that it was about more than just this kind of idea that we’re different people at work and versus at home or that we don’t like work,” he explained.
“And what we realised is that the show is very much about the sort of identity and who we are at our core, and if we would be the same people without our memories if we had existed in a grown-up or lived in a totally different scenario.
“Also just the way that in a corporate setting, we can have our humanity sort of diminished and in some cases kind of willingly diminish our own humanity so that we can fit into that setting and what the dangers are of that.”
Although season three took three years to arrive, Stiller recently assured shared that fans won’t need to wait that long for the next season.
“No, the plan is not to [wait three years],” he said on Jason and Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast. “Hopefully we’ll be announcing what the plan is very soon.”