Note: This story contains spoilers ahead from “Severance” Season 2, Episode 7.
From the very first moments of “Severance,” Mark’s (Adam Scott) missing wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) has haunted the Apple TV+ original series. But it wasn’t until after Season 1 that the show discovered how devastating Gemma’s loss truly was.
“That was something I felt very grateful to Ben [Stiller] and Dan [Erickson] about. They really let us have a say in shaping some of that backstory,” Jen Tullock, who plays Mark’s sister Devon, told TheWrap.
Before filming on Season 2 started, Tullock had a lunch with Erickson where she pitched the idea that the four of them — Mark, Gemma, Devon and her husband Ricken (Michael Chernus) — used to be an incredibly tight-knit group. It’s a dynamic that makes sense considering Mark and Devon’s relationship. Though Mark is often shown as being annoyed by his brother-in-law, they came up with the idea that when the stakes were lower and the group was more relaxed, he actually used to enjoy Ricken. It’s the sort of close observation about human inconsistencies that have come to define “Severance.”
“It’s like when you have a friend with a partner that maybe not everyone’s crazy about, but when they’re contextualized in the group, it still works,” Tullock explained. “They’re in that quartet, and [Gemma’s] absence really fractured them so that it created distance between Ricken and Mark. It created distance between Ricken and Devon.”
Having established this internal canon of the two couples’ friendship, Tullock found it “really beautiful and devastating” to finally portray that intimacy in “Chikhai Bardo,” an installment that portrays flashbacks of their time before Lumon as it sifts through Gemma’s mind. “When we finally got to have those flashback scenes together, it felt like such a breath of fresh air to be able to talk to each other and touch each other because it had only ever been alluded to,” she said.
The notably warmer and lighter episode was actually shot on film and directed by Jessica Lee Gagné. “She did such a beautiful job,” Tullock said. “Episodes like that are tough. You have to pack so much in, but it can’t feel like a departure from the rest of the show to the point that you lose people.”
Rewatching Episode 7 actually brought Tullock to tears as she reflected on the love and joy Mark, Devon and even Ricken lost in the wake of Gemma’s alleged death. But for all of the episode’s heavy emotions, it was unintentionally a funny one to film. Most of “Severance” sees its characters don either uncomfortable-looking corporate attire or bleak formless clothes that reek of depression. But in Episode 7, the cast was able to actually dress up for once.
“Younger outie Mark had a pep in his step, a fresher haircut and was wearing his steamed chambray shirt. Devon was wearing makeup,” Tullock said. “We were kind of looking at each other at the table, like, ‘Oh, everybody cleaned up really well.’”
Heading into Season 2, Tullock knew that Devon was going to become a bigger part of the Lumon mystery that has engulfed her brother. “By the end of Season 1, there’s sort of no other place for her to go but to get involved because there’s no world in which she wouldn’t,” she said. But though this is a far angrier and more active version of Devon than we’ve seen in the past, it was important to Tullock, Erickson and Stiller that Mark’s sister retain her jarring warmth in this cold universe.
“Dan did such a beautiful job fully realizing all of these characters. There wasn’t a single character without nuance from page one,” Tullock said, noting that Devon was always written as a caring sibling who is also “bombastic and bro-y” without ever being unkind. “She serves a really specific purpose, which is being the audience’s eyes and ears at times.”
“Dan is the kind of generous writer who will write for our voices once we’ve stepped into them. So moving into Season 2, it was fun to see on the page things that were evocative of moments, tones or sensibilities we had each found in the character,” Tullock said.
For now, Devon is just along for the ride the same way as Mark or any one of Lumon’s innies. However, the actor behind her was able to solve one of the biggest mysteries of “Severance”: Why is the objectively cool Devon with a blowhard like Ricken?
“For one thing, kudos to Michael Chernus for playing him so brilliantly that you have that response because that character is its own tonal monolith — the way Michael tows the line between just laughable douchebaggery but also deep vulnerability and insecurity. I think that somebody like Devon finds somebody like Ricken really comforting,” Tullock explained. “He may be verbose, but I know exactly what he believes. He doesn’t bullshit.
“I always get really defensive of their relationship because I’ve found so many friends that are in an opposites-attract pairing like that,” she continued. “You’re like, ‘How did that find that?’ And and then you see them together and you go, ‘You know what? I get it. It’s symbiotic.’”
“Severance” releases new episodes Fridays on Apple TV+.
The post How ‘Severance’ Star Jen Tullock Helped Shape Gemma’s Tragic Backstory appeared first on TheWrap.
