Venture into online “Severance” rabbit holes and you’ll find that fans adore Irving, the steadfast employee of the mysterious Lumon corporation played by John Turturro. They love the character for his quirks and poignant romance with officemate Burt (Christopher Walken) — and for his charm, sophistication and handsomeness.
“I’m a little embarrassed to hear that, to be honest,” Turturro said with a hearty laugh. The Brooklyn-based actor, acclaimed for four decades thanks to his roles in such films as “Do the Right Thing,” “Barton Fink,” “Quiz Show” and “The Big Lebowski,” has gained a new generation of fans from “Severance,” the Apple TV+ series about Lumon workers whose consciousnesses are cleaved between the “innie” office identity and the “outie” real-world personality. His Season 1 performance earned him his fourth Emmy nomination, for supporting actor in a drama, and he seems all but guaranteed to land a second one for Season 2. If he wins, it will be the first time since 2004, when he took home best guest comedy actor for “Monk.”
“Sometimes people have put me in a certain category,” Turturro, 68, said. “And I’m happy with that. I have a beautiful wife and a good life and I’ve done a lot of really interesting work. But I think people like Irving because he’s a very fastidious guy, he’s well put together, and certainly there are a lot of obstacles with the character, which can be really appealing for people who want to figure him out. And it’s really landed in the zeitgeist.”
He pointed his finger in the air and said with a smile, “Listen, it’s better than having people not like you.”
Irving’s dramatic arc in the second season of “Severance” comes to a crescendo in the episode “Woe’s Hollow,” set during an employee outing in the snowy woods and filmed at Minnewaska State Park Preserve in New York. Suspicious that his colleague Helly (Britt Lower) has been spying on them all as her Lumon luminary outie Helena Eagan, Irving holds her head under freezing creek water, nearly drowning her. The scene’s intensity, Turturro explained, was possible because he and Lower had built a close bond in Season 1, when they had neighboring dressing rooms.
“When you really care about the other person, as I do with Britt, you can go further, way further, in terms of the adversarial behavior,” he said. “We had to roughhouse pretty badly in that scene, but she trusted that it would be done right…And I’m a father, so I think I was a little fatherly toward Britt. I’ll always check in with her.”
Irving’s attempted murder of Helena results in his firing from Lumon. Toward the end of Season 2, his outie stands in a train station and, just before boarding to destinations unknown, tells Burt’s outie that he’s never experienced anything like the love the two men share. As he struggles to speak and holds back a sob, it is perhaps Turturro’s most affecting moment of the whole series.
“When you’re doing scenes at the end of the season, it’s always tricky to find that sweet spot,” Turturro said. “One of the attractive things about being on the show was this love story we have in the middle of a very bizarre story. And I do have a genuine love for Chris. We’re like an old jazz band together, and it’s always gonna be interesting when it’s the two of us.”
It’s this hunger for human connection, Turturro believes, that makes “Severance” resonate with audiences. “That is an essential and eternal thing. You could be a successful person and still be starved for that. In the case of Irving, he has this discovery of a deep human connection, and he’s not 21 and he’s not 31. He’s older and he’s like, ‘This is gonna rock my remaining existence.’”
This story first ran in the Drama issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
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