YouSaid · the spoken record

Ben Stiller

lines on the record: 56
first: 2025-02-03
most recent: 2025-02-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think I came away with a better understanding of my parents. In terms of my dad's creative process in particular, because he was very focused on that. And sometimes it sort of took him away from the family in a way, just kind of in his head a little bit. And I think I inherited that from him. And I think it's kind of made me look at my own relationship with my kids and my wife and have a little more perspective on that and maybe kind of, you know, I don't know, like less angst about that because, you know, an appreciation of like, okay, we've gotten to this place. Things have not always been perfect, but you keep evolving. And both my parents, I think we're constantly evolving and questioning themselves and looking inward. And I think that's something I got out of it.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then, of course, you grow up, and I got married and had kids and became an actor. And my kids want to be actors. And I was so looking at, you know, what is it inside of us that the creative process is and how that connects with relationships that we have in our life when you do this kind of thing? When you go to an office job, you go to the office, then you want to maybe sever and not think about it, right? But in a life where you're a creative person, it melds through. And it's always part of who you are. So it affected my parents' marriage. They stayed married for 60 plus years, but there was a lot of stress and tension in there. And I was able to, my dad recorded a lot of stuff, audio recordings, super eight film. And he recorded them rehearsing. And then sometimes the camera...”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, they work together as a comedy team. They got married in 1953, and they weren't making any money as actors, both separately trying to get work. And then my dad came up with this idea of them doing a comedy act together about who they were. And then we were born, my sister and I. And so grew up around it all. For me, it was exploring in the movie this life of living in a household that was constantly part of their creative process because they would work at home and they would write together and they would perform and come home and be parents and actors. And it was all sort of intermingled”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but no, look, I like many people after the election who, you know, didn't vote for Trump kind of wanted to just sort of hide for a moment and just not have to deal with the reality. And I think, you know, now it's sort of this moment in time where it's like, okay, this is the reality we're in. It's not the first term. We have to look at it, look at ourselves and do what we feel is right to, you know, to be who we want to be in this moment. And so I think it's that should all be what you're expressing and it should all be part of what you want to say. So yeah, that movie Bagman, I'd love to get that movie made right now because I feel like it sort of tells the story of what happens when people do the right thing in the face of somebody who's trying to go past the bounds of what their power is.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the movie was originally called Trump Tower Heist, but Trump wanted them to pay him for the use of his name, so they changed him to Tower Heist.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think you have to be true to who you are. And, you know, in terms of what you create, but yes, for sure. And I think we all have to kind of look at ourselves and say, okay, what message are we putting out there with whatever it is we make? But even if a comedy or drama, whatever it is, it doesn't all have to be political. It has to be true to who you are. And we're all affected by the world that we're in. So it's hopefully going to be a reflection of the experience that you're having in some way. I don't put that pressure on people to have to go out and do something. I think you have to be do what feels right for you.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm trying to get that movie made. We almost got it made a couple years ago. I think it's more important now. Look, I think artists are. Incredibly inspired now to speak out in creative ways about what's going on in our country. My daughter is an actor. She just graduated from drama school and she's a writer and she wants to make movies. And she said, you know, all I want to do right now is make stories about women and what they're going through because of what's going on in our country right now. So, I think people are really inspired, and you're going to see a lot of amazing art come out of it.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which Yeah, sure. I think about it. I mean, yeah, I don't know. Like after, you know, when October 7th happened and, you know, Israel. Yeah. I was trying to think of, well, what should I say? And it was really, I realized like, I'm not going to be able to express myself in a tweet or a blue sky post or, you know, it's just, I don't want to go into that arena of like having to sort of distill some idea down into a thought that then people are going to debate and you know what's going to happen with that. So to me, it's more a question of like, where do I express myself and what do I do? And I don't think having to legislate all this stuff on your phone all the time or as much as sometimes there's an instinct to me that's not something that I'm going to really do well with or it's just not going to make me happy to do that. But I feel like that's why I wrote a little something about October 7th and just put it out there because I wanted to express myself. I just think it's this social media debate and what it turns out.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I don't think it makes anybody a victim. I mean, what the temperature is in terms of what movies are getting, you know, made or not. The reality is, yeah, sure, the environment is different and it would be tougher to get it made. I don't know if it could get made or not. I think it would be harder to get it made. But that doesn't mean I'm commenting on the state of our culture. I think it's just...”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, not talking about the opposite of what I was saying. I don't know why he has so much time on his hands that he's retweeting something that was written about me. I know he really likes Tropic Thunder Great, good for him, but I think he's, you know, after that, you know, the Nazi salute, the double Nazi salute. I'm not into it, never was into it. And I think, you know, what's happening, honestly, not that anybody needs my opinion, but what's happening in terms of him being so close to the president and all the questions that that brings up in terms of conflicts of interest, all of that stuff is really, really concerning.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That makes no sense to me. I have no idea what that means. I have very little interest in his whole thing and like what he's doing.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That also happened, that's always happening, that kind of thing, right? I think ever since the internet, you know, but I do think it's concerning when you see in the political world how, you know, political ads can be created and people doing things that they didn't do. That's really scary”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who are forced to have to really sacrifice a lot so that they can get something made? And now whether AI could in some way help that, I don't think that's a bad thing. But where the rules are around it, I mean, the idea of like somebody taking your image and then being able to do whatever they want with it, it's very concerning to me when I see what it could be done.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To do because I'm doing another movie, something like that. Those are like kind of like mundane practical things that I think would be really helpful. And I don't know. I mean, I think I love the brutalist. I don't in any way look at that as making that movie lesser in any way at all, honestly. I also am very impressed with that movie as a lot of people are because the price it was made for. But the unfortunate thing is that a movie like that has to be made for such a low price. It's hard because I know how much creative people will, you know, will really stretch themselves to do what they want to do creatively because they, you know, and it's really hard to get the opportunity to make a movie that's not something that everybody in the world is going to want to see, but yet those are the movies that we celebrate with awards and move us. So, you know, that's what I feel for are the creative people.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's so unknown. It's scary to think about what people could do with it, the potential, what is actually possible to do. I do believe that creative human beings are always going to be what people want to connect with and see their stuff. There are little places where AI, I mean, I feel like almost what's going on with CGI really is in terms of visual effects is basically into that world anyway at this point. Yes, that's correct using those tools. I mean, there are little ways that if I feel like, oh, to be honest, I'd say like, oh, you're doing ADR, which is when you're doing looping extra lines or something, and an actor's not available. If the actor said, hey, it's okay, you know, you can use my voice and we can get the those words that you need to put in because I'm not available.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's. And, you know, it really is, you know, people don't ever say, I don't know in any business because I've only done this, but like what people tell you when they reject an idea or something, if they always tell you their honest, you know, reason why they're doing it. But I think in this business, people want to keep their relationships with each other and they want to stay connected because they don't know what the next thing is going to be. And that's just always been a part of But I do think you're right.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everything has changed in such a big way. I'm trying to think of when VHS happened or something like that or things like that, but it's just all been sort of thrown out there in a way that we don't know. I don't think the people who are making things know where it's going to land either. So they're trying to figure it out. And then there's a lot of fear because those people want to keep their jobs, which I understand, but they have to make these choices based on what they think the audiences are doing. And so, yeah, I can't remember a time like this.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, existential dread is sort of something that creative people have all the time. And that, I think, could mean like generational trauma that I have to. I mean, I grew up around that too. It's not a very secure business being an actor or a creative person. I mean, I can't remember a time when people were as off balance as they are now. I mean, it's”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. Yeah, but back in the day, a little bit, and I haven't done it for a while in movies. And it's hard too. The thing is, like the movies had that version of it where you have an opening weekend. And if your movie didn't do well on the opening weekend, a wide release, then it would go away pretty quickly. So it's kind of the same version of like being on the queue at Netflix. It's just kind of, you know, on steroids or something”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and to want it. And I like that. And maybe that's just a generational thing. I'm an old guy who's like, oh, I remember when shows would come on and every week. But it is succession was like that, right? And you look forward to that. And I think, you know, it's just the new world we're in. But yeah, Netflix has turned the movie business upside down and is still trying to find its way, I think, in terms of what defines a movie. You know, I'm hoping and I really do believe we're going to get back to what people went to the movies for besides spectacle and giant IP and all that stuff. And I feel like that will come back around.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of the queue, the queue, yeah, sure, but I mean, like, who wouldn't be, you know, feeling like, oh, I don't want to just go down. But it's just such a crazy world now that the cultural moment that you have for something, I actually like being on Apple because they don't drop everything at once. We get to have an episode every week. And I think for our show, that benefits our show because we get a chance for people to chew on it and to think about it, to talk about it and to go online and go back and forth.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you were outside, people were shooting pictures of I don't know in terms of how it's all settling out. I know it's a crazy new world. I know Netflix has changed everything. amount of shows that they produce, movies that they make, the level of what they're putting in and spending, it's just changed everything. Everybody who makes stuff, you want yourself to be seen. And so it's that sort of push pull where if you have something on Netflix, you know that you have a chance for more people in the world to see it than probably ever, but it also could be just go down the queue very quickly and never even get any attention. And so that's a real thing too, you know?”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Seem to like it, yeah. No, yeah, I think their chances are really good. And, you know, that, yeah, I think for us, we just want to be able to tell the story in the number of seasons that it should be to finish the story. And that's what's great. I mean, that's the upside of working in this era is that, you know, we're not a show that has to keep going because the network, it's a network hit show. They're saying we need 22 episodes and you got to keep doing till the ratings drop. That pressure is not there. And that, I think, is something gets lost a little bit in all those sort of weird negatives of this world too, is that you have that creative freedom.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and look, for a creative person who grew up in my generation, it's weird to see, you know, it's weird to see that Amazon Prime is on there like when you're shopping for Amazon stuff and you could just click on that and watch movies and shows, it takes away something of the specialness of movies when you look at it that way. And then there's the other aspect of what's informing their decisions based on their analytics and the level of information that they're getting that will create for them ideas of what they think they want to produce for their platform.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was just the concern for me, just the concern that not knowing about Apple TV Plus would be, like whether or not they were, how serious they were about it, whether or not we would be looked at as a real show early on in that way. I think that's also not knowing what they had really planned for and what they were trying to do other than them saying they wanted to make really good shows. But, you know, you do hear, of course, everyone's like, well, you know, ultimately it's a phone company. You know, they're making phones.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, because honestly, I feel like they've been great. I have no complaints. It's like they've gotten behind the show. These things are so complicated. I think I was really happy to see that article because I didn't know, but I also feel like they've always been like, yeah, we love the show. We're behind it. And it's, yeah, it's never been like a thing.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it does. And that wasn't intentional. I've never been to Apple headquarters. I've seen aerial shots, but like really we designed it. But it always felt like it's, you know, yeah, this fits on Apple. And then the second season, they really put a lot behind it. I think they believed in it and they had money invested in it too. And luckily our fan base, our core fan base really was still there for it. And I felt like it could go either way. It could go, you know, it's three years and we waited for this, you know, no thanks or like nobody cares. It's back. Or it could be, you know, hey, it was worth the wait. And that's totally out of your control when you're making something. So you just put your head down and do it.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In a way, it took the pressure off of us because there wasn't some number we were waiting to hear. All we wanted to hear was like, yeah, we're happy. A lot of people are watching it and you want people to watch the show. But the first season, you know, we were lucky enough to get very positive, you know, critical response, which hardly ever happens in my life. And it was, I was so happy about that. Get the show, have always gotten the show. I thought they did a great job of marketing at the first season in terms of just like the aesthetic of it with the show and Apple. And it always felt like a”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Never tell you the analytics. No, they show us graphs and charts, but without numbers attached to them. And it's weird. I think that's weird for any creative person, especially when you're used to, you make a movie, you know exactly how many people went to see it on opening night, how much money it made. A show, you get Nielsen ratings.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They say we loved it, it just wasn't for us. Yeah, but that's just the way it is. And that's par for the course. But they said yes to it. And then it was like, okay, we're going to develop this thing for Apple TV. That's weird to think of. And then a couple years go by. And then all of a sudden they're up and running and we're a show that's in production for them. And so honestly, I had no sense of what success would be other than I hope people watch it. And, you know, they don't really tell you the analytics. They don't. No.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Laughing, going, like, who's okay? Everybody's doing streaming services. This is crazy. And we went out and pitched the show to different HBO, all these places. And Apple was the only one that bought it. And they weren't even up yet.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Honestly, I know very little about it. It's a weird world to be in. From the beginning, it was a new, strange experience because when we started developing the show, Apple wasn't even up yet. And someone called up and said, Yeah, Apple's going to do a streaming service too.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“White man over Yeah, it was to me weirdness of that moment is kind of like, well, that's what's in the show, it's motivated because it's, you know, it's a party, it's a perk. You understand why they're doing it, but it's also just so weird and really fun to be able to like explore that.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pineapples here. Yeah, the pineapple fruit plate as a way of luring people back. You know, it's like sort of like the shitty little, you know, perks that you get that, you know, in contrast to what these people have experienced, that's huge for them. I mean, though they are trying it in season two on the Audis. But it's funny to me that when they have an office party, it's still just them. There's nobody else there. It's just like the lights change. So that was one of my favorite sort of setups that we had with the idea of, well, okay, where is this going to go? And all of a sudden, when you get this next level perk, they're going to like change the color of the lights in the room and you're going to dance. And the combination of, you know, milchick is like he's kind of like, you know, obviously the best dancer there.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, Milchick is, yeah. I mean, I'm excited for this season with Milchick too, just because I feel like, you know, he's an enigma and he can be scary. But there's so many different aspects to who he is that, you know, make him a really fascinating character. And, you know, everybody works for this corporation. So at the end of the day, there's a chain of command. And I think that's something that's interesting to us in the show is sort of like how even if it's this weird kind of world or these maybe possibly scary characters that work at the company, they're also looking. And so they have to deal with all of the office politics too.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, not at all. I mean, yeah, the first season we made starting right when COVID started, And we were delayed actually six months in production because of it. And so when the show was finished”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The more the audience has a chance to fill it in themselves. And that's always been for me a little bit of the question as I put the show out into the world when we were making it in the first season. We've made all nine episodes and nobody had seen us like, oh, I hope people will buy this conceit because, you know, you have to buy into it. But it's there because I feel like those aren't the questions as much that I'm as interested in as opposed to the sort of greater themes of the show.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It always felt to me like it turned into like a Star Trek episode or something. It just was something about it. And we realized, oh, well, like the more we don't tell, the more we don't show.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, and we are constantly dealing with that question all the time, the question of how much Lumen knows, how much they're listening to, how much they're seeing, you know, within the severed world. I think there's always a question of how much they're letting happen, how much they know is happening. Sometimes the technology isn't quite great there. There are places they can find a closet or something like that. And, you know, that's like a specific aspect of the reality of the show that, you know, maybe if we were doing this as a modern day show, everybody would be like, oh, wait, well, there's no way you could do that because they would have microphones everywhere. But I think there's something to the sort of clunky nature of this corporation too that is kind of fun. And, you know, we don't have any, there's one security person in the first season, Grainer, but early on we had.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think that world should be as kind of interesting and off and generic in its own way as the any world, the Audi world. And so that's kind of why we. Sort of gravitated towards that. And so the duality aspect, though, is just inherent in the theme. So that's a natural sort of tendency for us then to look for in the imagery that, because it just telling the story in a way, and it lends itself to that. So, you know, I think that's part of just the sort of visual world of the show. And I think when you have a clear theme and you have an idea that's really specific, you want to stick with that theme and let that everything build off of that so it feels organic and not forced, hopefully. And that's, I think the great thing about this idea is that it allows for that.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ever since cell phones and smartphones were invented, it's really changed our lives, obviously, but also storytelling because so many things that you'd have to do before that you tell a story you'd have to go and do research or whatever. Now you just get on your phone. It's not very cinematic. And that's why I like a prison story too, inside of a prison, you don't have access to that technology. Prisoners aren't allowed. And in a way, severance is a little bit of a, it has a prison aspect to it.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, in terms of the Audi world and the Indie world too, what I thought that Dan had written in the pilot was a very sort of generic kind of world. And I think he was commenting on that, I think, in a way, in terms of like what working for a big corporation can kind of turn you into. And that sort of blandness, that corporate blandness, I felt we should mirror in the outside world. And I didn't want to have any actual reference points like, you know, like CNN or brand names or things when you saw the news. Just, you know, and that was sort of the idea was like we don't quite know where or when this is. It's kind of now, but we don't want to have any sort of touchstones or even in the technology. And look, I grew up in the 70s and I do feel like.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I mean, as a person, I've been in therapy. And I've talked a lot. And, you know, that question of how much talking about your past or talking about memories and issues, you know, there's questions about that. How much that really can help and alternate therapies that are much more in the body and actually not really just about analyzing. And I think that to me resonates because I feel like a lot of this stuff is internal. And there's even questions about generational trauma that people talk about now. And really, it's really interesting because, you know, you think about what does cellularly in our bodies that we carry with us.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's constantly going back and forth between that. And I think, you know, that's to me what's really interesting about the show too is finding those places where something transcends the severance barrier and emotion or a feeling. There's a time in episode, I think it's like, I forget which episode, season one where Dylan says basically, you know, do you think this love transcends?”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you're doing it. Yeah. I mean, to me, again, it's one of the really interesting aspects of the premise of the show is how much of a person can be cut off from, I guess, if it's your brain, if it's your mind, there are technologies that are approaching trying to do something like this. But what is it that can cross over if you don't remember anything about your life? What are the innate human desires or characteristics that make you a person? And so that's constantly what we're looking at and asking in the show. And for the actors, it's great because that's a question they can ask in literally every scene. They can, you know, wonder about, well, how much of this is coming through? My feeling for, you know, Dylan and Irving, if they're having a conversation, how much of Dylan's Audi life is coming through for Dylan, even if it's not what the scene is about or for Adam Scott playing Mark.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think that goes just back to human nature. It's like we all want to work, we all want to have something to do with our lives. And then there are certain people who, you know, have ideas of doing things that are who knows what they want to do. I mean, you could pick any tech billionaire. What are their goals and their aims? But ultimately, we're all just people who want to work and be happy and fill our time with something that we think is meaningful. And it can be really distressing when you're doing that and something you think is good or meaningful to you. But then the overall goal of this corporation you're working for might be totally nefarious.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think technically Lumen is sort of a med tech company, you know, and they go back to the 1860s and 70s when Keer Egan founded it. And it kind of is really one of those companies that does a lot of things and you shouldn't quite know everything that they do. And obviously the severed workers have no idea what they do there. And I always think that's interesting when you see the characters having to talk, especially for Mark in the first season when he just talks about supposedly I'm a corporate archivist or something like that. He doesn't have any idea what he's up to. And I think that idea of people who are working for giant corporations or the tech or whatever, who actually knows what they're really working towards. I don't know about that world that much, but it seems to me.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, these are formative movies for me, The Planet and Dave movies. I went to the Lowe's 84th Street Cinema and watched The Planet of the Apes, you know, marathon where they go to the apes all the way through Conquest or whatever. So yeah, that's deeply rooted in my, you know, my DNA of just things that I love to watch.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“something I feel like it's rooted in the workplace comedy genre. And then it also has these aspects of thriller, but also like 70s sort of, you know, style thrillers and then also the weird kind of Twilight Zone vibe to it also. And I mean, to me, that was what was exciting was it's a combination of all these different things. And when you see something like that where you haven't seen it before, but in some way it triggers these ideas for you, it makes you want to lean into it. And so Dan had never had anything produced before, ever before. And so I had obviously worked for a long time. So he and I sort of partnered up. And it's always been his vision, but I think we really collaborated a lot in terms of just the feeling and the vibe of it and the direction of the story as we looked at building it out from this pilot that he'd written.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. The cult. I am the voice of Kir Egan in, I guess it's episode eight, when you hit 100% and you got the little video of Kure on the mountaintop. So it's not actually, it's an actor playing cure because we actually have the voice of the real Kir Egan that Mark Geller portrays when you see, and he's who Kirigan is when you see him. I mean, I think it was the mix of humor and weirdness and the basic and the tone of the humor which related to me to a lot of comedies that I loved, the office banter, this feeling of sort of like this weird sort of like the movie office space or Parks and Rec or the office, you know, that sort of genre of office workplace comedy. Yeah. Where it's like a lot of the humor is based in sort of everyday stuff. But then there was this other layer to it, which is these people don't know who they are, where they are, what they're doing, why they're doing it. Yeah. Right.”
2025-02-03 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Ben Stiller Made 'Severance' (and Doesn’t Care About What Elon Says About Him) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT