“Severance” Creator Dan Erickson Discusses Details, Theories, And The Mystery Of Lumon

So, you’ve said before that the MDR office is very similar to what you envisaged in your head, but you were surprised by some other stylistic choices. Can you speak to any specific elements that you were shocked to see work together?

I remember the break room looked really different from how I envisioned it. I think that the walls there are sort of off-kilter a little bit – I had seen it as more of a wide space. It was much more claustrophobic, which in the end of the day, worked really well to our advantage.

And the Optics and Design office where Burt works, in my head, had been a much warmer sort of space where you go in and there was going to be like wood paneling and stuff. And so, when I came in, or when I saw the concept, it was very different. And I had a moment of being like, I don’t know if that’s it. But you have to be open to something being different than you expect, because you’re going to have all these other people come in and add to it and make it better. And at the end of the day, it was perfect.

Technology plays a huge part in building the world of Severance; what was the choice behind everyone driving retro cars? Is it just stylistic, or is there something more there?

 I don’t want to say too much! I will say that I do think it looks cool, whether there’s another layer behind that… There’s always a sense off being a little bit out of time and space. And that starts on the Severed floor, because down there, the technology is intentionally kind of older – in part because you can’t really have anything down there that would give a cell phone signal or an internet signal. But also because there is a sense of wanting to unmoor workers and have them not necessarily know what year it is outside, or where they live outside. And so we wanted to extend some of that ambiguity to the outside from the viewer’s perspective. I know people do ask the question, like, well, where is the town of Kier, and also, what year is it? Because you have smartphones, but then you have these old cars. So whether it’s stylistic, or whether there’s a practical reason behind it, it’s all very intentional.