From the moment she woke up on that conference table in the first scene of Apple TV+'s critically acclaimed Severance, the character of Helly R. became an object of deep fascination for the show’s obsessive fans. In turn, the actress who played her leapt off the screen opposite far more seasoned actors like John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette, and her co-lead, Adam Scott.
On the eve of Severance’s season finale, which started streaming today and contains both massive revelations and maddening cliffhangers, Britt Lower tells The Daily Beast that landing the part of Helly over “bigger names” was a “fall-to-my-knees-with-gratitude moment.” Not only that, but it has permanently altered the trajectory of a career that has mostly consisted of small but memorable roles on comedies like Man Seeking Woman, Casual, and High Maintenance.
Lower also shares her reaction to the huge reveal about her “Innie” character’s “Outie” identity—to use the show’s idiosyncratic parlance—that opens the final episode. Here come the spoilers for anyone who wants to remain in the dark.
When “Innie” Helly “wakes up” in the world outside the mysterious underground office where she and her fellow Macrodata Refiners toil away—unable to remember who they are when they’re not at work, and vice versa, thanks to the voluntary severance procedure—she quickly learns that her real name is Helena Egan, heir to the god-like Lumon founder Kier Egan. Champagne glass in hand, she’s attending an elaborate gala celebrating her decision to prove how safe severance is by undergoing it herself and is set to take the stage and make a big speech any minute.
By the end of the riveting Ben Stiller-directed finale, in which Adam Scott’s “Innie” character Mark S. also learns that his wife is alive and working for Lumon as wellness counselor Ms. Casey, Helly decides to essentially take down her own company when it’s her turn to speak.
It’s an episode that seems to raise as many questions as it answers. And as Lower warns before our interview begins, “I have to say in advance, I don’t know a lot of the secrets that people want me to know.
“I purposefully kept myself in the dark about a lot of it,” she adds. “As an actor, it didn’t seem important for Helly to know exactly what the goats or the numbers were for. In fact, it was kind of fuel for me to have this intense curiosity about what’s going on and to be looking for clues myself. So I’m frustratingly in the dark, just like the audience.”
It was only after we spoke that Apple TV+ officially renewed Severance for a second season. So when I suggested to Lower that a pickup announcement would be the only way to soothe some of the show’s most vocal fans who might be a little upset about the cliffhanger that ends season one, she joked, “That would be soothing for me as well.”
She seemed to be feeling much better when I checked in later in the week, telling me, “I’m so happy, I will be doing an extended music dance experience for the foreseeable future!”
Below is an edited and condensed version of our spoiler-filled conversation.
Assuming you knew from the beginning that this is who Helly really was on the outside, how did that impact your performance?
I approached the two sides of her as nature versus nurture, or ego versus id. So they have qualities that they share that are innate. They’re both willful, brave, and strong. When they love someone, they will do anything for that person. And I thought about Helly on the inside as a kind of unmediated, raw teenage angst that may be a part of her on the outside that she’s never been able to fully express.
She’s quite rebellious on the inside.
Yeah, and it raises the question of, who are we at core? Do the stories and experiences that we live throughout our lives override our innate nature or are they lying dormant within us? And something like a severance procedure comes along and is the key that unlocks it all.
When I watched the whole season through for the second time, it made me wonder if Helena’s status as this wealthy, powerful woman impacted how much confidence and how ambitious Helly is on the inside, especially compared to her co-workers who seem more willing to kind of go along with things.
Well, she certainly comes from a very particular upbringing that most of us don’t have an insight into, myself included. I don’t come from a Johnson & Johnson-type of family. Helly is a person, on the outside at least, who probably hasn’t been told “no” very often.
Right. And that kind of bleeds into this new life that she has as an Innie. And she has no idea who she really is until she “wakes up” at this gala and has to figure it out. I love that scene so much when we’re watching you realize in the moment who you are. What was it like filming that scene in the finale where you sort of “turn on” with champagne in your hand and at this fancy gala?
Ben Stiller was joking that seeing that many images of yourself blown up on huge cubes is either an actor’s greatest fantasy or worst nightmare. And it was maybe more towards the latter for me. Not that the images weren’t beautiful. They’re black and white and they have this kind of nostalgia, and there was something beautiful and fun about getting to see images of the work we had been doing all year together. At the same time, it’s terrifying. I think there were something like 54 images of me spread throughout the space. It’s like being in a wild funhouse. And, for Helly, obviously, she says in episode eight, “We know that my Outie is a jerk,” essentially. But she doesn’t ever, in her wildest nightmares, think that she will be who she actually is. So it’s terrifying.
And then she has to figure out what to do and whether to speak out, which she ultimately does. There’s that moment where she tells Ms. Cobel, Patricia Arquette’s character, “I’m going to kill your company” and she replies, “It’s your company,” which is kind of a mind trip. So how did you think about that decision to take down what is her own company?
The moment when she’s looking at herself in the mirror becomes a real reckoning with herself. And I think it’s a moment for me, as the actor, when Helly was taking responsibility for both sides of her. She’s a character that, once she makes a decision, she goes for it full-on. But she’s tied to this family and it’s her worst nightmare.
Another scene in an earlier episode that is so intense and dark is when Helly tries to hang herself and then survives and gets sent back in by who we now know is Helena. Can you talk about that moment where Helly wakes up inside, after she knows she just tried to hang herself, and now she knows that she was sent back?
It’s obvious that we have empathy for Innie Helly in all of her decisions. We’ve been with her from the beginning. We know what has motivated everything that she’s done. We don’t know really what exactly is motivating Helena on the outside, except that now we know she’s part of the Egan family. But we don’t know the intricacies of the human reasons that are motivating that. And neither does Helly. She doesn’t understand it. You’re essentially watching a person wage a war against herself. And to not be able to get through to that other side of you that you don’t understand is devastating.
Unlike Adam Scott, who gets to play both sides—Innie Mark and Outie Mark—almost equally throughout the series, we get these very short glimpses of you as your Outie character. There’s the scene with Milchick toward the beginning that’s very short. And then the tapes that Helena tapes for Helly, including the one where she says, basically, “You’re not a person,” which is very disturbing. Since you only got those few chances to play Helly’s outie, how did you approach doing those scenes?
Well, the pre-taped elements of Outie Helly are presentational by nature. So there is a sense that Helly knows she’s being watched not only by herself, but by others. And I think that affects how she behaves. That was a hard scene to shoot, honestly, because I didn’t want to tell Helly that she wasn’t a person. But the way in for me is, we say things to ourselves in our own heads that are meaner than we would say to anyone else on the planet. I can’t speak to all of the reasons why Outie Helly is behaving the way she is, but I do think we give ourselves a pass to use more tough love on ourselves than to anyone else. And it’s heartbreaking.
Yeah, it is. Zooming out a bit, this feels like your highest-profile role to date in a lot of ways. What did it mean to you to get the opportunity to be in this show?
This was a fall-to-my-knees-with-gratitude moment when we got the call that I got to be Helly. I’ve never read a more dynamic, unapologetically honest human character. I just love being in her shoes. She has taught me a lot about how I can speak up for myself in my personal life and to care a little less about what others think of me. Because Helly has no filter.
You enjoyed channeling that energy?
Totally. I was such a good kid growing up. I never broke any rules. So it was nice to shake out some of that rebel energy and tap into it.
What was the audition process like?
I actually made a self-tape in my bathroom and there are still kick marks on the door.
It was the first scene?
It was the very first scene where I’m trying to bust out, and that self-tape was what earned me a call back with Adam and Ben. The whole audition process was really warm and collaborative and thoughtful, but honestly I didn’t think in a million years I was going to get the role. It just seemed like such a long shot. So I just feel so lucky that I sparked something in them that felt like Helly.
Are you aware of all of the theorizing online of people trying to figure out what’s really happening at Lumon? From my perspective, that doesn’t really seem like the point of the show, but how do you feel about it?
I think our fans are so brilliant and really fun. The fan art that I’m seeing come through on Twitter and Instagram brings me great joy. I’ve never experienced a show like this where there’s this kind of engagement, and it’s really gratifying to see people being as geeked about the world that [writer] Dan Erickson built as we are.
Looking ahead, is there anything that you want for Helly in season two?
Oh my gosh, I hope she gets to wear regular clothes. The costumes were beautiful and inspiring, but just for Helly’s sake, I hope she gets to try on pajamas someday.
For more, listen to ‘Severance’ star Adam Scott on The Last Laugh podcast.
