Severance star Adam Scott on balancing Hollywood fame with family life: ‘Everything’s a challenge at some point’

Adam Scott says achieving a healthy work-life balance can be tricky for actors who spend large chunks of time away from their friends and family.

The 52-year-old star, who is about to return to our screens for the second season of Severance tells Sky News: “It’s hard because we live in Los Angeles, and we make the show in New York. So, it’s months and months away from home.”

It’s been three years since the first season of the Emmy-award-winning workplace thriller, which was met with widespread critical acclaim.

Scott plays Mark Scout, a microdata refinement team leader who catalogues numbers for shadowy corporate entity, Lumon Industries.

Part sci-fi experiment, part chilling workplace parable, the show imagines a world in which workers can opt to undergo a surgical procedure called severance to divide their consciousness into separate professional and personal entities, dubbed “innie” and “outie”.

While Scott’s character has undergone the procedure to help him divide his time more effectively, he has come up with a less extreme solution to achieve work-life balance.

Best known for his role in Parks And Recreation, and with numerous other credits including Big Little Lies and Party Down, Scott and his wife, TV and film producer Naomi Sablan, set up their own production company Gettin’ Rad Productions in 2012.

He explains: “My wife and I work together when I’m not making the show. We have a company, and we make indie movies and TV, so it’s great. We have an office that we can go to, and that’s a great way to spend time together.”

They also have two children, a son Graham, 18, and daughter Frankie,16.

Scott goes on: “My kids are teenagers now, so they can just fly out on their own, which is great. But it’s hard. We figure it out, you know. Everything’s a challenge at some point. We make do.”

Getting the second season in the can was clearly a big relief for him, and fans will be pleased to hear a third is rumoured to be in the works.

Scott says: “We finished making the show almost a year ago now, so I’ve been home for a while and it’s always great to be home.”

‘Just a little oppressive’

So, how did it feel to work in such an oppressive office space of Luman Industries, even though it was all make-believe?

Scott admits production designer Jeremy Hindle had done a big chunk of the work on his behalf.

Describing the “incredible experience” of entering the set, he says: “In our office, there are those green carpets and then the fluorescent lights, and the ceiling is just a bit low.

“It’s not crazy low. It’s just low enough to feel like something’s off, that it’s just a little oppressive. Little decisions like that by Ben [Stiller] and Jeremy [Hindle] make this whole world feel active and alive when you’re there.

“So, as far as a kind of nightmarish feeling, after you’re there for 12, 14 hours, it’s not difficult to summon those feelings.”

‘I like trying different stuff’

And what about Severance’s star director, Ben Stiller?

A far cry from his screen appearances in comedies like Zoolander and Tropic Thunder, Stiller is both executive producer and lead director of the show.

Scott says Stiller is his favourite director to work with.

“He’s someone who obviously understands actors, so is able to talk to them, work with them and understand that language.”

Scott also says he trusts Stiller “completely and implicitly”.

He says: “With a director, it’s really important that you trust them, that they know when something is working, that they’re not going to move on until they feel they’ve gotten a scene.”

A perfectionist, Scott adds: “I’m always ready to do more and more takes. I like doing a lot and trying different stuff. But if Ben says, ‘We’ve got it’, then I trust that we’ve got it and I’m ready to move on.

“I love his filmmaking. He’s a great guy, and also just the best person to work with.”

The 10-episode second season of Severance will debut globally on Apple TV+ with the first episode on Friday 17 January followed by one episode every Friday.