‘A bit of a roller coaster’: What Emmy-nominated ‘Severance’ actors say about this season

Heading into the 77th Emmy Awards Sunday, the Apple TV+ series Severance is the leading nominee with 27 nods, including outstanding drama series. The show follows employees at the cult-like corporation Lumon, who’ve volunteered for “severance,” a procedure that makes them forget their home lives while at work and vice versa.

Among the recognition for the series are nominations for the show’s lead actors: lead actor and lead actress in a drama series for Adam Scott and Britt Lower; supporting actor in a drama for John Turturro, Zach Cherry and Tramell Tillman; and supporting actress in a drama for Patricia Arquette.

Turturro’s nominated for his role as Irv, specifically for the episode “Woe’s Hollow,” where the severed employees leave the office for the first time for a team-building exercise in the woods. What follows is a violent confrontation with a co-worker who Irv assumes to be a spy, leading to his termination from Lumon.

Turturro says of the episode, “We got to be outside, which was a big relief for me.” He says he “put a lot of work” into playing Irv both as an “innie” — his severed persona at Lumon — and “outie,” the person he is outside of work.

But, he notes, “It’s a bit of a roller coaster, the show, and sometimes you yourself are confused, saying, ‘Would he know this? Would he not know that?'”

Arquette has been nominated for her role as Harmony Cobel [koe-BELL], the villain of season 1, who switches loyalties when she becomes disenchanted with how Lumon has treated her.

“Cobel’s really been knocked off her axis. She’s in a very weird position that she’s never been in before,” Arquette says of her season 2 journey. “And I think she’s in a bit of [an] interior cyclone of, what does she want to do? What does she believe in? How does she feel about this corporation?” 

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