Adam Scott Says ‘The Best Part’ Of The 14 ‘Severance’ Emmy Nominations Is Seeing His Cast & Crew Recognized

Yes, Adam Scott is Emmy-nominated this year in the coveted “Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series” category for his captivating performance as Mark in the thought-provoking thriller Severance on Apple TV+, but the actor & producer seems to be far more interested in rallying behind his cast & crew being recognized by the Television Academy with their combined total of 14 Emmy nominations.

“That’s the best part of it is getting to see everyone recognized for their incredible work,” Scott tells me over Zoom. “Ben [Stiller] and Dan [Erickson] and Christopher Walken and John [Turturro] and Patricia [Arquette]. Also Jeremy [Hindle], our production designer. Teddy Shapiro, who scored the show – it’s incredible. They’re terrific but you always hope that everyone would be recognized and I would imagine in the future they will be, because everyone on the show did such a great job.”

With a season two of Severance already announced and currently in pre-production, there is in fact a very real future ahead for this series about a group of co-workers at a company called Lumon, who voluntarily have a chip put in their brains, which completely severs their memories between their time at the office and their lives outside of those walls. Scott recalls the unknowing of how audiences would initially respond to Severance when it first premiered on Apple TV+ back in February.

When speaking about Apple TV+, Scott says, “They’ve been great with us and with the show. They promoted the hell out of it, which was really nice because it’s a weird show. It’s a big swing and you don’t know how people are going to receive it and react – with a bizarre premise and with these strange characters and everything. It was a risky proposition.”

With 14 Emmy nominations for its first season and currently a 93% average audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, the risk with Severance seems to be paying off. When I first spoke with Scott this past January before Severance premiered, he revealed to me when speaking of his character Mark, “It really is sort of the role that I’ve been waiting my whole career for.”

Now being one season down and two Emmy nominations this year for Scott, the one for his on-camera achievements on Severance and the other for his producing work with its “Outstanding Drama Series” nomination, I wondered how his experiences on Severance has perhaps changed the way he will take on and consider new projects moving forward.

“I think that as far as the acting side of it, I really learned a valuable lesson on this and did away with a bad habit of mine that I developed over the years, which was keeping an eye on myself and self-editing along the way. I think part of that is you start feeling protective of what you want to do and it’s partially to do with just having done it for awhile now and having been on lots of stuff. It’s almost like you have a little director in your head, sort of gauging and criticizing as you go. And for this, I decided and tried to get rid of that sort of internal meter as much as possible and just dive in head first and leave everything else up to [directors] Ben [Stiller] and Aoifa [McArdle] and our editors and that was really what I did, which was new for me and really it was depending on others that you love and trust working with is a really smart move.”

With Scott’s fellow “Lead Actor Drama” nominees including Jason Bateman, Brian Cox, Lee Jung-jae, Bob Odenkirk and Jeremy Strong, I asked Scott if he has any professional or playfully “trash talking” words for these gentlemen in his category before the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 12.

“No, I’m just honestly so flattered just to be in a sentence with them, let alone a category,” reveals Scott. “It’s absurd – I’m such a huge fan of all of theirs and have seen all of their work on these shows, many times over. These are all shows that I’ve repeat viewings and a big part of that is because of their performances.”

Looking ahead to the future of television and video streaming in Hollywood, I wondered what Scott’s thoughts are about the content coming out of the entertainment industry today and if he is optimistic about what’s ahead for on-screen storytelling.

“I think that right now is obviously such an exciting time for TV – so much stuff. Yesterday, I was driving around Los Angeles and saw a billboard for a new Steve Carell/Domhnall Gleeson show that I had not heard of, but it’s going to be on in a couple weeks and I’m just so excited. There’s Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow had The Old Man. A League of Their Own is so great. There’s just so much great stuff right now, so I am more than optimistic – I’m excited about what’s going on now and what it means for the future.”

Well for Scott, that future will include the much-anticipated second season of Severance on Apple TV+ and another opportunity for more of Scott’s on-screen and off-screen colleagues to be recognized for their work on the series. As we began to conclude our conversation, I asked Scott if he might be hearing when production will start for season two and curious if he might have any hints about what awaits his character Mark at Lumon ahead. Scott immediately jokes with me that if he starts giving any hints, a tranquilizer dart would fly in from off-screen of our Zoom video conversation and hit him in the side of the neck. He does briefly hint, “We’re going to get going really soon and can’t wait. Can’t wait to see everybody again and dive back in. It’s going to be a blast. I couldn’t be more excited to get back to the show.”