Long before Severance became a TV obsession, when the Apple TV+ series was still being cast, an actor taped an audition scene for one of the show’s most complex and crucial roles. That clip has been released, and it’s incredible to see how the performer’s initial instincts for and interpretation of the character carried over almost note-perfectly into the show itself.
Though viewers were first lured in by big names like Adam Scott, Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette, and John Turturro, Severance‘s lesser-known stars soon established their talents. That includes Britt Lower, an instant fan favorite for her turn as the wry, intelligent, desperately unhappy Helly R. across season one—and in season two, for which she’s now Emmy-nominated, her expansion of that role with the other side of the character’s brain, the slippery enigma Helena Eagan.
The Hollywood Reporter shared Lower’s Severance audition tape from 2019. The self-made clip features a searing performance of the series’ very first scene, in which we’re introduced to not just the very confused, freshly awakened consciousness of Helly R., but also the very odd onboarding process at Lumon—a company we’ll soon learn does everything very weirdly and mysteriously. Helly R. doesn’t know where she is, why she’s there, or even who she really is, for that matter. Even at this very early stage, Lower plays the mix of confusion, fear, and hostility perfectly.
Lower told THR the Severance script was “the best one I’d ever read,” and even though her agent said she was a “long shot” for the part, she dug in, enlisted a friend to read the offscreen Mark S. dialogue in the scene, and determined the bathroom in her house had the best lighting. It was also a confined space—much smaller than what Severance ended up showing us with that conference room when Helly R. wakes up on the table, but suitable for creating that feeling of being trapped in a strange environment.
“My approach to making self-tapes is like, this is a chance for me to show them what I would do if they chose me to play this role,” Lower explained. “And almost like you’ve shown up to set early, and the director and the DP, and everybody’s late, and they just want you to film it on your own. Like, show us what you would do.”
Clearly, it worked out, and the rest is history; after watching the scene, you’ll have even more difficulty than you already would have picturing anyone else playing Helly R. Head to THR to watch the embedded video, and join us in appealing to the TV gods to unearth Tramell Tillman’s audition tape for Mr. Milchick, if such a thing exists.
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