Interview: Dichen Lachman on ‘Severance’ Fan Theories, the Christmas Room and Gemma’s Future
One of the worst things about watching Severance is getting to episode seven of the second season, where the audience finally sees what has been happening to Mark’s previously-thought-to-be-dead wife Gemma, played by Dichen Lachman. It’s revealed that Gemma has been subjected to multiple different rooms in the depths of Lumon, each room pushing her consciousness to be a different innie that localizes a specific emotion or trauma and dives into it. The rooms can be traumatizing for whatever innie is inside of it, including a room where she’s writing cards of gratitude while her hand pulsates a pain through it from writing so much. It’s more emotional turmoil, however, as the real reason for the room exists around the trauma of being pushed past a breaking point. After finally breaking free in the finale of the show, Gemma is forced to watch Mark run away with Helly R. back into the bowels of Lumon, leaving her outie to finally exist in the outside world again, but – for now – without the love of her life.
I spoke to Lachman about her character, how her previous roles in series like The 100 prepared her for the insanity surrounding the show, and what she thinks of the rooms Gemma is subjected to.
Tyler Doster: How soon into the acceptance of this role did you find out the depth of who you were playing?
Dichen Lachman: Oh, so Ben [Stiller] told me when we did a Skype call together before the events of 2020, the extraordinary events, the pandemic. There was a little bit of uncertainty whether I could do the role or not, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to give away who Ms. Casey was because it wasn’t set in stone. But after everything happened and all the dust settled from that unimaginable year, I was able to do it.Yeah, he told me on the call, but that’s why he was a bit reluctant because obviously you only want to tell anyone who’s on board because it is such an event in season one to discover that.
TD: Did any of your previous roles specifically and including The 100 prepare you for the intensity of a fandom like this one?
DL: Yes. I mean, I love 100 fans. They’re the most incredible people and they’re so locked into that show. It is really wonderful. Severance has been a little bit different in the sense that the way the show tells the story with the secret, the mystery is so intense and the level of, what’s the right word, people trying to anticipate or guess what happened, I mean, that’s been really, really wild.
I mean, I haven’t seen that kind of speculation since maybe Lost.
TD: Do you find yourself looking every week at everyone’s theories and speculations?
DL: Sometimes I do. I come across and I’m like, “Ooh, that’s interesting. I’ve never even thought of that,” and then I end up wondering. I never ask Dan though because I know that their process must be so intricate and to tell me in advance of actually seeing a script would complicate things. But I do, I love seeing them speculate and get involved and invested into looking into everything. It’s really, really fun.
TD: Was it necessary for you to identify specific emotions that Gemma would be feeling depending on which room she was going to be going in to compartmentalize each of her experiences?
DL: Yes. Obviously it had to be subtle because it was brief and there wasn’t a lot of time to spend with these little innies, and so I used my physicality and the space and the circumstances to really inform who she was in that moment. Essentially it’s a part of her subconscious in a way, and they’re versions of herself living out in these worlds and some of… Especially the dentist scene, it’s so brutal. Can you imagine? That is your whole life and you expect it to be like, “Oh, this is life. I live here in this space.”
And so I really just used tension in my body to where would this character be feeling their fear, their frustration, and it was a delicate balance.
TD: Since you say that, do you see each of these rooms and innies as different experiences, or do you think it’s a unified experience of her whole being?
DL: I think they’re different experiences in the conscious setting of who she is and manifest as that person in that body. But I think that based on season one, when you see Mark S. building the tree in the wellness center with Ms. Casey, that deep down in their subconscious, they’re carrying fragments of their whole person. In a sense, I like to think of it as in my life, and maybe you experience it too, sometimes you will go somewhere or you will meet somebody and you’ll feel like you’ve met that person before. Maybe it was in a past life or in a parallel universe or something. It’s buried deep back in their mind.
TD: Like fragments of you already exist within them?
DL: Yeah, yeah, but it’s separated in terms of consciousness. Irving talks about that when he talks about his innie and outie. It’s a part of who that person is, there’s just no access.
TD: How did you navigate the extremes of this emotional and torment that Gemma is being put through as different innies? As you just mentioned, the dentist is very hard to watch. The Christmas one is extremely difficult, if for a different reason.
DL: Yeah, like you were talking about some of those other roles that I’ve played in the past and preparing me but in terms of the fandom, I think they also prepared me in terms of… I’ve always been fortunate enough to have to go into extreme situations in all of my work, and I’m grateful to bring that into my universe and to be attracted to it, but also to be lucky enough to be cast in roles where I do have to really push myself.
In terms of Severance, I feel like all of those performances and those characters that I had to explore in the past helped me juggle the extremes and also the transitions, which were always there going from one extreme to another. It was a huge challenge. I don’t know if I’d gotten this role 20 years ago when I started and I was like a baby in the business if I would’ve been prepared to do this. Even though I won’t deny the amount of pressure I felt to really do a good job because of the dedicated fans because I didn’t want to let any of my teammates down, the people I was collaborating with, that was certainly ever present. But deep down, I knew I could do it because I’ve had all of that past experience.
TD: Yeah, the culmination of all your experience before really propelled you into this one. When you’re playing Ms. Casey specifically, I have to ask you, when you are rocking that bob, does that immediately transport you into being able to hit that intonation, speak the way she does, get into character with her specifically?
DL: Yes. It’s amazing how much the costume and the hair and makeup can help assist you as an actor, as a person to transition into that space and that world, and where her face… Ms. Casey, her eyes were always… I mean, my eyes are small, but my physicality, I felt like I just wanted to absorb everything around me. She has such a deep desire to belong and her desire to reach out and feel like she belongs in that on the severed floor with all of those people. Maybe again, good to go back to what you were talking about earlier about that subconscious, she is very lonely because she’s always in those rooms with what we assume is just with Dr. Mauer. Having that extra stimulation and those different characters around her, she’s just constantly wanting to absorb it. And so the wig and the clothing, the posture and everything just immediately changes.
I also do a funny little thing with my characters where I choose a fragrance for each one because perfumes… I mean, I’m not a connoisseur of perfumes, but they have different notes And so I will pick a different fragrance for each character, and I’ll use that sense of the smell to also take me into it. It’s just a fun little thing I do. People probably don’t take it seriously, but as many layers I can use to get into character along with the extraordinary team of costume, hair, and makeup and the people who build the world around you, I like to add as many elements into that as possible.
TD: Yeah, bringing in the olfactory sense. There are experiences in life when you are moving through something and maybe you smell something that you haven’t smelled in a decade or 15 years, and it immediately transports you back to a moment. It’s fascinating for you to say.
DL: It’s like a time machine, so it not only helps in your craft, but it’s a fun thing to look for. Like, oh, I wonder what aromas and oils and perfumes trigger something in this character, right? Even though it doesn’t work in Lumon, I doubt she has a fragrance, but it’s an extra layer of feeling.
TD: They’ve given her a Chanel perfume down there for her severed floor.
DL: Lumon-branded Chanel.
TD: Chanel number six. We’ve spoken about how jumping into these innies and the body does keep the score. Even moving to a different innie, you’re keeping the fragments of what you felt in other places. But are there any rooms or innies that help you understand Gemma a bit further?
DL: Yeah, I would say maybe the Christmas room. Not understanding her so much as really feeling her anguish like that… Because Jessica and I, the director, talked about that room that there’s a teenager-y vibe there, just this rebelliousness. Until we’d had that conversation, I was like, “Oh yes, that’s interesting because I do feel like she’s not overtly rebellious, but I think she’s quite playful and rebellious in her life.” And so that was a nice moment to have with Jessica months and months before we shot episode seven just to remember that there is that layer of her. The Christmas scene was really interesting.
TD: How did you and Adam [Scott] work together for scenes in the past to create an intimacy for a couple that the audience doesn’t get to see in the present?
DL: Yeah, because episode seven’s quite… We actually, I am not sure if you know, we filmed that at the very end of season two because we were waiting for nice weather and flowers to be in bloom. And so Adam and I actually got to spend more time together leading up to that moment, and I think it really helped shooting it at the end.
Because as you know, I haven’t had, as a character, the opportunity to spend a lot of time with the audience and also with my cast mates because she’s not there. Because we got to shoot all of 10 together before we got to seven, and obviously we’d had season one spending time together, those little conversations and talking about each other’s families and our kids and stuff, it created this familiarity. We were far more comfortable with each other by the time we got to shoot seven than we would have been if we had shot in order because I just wasn’t there.
And so I think it really lent to the whole episode of seven because honestly, it’s very rare that you would shoot an episode in the middle of the season at the end of the season. It just doesn’t work like that. You go in order for lots of different reasons, but having one hour to really try to grab the audience and make them care about how Mark is grieving as an outie and care about their relationship, it was a huge challenge. I think Adam was just wonderful.
TD: It’s very intimate. All of those scenes feel like someone we’ve known even though we’ve only seen you as Ms. Casey prior really before that episode, and now we’re meeting all these innies. It’s very intimate and beautiful. I just have to ask, moving forward, have you been told anything about Gemma’s future? Are you getting ready for season three? After the devastation of the season two finale for Gemma, how were you coping?
DL: Yes. It was such a gut-wrenching moment for her. If you think about her timeline as Gemma in episode10, it’s even wilder because she walks into Cold Harbor, she walks out. Mark’s there. She’s in an elevator, then all of a sudden she’s outside, basically. It’s a really intense journey for her. I do not know anything. I wish I did, but what I’m trying to do with this show, which has been different to anything I’ve ever done, is to try and just trust and live and enjoy not knowing and wait to be completely blown away when I get the scripts for season two. In season one, I was so curious and had so many different expectations, like you mentioned, reading all the fan speculation and stuff like that. It was exciting, but I think it’s better to enjoy not knowing because of the amount of detail the writers go into, and Dan and Ben as a team, they all do it together. It’s so extraordinary, so I just want to eat the whole meal at once when it’s ready.
TD: Just revel in the mystery like the audience.
DL: Yeah, yeah. I mean, is it something that really got your imagination going when you watched it? Were you speculating like everyone else?
TD: Oh, of course. I think whenever something that really stuck out to me, like you just said, was Gemma’s journey of moving through these different places and appearing is one of the last things she fully hears before actually seeing Mark is that he’s moved on. That was heartbreaking to me that the next time she sees him, he’s leaving her for another woman, so that’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot and moving towards season three. It’s just something that’s like, how do you move forward as a character wanting to get your husband back, no one really knows you’re alive, and on top of that, you’re heartbroken?
DL: Yeah, no, it’s going to be… I imagine it’s going to be quite intense, especially also dealing with the duality of being outside of that place and having tried to escape what I always believed in my heart. I don’t know for sure, but she would have tried to escape multiple times. Yeah, it’s going to be an interesting ride.
Dichen Lachman is Emmy-eligible in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Severance.
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