Dichen Lachman, Jessica Lee Gagné on Shooting ‘Severance’ and Bringing Gemma to Life

“Severance” captures the bleak, sterile atmosphere of office life as it follows Mark (Adam Scott), who works for the sinister Lumon. But one episode from the recent season diverges both visually and narratively from that aesthetic. Season 2, Episode 7 (“Chikhai Bardo”) centers on Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and finally reveals some of her backstory.

Lachman is the star of the episode, which features Gemma from the start of her relationship with Mark to her confinement within Lumon as various innies. To shape Gemma’s journey, Lachman worked closely with Jessica Lee Gagné, the show’s cinematographer, who made her directorial debut with this episode.

For both, this episode lent itself to a different filming experience than the rest of the series. The flashback scenes were shot on film in a house where Gagné was living during production. There was one particular rehearsal weekend in that house that provided opportunities for the team to organically figure out and change their choices. At one point, before the production got approval to use film, Gagné even borrowed a Bolex from a gaffer and bought film herself in order to shoot a time-lapse of the nature around the house.

Below, Lachman and Gagné describe their collaboration, shooting on film and building each innie persona.

How did you approach forming a director-actor partnership for this episode?

Gagné: I’ve always stayed away from actors, and I don’t know Dichen, if you felt that from me, but I’ve always been very like, “I’m going to give the director and the actors their space, like I’ll never intervene or step in.” It was like a form of protection, in a way of not wanting to go there. But then Season 2, I really had to get my feet wet. Because this was a character that needed all of this completion, and we had to world build her world, like, who is she? And you, Dichen, were so open to exploration, that for me, it was a safe landing.

Lachman: I was just incredibly excited. Obviously, in Season 1, Jessica was very focused on the look of the show, in terms of the shots and the lighting and everything, and she really zones in; it’s really remarkable. I felt that there was a director in you, even though you didn’t get that involved. I just sensed it. So when I heard you were directing 7, I was just over the moon. I had so much faith that you would just do an incredible job.

Gagné: I couldn’t have done it if it wasn’t in the environment of “Severance,” where I had at least some connection with the cast and the entire team around us that, for me, there was this knowledge of, “Oh, there’ll never be an opportunity to do this in a safer space.”

When I read the synopsis, it was very clear to me that I wanted a woman to direct it, and there were themes that were so feminine within it. I feel like Dichen and I got to infuse so many very feminine details within the character. It’s a man writing it. It’s a mostly male-written show. I connected with it in that way though. I really wanted it to have that authentic female voice.

Lachman: It was amazing that actually we had so much time to sit with it because you had always wanted to shoot it at the end of the season for the light and the blossoms and everything. So even without the strike, which we didn’t have control over, we had a lot of time to discuss, and I loved how Jessica reached out and wanted to have a lot of dialogue about the character and about really specific moments. It’s not always that way when you work in television because of the speed at which you have to work, that someone will take so much time and is so very deeply invested in honoring what this episode meant for the whole show. Mark is in this situation because of the grief he’s been suffering, and that episode was so important for the audience to feel like they’d really invested their time wisely.

Because this is the first time viewers get to know Gemma, how did you work together to calibrate what her presence on screen was going to be like?

Lachman: We were on the same wavelength with her warmth and her relationship with Mark. It needed to have a lot of nuance to feel grounded. Obviously, when we went to the house, the workflow of everything changed because we were shooting on film, and we’re in this environment that’s very warm and textured. I think her voice is different to Ms. Casey, but they’re not completely different people, so it still had to be in the same world. It just needed to be a bit more relaxed.

I’m so grateful that we had that weekend, which you almost never get in television, to really sit down with the minds and just work on the texture of the scenes, and some of them changed. Jessica, I don’t know if you remember the one in the bathroom with the needle that was initially a little bit heavier, and then it ended up during that rehearsal process, being a lighter scene where you saw the characters’ lightness and they’re obviously going through a difficult time, but they find a moment of levity.

Gagné: What I tried to do is just figure out where each scene was in each timeline. I shared a timeline document with you and Adam so that you could situate it. So there was all that background work that was already done.

But then in that house, on that weekend, there was just the moment of, okay, before, we’ll discuss what’s happening in the scene, but then when we try and do the scene, it was about what feels right. And what happened there was this realness and lightness that also served the flashbacks so well because there’s a lot of really heavy themes, but then we needed these moments of bounce between light and dark. And both you and Adam have strong intuitions and feelings. Every time that something just felt a little off, we could just microchange it or tweak it. Even in the kitchen scene, this is a super simple detail, but when he’s making the sandwich and you’re playing with the cards, I wanted you guys to be shot in different parts of the room, but then Adam was like, “But I feel like I can’t,” like it didn’t work with what was within the scene, like he needed to be next to her in the beginning.

For Dichen, going from the normal “Severance” sets to shooting on film in a more intimate setting, did that make for a different experience as an actor on this show?

Lachman: As far as the process internally, not so much, but maybe the pressure was on a little bit, because you know that you’re going to run out of the reel — is that what you call it, Jess?

Gagné: You were thinking about that? The fact that we were going to run out of film?

Lachman: Yeah, because digital is infinite, whereas there’s something so precious about film. I feel like with digital, you can make a mistake and just take it back, and you can get back in it and keep going. You can do another take on a roll of film, but if that light changes very slightly, it’s making that impression in a totally different way.

So I just wanted to make sure that I was really on point all the time and ready to move because we were moving really fast those days, even though we had to capture all of these moments, it was a really packed schedule. And Jessica had been out there with the Bolex grabbing little snippets on 16-millimeter to put into the flashbacks as well. So it was like everything was moving very fast, which is not like it is in the studio, where things sometimes, because it’s so precise with the symmetry and everything, it can sometimes feel a bit slower.

Gagné: This was probably the most amount of pages we had shot in a week, or at least in one of those really heavy weeks, plus on top, adding film and adding a single camera approach, which was different. In the studio, sometimes we’ll do two or three cameras all the time, and we’re moving through a lot of crew.

To achieve this week of shooting, the amount of looks and scenes and things that we were tackling was very intimidating. Even the AD that was working on this episode was like, “Oh, this is gonna be really freaking tight, like really hard.” And I’m like, “I know we can do it.”

How did you both work with other departments like production design and costume design to create Gemma’s innies and her rooms within Lumon?

Gagné: You’re like a kid in a candy shop when you’re working with the production design team on “Severance.” It was a very long collaboration to get there because just building that entire floor was — it’s a whole new set and you need it to be within the Lumon aesthetic, but then it also needs to feel like its own space.

And then picking those three rooms, it was going to define your experience, Dichen, and Gemma’s experience in these places. We were just trying to find a version of ironic beauty, where beauty and pain meet each other. And each room was inspired by a different photograph and a different photographer. The dentist room was inspired by Lynne Cohen. It was an Eggleston pic that inspired the plane, and a Diane Arbus pic for the Christmas room. I don’t know if I told you this, Dichen, or not.

Lachman: No, I didn’t know that, that’s fascinating.

Gagné: The fun thing I found about developing the looks and all that is it just made it so real and so evil, like the aesthetic of it, like the work that goes into you. But even more than that, developing the story behind each room…that was the thing we got to collaborate on it, “Okay, in the dentist room, you’ve been here maybe six times, so you’re still kind of gauging out this experience. And in the Christmas room, your whole other angry teenager feeling was like, you’ve been in here 100 times, and you’re over it, so that’s why you’re more rebellious.”

Lachman: Yeah, the costumes, too. Sarah [Edwards] went to great efforts, and the wigs with Jon [Carter] and Judy [Chin] with the makeup, everyone contributed so much to those innie rooms, which, obviously, helped inform me, but I’m curious, Jess, how many conversations went around some of the costumes and the hair? I remember “Working Girl” was a reference for the airplane scene, and I know I went to lots of different fittings for the dentist scene. And also, we tested the different fabrics or paints in that room.

Gagné: We are the test kings on “Severance.” With each look, there was also an era to each set. There was more of a 50s, 60s thing for the Christmas room. The airplane was the 80s, early 90s, “Working Girl” thing. The dentist room, we leaned off a little bit; we didn’t really hit an era as much on that one. Your look was supposed to have a little 70s feeling to it. But I feel like we made it our own thing. It was intuitive. It was trying to find that beauty and coldness, that kind of balance.

This interview has been edited and condensed.