our first guest tonight is a man of great talent both in front of and behind the camera even to the side of the camera he's very good he is director and executive producer of the Peabody Award winning Severance new episodes of season 2 streamed Fridays on Apple TV plus please welcome Ben Stiller [Applause] yeah all righto before I forget this came out of guo and he wanted you to have it he laid an egg in a good way by the way you were talking on the break about guo's knocking back all that tequila yeah right
and then waking up when did you wake up this morning I wake up at 3: in the morning right he said that to go pee but then uh 64 645 6:45 he's in the gym 6:45 after getting blasted on tequila right exactly yes he claims he has a trainer and then they work out four times a week yes yes do you believe that no yeah you want to call my trainer you want to ask him yeah on how do I know he's not on your payroll gear no no no anyway this is worth $8 so
that's for impressive um first of all I like to say a couple of things to you uh you I think you know we talk about like the great Oscar host of all time you are maybe the greatest Oscar presenter of all time and you solidi that yesterday yes you did yes I don't know about that Conan knocked it out of the park last night incredible and he had big shoes to follow right and you were one of my favorites and it made me very happy to see him do so well and Sandler was so funny
and he was he you were also very funny uh you know I love that bit where you were in the the motion capture green costume on green screen that felt very isolated and alone when I did that but then last night they gave you one of the most boring categories to present right production design yeah which is the people who I mean they do great a great job but they create the sets they build and design the sets and well here's Ben last night with their strong knowledge of color theory and architecture they handle everything
from minor visual details to massive technical challenges collaborating with the director to significantly impact the final image on screen making sure what you are seeing is exactly what the artists intended we were all Al at home that elevator it it is a lonely feeling when you're in the elevator thing and it goes down because it got I got on its stage level and then it went down behind you know the the backing so that nobody saw and I'm down in this pit and I felt like like in Gladiator or something like I'm the lion that
they're waiting to like take up to and then you look up and the stage hands are just looking at you like good luck wow like boy this guy's going to do this and that's like see people don't I don't think no one realizes that there's a lot of machinery and stuff down there right yeah it was the first rehearsal I tried to get out you know and I want like I want to do it for real I want to do it for real and I tried to get out and it took me literally like 2
minutes of trying to crawl out to the point where I was having like this sort of like you have to do this you know and I was like in I don't know like I just got so in my head like I had to prove it to myself and they started to worry that I was okay you were and and by the way being in a tuxedo like that is not helpful yes I I made sure that I wore these like really long black compression socks so I didn't JD Vance it with the talk smart you're
always thinking it's the attention to detail that we really admire and then you later on are I think you I assume you're aware of this you tweeted something about the Knicks winning the game yeah well the Knicks were playing during the Oscar Tel and I'm a big Knicks fan I watch every game and uh it was a big game there in Miami and I didn't I was focusing on the bit but yet I was aware that the game was happening but I didn't want to I wasn't one of those people I wasn't going to like
watch it on my phone in the audience or something like some some people that's considerate yeah right you know um not look I had I was not invest I had no movie I haven't been in a movie for like 10 years so like I was I had I'm like I'm not nomin I felt bad I lost I wasn't even nominated um but so I'm not really you know I'm there to like just hopefully do well with my bit um but then when the bit was over I was like oh my God the Knicks I have
to check so I didn't check the score before and then I looked and they won in overtime Jaylen Brunson once again Captain clutch and so I tweeted out Nick's win and apparently it became a thing yeah people are like why is he tweeting about the Knicks during the Oscars but can't you walk and chew gum at the same time I guess I guess we can now multitask are you one of those guys who like if if like you were to be at dinner during the kns game you'd have it on in the table or under
the table yes yes yeah I I have now gotten to the point where I literally like I just saw oh the Knicks are playing Tuesday you know at 7:30 on the east or they're playing Tuesday in Golden State 4:30 it's 7:30 here so anyway I have to arrange my schedule around it around the game I'm not going to the game I just need to watch it are you going to go to the game the Lakers play the I'm I'm trying to get ticket if you can get me tickets to the Lakers game go no problem
all right awesome no problem at okay so the other thing is you know I love s so much it's really it's a great um and great episode last week also yes our last week's episode uh was directed by Jessica Lee G who's our cinematographer and the most in my opinion one of the most amazing directorial debuts I watched I watched that episode and I was thinking about the directing because what goes through my head is I have no idea how anyone comes up with any of this I could never think of all those beautiful Montage
shots of their early relationship like is that written down anywhere that on that episode it's Jessica working with Mark fredman and we all you know obviously spend a lot of time talking about the story and figuring it out but then it's sort of like how do you distill a relationship down not to give any spoilers to people but you know it's basically you know very much uh a director's Vision that you hopefully you know when people working on the show so long we're all like in sync and want to let do their thing and you
know be creative so great yeah when you go to the Oscars or parties afterwards or like Saturday Night Live that 50th Anniversary Special are people constantly asking you for information about the show yeah which is funny to me because I don't think people really want to know when they say like Tell You Know How It Ends tell me how it ends I'm like you don't want to know how it ends have you considered coming up with a plausible yet fake answer for that question um yeah I mean I could say it was all a dream
uh-huh yeah you could say and if it was all a dream it would be a surprise to everyone yes right and I could say that now as a fake out and people think oh then it's not all dream but then it really could be a dream uhhuh I want to ask you a couple more well actually let's take a break we come back I do have some Severance questions I want to get into because we did a podcast together yes and I feel like maybe I touched on some things that I shouldn't have Ben Stiller
is with us we'll be right back human I've gone gone through a lot of changes since my siring here in 1870 but one thing I've always had is a love for my workers both uned and severed not to brag but my basement floor is one of the Premier severed workspaces in the 206 countries from which Lumen operates hey no running in my Halls that tickles that is seven that is not this week's episode of s did does that that that guy does he remind you of me cuz the puppet maker said that was supposed to
be me oh really no no it's not that's I didn't think that is that right no no not you at all in fact I can think of six other actors it looks more like than you I got really depressed The Voice however yeah of that video that is that s and people say it sounds like Kean Reeves you've been asked about this you've not answered the the question is that Kean Reeves's uncredited voice yes that's right how cool is that right very cool yeah we reached out to him and he uh and he was like
yeah okay I'll do it and we did it like a full-on recording session he was in LA I was in New York but you know he went into the studio and multiple takes and he took it very seriously and you know I mean he's just like the most warm and inviting voice and I don't know if when you see the you know the building and you hear his voice you necessarily think immediately that it's keano but then I think you have this just this innate sort of feeling well the show gets analyzed I mean really
people are looking at every frame and they're finding things that you didn't even intent was he the only person that you'd asked to do that he was it was a very short list of people there was one person that uh I asked before him and and he said no and he said no yeah who was he President Barack Obama oh oh that's a big one that's you actually did you get the did you get to ask him in person I didn't ask him in person I knew someone who knew his lawyer and his lawyer said
I can relay the request if you write an email so I wrote an email to him saying like hey we have the show whatever and like two days later I get an email back from President Barack Obama saying hey Ben big fan of the show love season one can't wait for season two don't think I have time in my schedule to make this happen um I'm like what what's more important than come on doing the voice over for the animated building in s um and uh but it was pretty cool that he responded it's very
cool that he responded yeah W that's interesting oh yeah because now you got probably have people all the time as okay so we did this podcast together you and Adam Scott do Severance podcast it's really good by the way fun to listen to thank you and we were very delighted to have you on it has not uh when does that come out I think yours is going to be com I think it's coming on next week I would hope so yeah I would hope so yeah yeah yeah so I asked a lot of questions I
know the idea was I you were supposed to ask me questions but I didn't see any point to that and I asked a lot of questions and one of the questions I asked was um do you know what the ending is or do you and you said yes absolutely you do yes we know what the ending is and what I tell people is we know what the ending is how we're getting there is a cre ative process and we have like benchmarks but that's to me is what's that it happens in the you the process
so you want to allow for Discovery within that but you definitely we know and we know how long it's going to go too were there any questions I asked that had to be edited out of the podcast because I got too close to the sun we did edit you down a little bit but honestly Jimmy I think it's cuz you were drunk oh oh well okay you were going off on tangents I did go off on Trump up all the time no uh did you um uh okay so there were some things cut out because
now I have to listen I don't remember what I said but I am curious about a couple of things yeah I mean yeah you you ask questions about like how it might be there might be parallels to other you know things things yeah that was those were some of them yeah um and you you know we're constantly having to edit the podcast because we know answers to things and we don't want to inadvertently give out spoilers interesting okay so you learn nothing from this podcast is what you're saying no one will learn anything and we
don't give any information and really nothing is yeah there's no reason to listen to it at all okay would you will you confirm or deny that Christopher Walkin is on the show Christopher Walkin has been on the show from the first yes he's a great character on he's incredible and I didn't realize this but you've known Christopher Walkin for a very long time yeah this is uh okay this is a play I did with Chris Walkin back in 1986 that's me with a buzz cut and Chris is over with his that's him yeah with like
sort of like the Roman hair this was the House of Blue leaves the first job I ever had that's Johan Mahoney szie Curts amazing cast soccer and uh and Chris yeah I mean he's been an acting Idol of mine since you know I saw him in Deer Hunter when I was a kid and he's just the most the sweetest most generous actor and of course he's iconic yeah and people you know kind of know him as Chris Walkin but when you talk to him he's just incredibly uh you know he's very shy and you know
very sweet and you know he's gotten to this point in the podcast we were talking about he's got to this point where he's now at this age where he thought uh you know people would want him to play like you know grandfathers who are like sweet and giving advice and he says no just people want me to play vampires and I said well maybe you can play like a vampire grandpa or something rire sure it could be your next thing yes um but he's also oh by the way he had never seen the show because
I heard this he doesn't have Apple TV plus he said weird I believe the quote I think Andy Cohen was interviewing him and he asked he watched the show and he said um I don't have the equipment that's right yeah no he doesn't and and we had done I was interviewing him I think it was I was doing some ADR some Loop lines for him for the an episode at his house I went to his house and he said you know by the way I've never SE I don't do Chris ful impression so I'm not
going but he said you know by the way I've never seen the uh the show and this is like two years after it came out I'm like well I would love you to see it cuz you're really good in it and he said well maybe you could get me some DVDs so not Blu-rays just regular DVDs and so I got him I got him the DVDs and then next time I saw him I think we were doing the podcast as interview I said hey so I you got the DVDs um did did you see them
and he went yeah no verdict that was it that was it that was it it's good because my Chris Walkin impression only goes for yeah one word yeah pretty pretty solid Ben Stiller everybody sance see new episodes Friday on Apple TV plus and the sance podcast too we'll be back with Regina Hall oh my God I can't believe it we have 20 million subscribers on YouTube unbelievable I only wish we got paid for this if you haven't subscribed yet what are you waiting for help us get the 50 million please it's an emergency [Music]
