Barack Obama Turned Down a Special Cameo in ‘Severance’ Season 2 Despite a Personal Request From Ben Stiller
The season 2 premiere of Severance thrilled fans eager to learn what’s happened to their favorite innies. After a season 1 finale of the Apple TV+ show, Mark gets his innie besties back on the severed floor as the faces of “Severance Reform.” Mr. Milchick brings them to the Break Room, where they must watch a stop-motion animated film of Lumon’s history. Many viewers were focused on the instructional video’s forced message that all is well at Lumon. However, some caught on that the voice in the video was extra special.
In an uncredited role, Keanu Reeves voiced the Lumon Administrative Building, Branch #501, in the film shown in the Break Room. Reeves’ longtime fans may have caught it, but Stiller didn’t confirm the audio until he visited Jimmy Kimmel Live. During the late-night show, the Zoolander star explained that production made the innie featured in the Lumon video to look like Stiller. Indeed, the “main character” of the instructional video had Stiller’s build and hair. More importantly, Stiller confirmed Reeves’ voice and offered another fun fact.
Jimmy Kimmel flat out asked Stiller, “You’ve been asked about this; you’ve not answered the question. Is that Keanu Reeves’ uncredited voice?” The Severance executive producer answered, “Yes, that is Keanu Reeves. Yeah. How cool is that, right?” Stiller said that Reeves agreed to participate in a “full-on recording session” in LA. “He went into the studio and did multiple takes, and he took it very seriously,” Stiller explained, calling Reeves’ voice “warm and inviting.”
Kimmel pressed Stiller, asking if he’d considered other voices. The Dodgeball actor admitted he only asked one other person from his “very short list” of potential voices. “President Barack Obama,” he spilled. “I didn’t ask him in person.” Instead, Stiller utilized a friend who knows Obama’s lawyer, who asked Stiller to write Obama an email. “Like two days later, I get an email back from President Barack Obama saying, ‘Hey Ben. Big fan of the show. Love season 1. Can’t wait for season 2. Don’t think I have time in my schedule to make this happen,'” Stiller described.
Stiller called it “pretty cool” that Obama even responded to his request. “What’s more important than doing the voiceover for the animated building in Severance?” he joked. Enter Reeves. Fans love the psychological thriller for its Easter eggs, which Stiller claims aren’t all created in advance for viewers to analyze. Some just happen.
One of many symbols that viewers are trying to decipher involves Severance‘s use of goats. The season 2 title sequence features a poster image of Mark sitting at a desk. His head morphs into a painting of a goat. Of course, goats make an appearance in season 2, episode 3, via the goat department. Games of Thrones‘ Gwendoline Christie portays Lorne, a Lumon goat carer. Some think the goats are test subjects or vessels for the microchips of retired Lumon workers. Regardless, we look forward to many more Severance theories as season 2 unfolds.
